I Don't Feel Old: Negotiating Multiple Meanings of Aging through Feminist Oral Histories of Older Women in the Twin Cities

How do intersections of race/ethnicity, class, and gender impact how older women (aged 65+) experience social and physical aging throughout their life course? Further more, how did large-scale historical and smaller personal events impact their understanding of aging in later life? Using a snowball and purposive sampling method, I collected oral histories of nine women (aged 65+) living in the Twin Cities, to investigate the impact of history and social structures on personal experiences of aging. Findings concluded that women assigned ‘old' multiple meanings, and navigated these multiple definitions through verbal distancing strategies, exhibiting internalized ageism but also resistance to negative discourses of aging. I also discovered how certain life events were equally, or even more influential than the woman's race, class, or gender in determining each participant's outlook and experience of aging.