Descrizione del progetto
La sessualità delle donne anziane viene riconsiderata
Il desiderio sessuale di una persona probabilmente cambierà con l’età. Per asessualità si intende una mancanza di attrazione sessuale per gli altri o la mancanza di interesse per il sesso. Le donne anziane sono ampiamente percepite come asessuali, per cui tale percezione ha comportato l’esclusione delle donne anziane dalla ricerca. Inoltre, la loro sessualità è considerata un tabù. Il progetto LiLI, finanziato dall’UE, mira a invertire questa tendenza nella ricerca e a promuovere studi tra donne anziane e sessualità. Così facendo si aprirà la strada a cambiamenti significativi nelle teorie femministe sull’invecchiamento e sul desiderio sessuale. Un gruppo multidisciplinare di studiosi nei settori dell’antropologia, della geografia sociale, degli studi culturali e della filosofia femminista svilupperà una radicale ricerca etnografica multi-metodo per provare a comprendere la sessualità delle donne anziane.
Obiettivo
Almost half a century ago, Simone de Beauvoir (1970) denounced what she called the ‘conspiracy of silence’ in public and scholarly debates about women growing older. Little has changed since then. In spite of the expanding number and proportion of older women in the population and the changing cultural norms regarding sexuality, older women are still often overlooked in research, and their sexuality in particular is still a taboo. Older women are supposed to become asexual and when their sexuality is considered, it is interpreted within a medicalized and phallocentric framework that starts from young adult standards. So far, social sciences and humanities have failed to develop a viable alternative to this line of thinking. The proposed project aims to rectify this significant gap in research and break the silence around older women and sex. A multi-disciplinary team of scholars with expertise in anthropology, social geography, cultural studies and feminist philosophy will collaborate and tackle challenging research questions in order to acquire a fundamentally new, affirmative understanding of women’s later life sexuality. A radical multi-method ethnographic research methodology will be developed, (1) based on long-term participant observation in various settings and (2) with a specific focus on ‘unruly’ sexual strategies of older women across different social categories. By uncovering counter-hegemonic knowledge of older women—knowledge that usually stays under the radar of academic attention—the project has great potential to revolutionize how we look at women, old age, and sex. A shift in thinking is needed because the prevalent conceptualizations are blatantly oppressive for older women. Moreover, the project’s methodological-theoretical design that brings older women’s subversive sexual strategies to the forefront of research has also the potential to open the way for radical changes in feminist theorizations of intersectional power, sexual desire and ageing.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
9000 Gent
Belgio