Warning: This article contains potentially distressing material.

As part of the #16Days of Action we asked relevant people in their field to contribute articles.

Today is day 9 - Older Survivors.

Hannah Bows is an Assistant Professor in Criminal Law at Durham Law School, Durham University, Deputy-Director of the Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse and Director of the British Society of Criminology Victims Network. Her work over the last seven years has focused on violence against older people. She has recently been awarded a British Academy Wolfson Fellowship to examine criminal justice outcomes, and responses to, crimes involving victims aged 60 and over, which commences in March 2020. Outside of academia, she is Chair of Age UK Teesside. She is an Emerald Real Impact Prize Winner (2019). You can read more about her work and publications here: https://www.dur.ac.uk/law/staff/display/?id=12484

Violence against women aged 60 and over is an overlooked issue. Despite several decades of research and activism which has raised awareness of the widespread prevalence of violence against women and girls, and contributed to successive legal and policy reforms, older women have been neglected in these developments.

There is an increasing body of evidence that violence against women occurs across the life course, with some studies suggesting older women experience some forms of violence, such as domestic violence, at similar rates to younger women. My own research has focused on sexual violence and domestic homicides of older people in the UK, most of which disproportionately involve female victims and male perpetrators. My analysis of sexual offences against older women found that, similar to younger women, most rapes and sexual assaults of older women occur in their home and are perpetrated by a partner or acquaintance, but perpetrators are usually much younger than their victims. My research on domestic homicides found that 1 in 4 domestic homicides in the UK involves a victim aged 60 and over, despite older people only constituting 18% of the population. Unlike domestic homicides of younger people, my research found that older people have an almost equal chance of being killed by a partner/spouse as they do an (adult) son/grandson or, in a very small number of cases, daughter/granddaughter.

Violence against older women is therefore not uncommon, yet it has rarely been the focus of research, policy or practice. There are a number of potential reasons for this. First, violence has traditionally been viewed as a problem associated with youth. In criminology, studies in the 1980s reported that most offending was concentrated around the teenage and early adolescent years, and levels of offending dropped steeply with age. This became known as the age-crime curve and, while focused on offending rather than victimisation, has resulted in most research and crime prevention policy focusing on youth and violence. Age has been viewed as a protective factor against both offending and victimisation; in terms of victimisation, national data such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) has consistently reported that older people experience crime at lower levels than younger groups. However, this until very recently there was an upper age-cap of 59 on the domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking part of the survey, meaning data on violence against older women (and men) has never actually been captured until 2017. Further, a combination of ageist and sexist attitudes have contributed to the belief that older women are no risk, or low risk, for violence and abuse. Most forms of violence against women (and children) have been positioned as problems affecting younger women.

The absence of data on older women’s experiences (i.e. because of the CSEW cap and a lack of academic research) has indirectly supported these beliefs. For example, sexual violence is still widely considered to be an issue affecting young, white women who are most at risk of rape or assault by male strangers or acquaintances, at night in public or semi-public spaces (often described as the ‘real rape’ stereotype). Despite decades of research debunking these views – showing that rape and assault happen to women across all backgrounds, typically occur in the home and usually by a spouse or someone well-known to the victim – the majority of ‘visible’ victims (in awareness raising campaigns, media reports, films and TV programmes that include sexual violence) conform to this narrow stereotype. This is exacerbated by ageist attitudes which devalue older people. Western society positions ageing as negative, associated with decline and dependency and thus something which should be avoided. Within this dominant construction of age, older people are viewed as sexually unattractive and undesirable, and consequently do not fit the ‘real rape’ victim stereotype.

So how do we start to change this? First, we need more research (but as an academic, I would say that!). Although we have had a steady increase in research examining the prevalence of violence against older women, we know very little about women’s experiences, professional’s experience of supporting older women, and even less about perpetrators. Second, we need to challenge the dominant youth-focused constructions of victims, increasing the visibility of older survivors (as well generally improving race, ability, sexuality and class diversity) in campaigns, leaflets, posters, media, TV, education programmes, training and so on. Third, we need to review existing policies and programmes to ensure they meet the needs of older people; this doesn’t necessarily mean designing something completely new, but making sure we are developing services and policies that are widely accessible – it is critical that older women have a voice in this and are directly involved in shaping these initiatives. Finally, we need to recognise the prevalence of ageism and the ways this has become deeply embedded in society, and commit to challenging this in our own organisations, institutions and communities.