As the number of people over 60 in Europe is expected to exceed 74 million by year 2000, almost 20 percent of the population, a network of women over 50 wants to ensure they are freed from the stereotypes of frailty and rocking chairs and are face-to-face with the local and international policy makers who will help determine their future.
The European Older Women’s Project, started in 1991 by women age 50 and over from Britain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and France, is trying to promote equal opportunities and awareness of older women’s issues at all levels of government.
For example, the group is trying to change international leaders’ perceptions of aging. Members of the group have drafted recommendations that may be placed on the agenda of the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace in September 1995 in Beijing. The event is held to review the advancement of women since the world conference in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985.
“Older women’s lives tend to be private lives, family lives, and we felt that it was important that they have a public voice,” says Elizabeth Sclater, one of the joint coordinators of the European Older Women’s Project. Sclater is also principal equalities officer for London’s Borough of Lewisham and leader of the Lewisham Older Women’s Project, the only such group in Britain.
The group’s priority is to keep older women involved in the policies that affect their lives, whether it be protecting their right to an adequate pension or campaigning for arts and educational courses. The followrecommendations will be sent to lobbying organizations that will influence the Beijing agenda and the European Commission, an executive body that drafts proposals for laws within the European Community:
– That older women receive recognition for their contributions and needs and that their skills and experience be used to help local groups and society.
– That governments and organizations combat poverty in old age.
– That fledgling networks of older women be supported financially.
Chapters of the group participate in forums and international travel in which women from the different countries swap ideas for their awareness campaigns at the same time battling society’s stereotypes that aging women are isolated and frail.
“They think of us as people who sit back, live in the past and wear purple,” says Caroline Williams, 74, a member of the Lewisham group. “Unfortunately there are a lot of people like that, but more and more I think they are looking more outward, into issues, and understanding what concerns them as women.”
Among Lewisham’s population of 230,000, 14 percent are over age 65. The activities of the estimated 150 women who participate in the group include developing teaching materials for schools to help children better understand the elderly, educational forums such as a Black History Month and cultural events. Lewisham women of Indian, Caribbean, Southeast Asian, Turkish and Turkish Cypriot backgrounds also have gone into the schools to teach children about their cultures.
The women recently won a grant to develop a creative and performing arts network that would enable older people who are confined to their homes to have access to cultural events and contact with local artists.
One of their biggest concerns is health, and the women are learning how to conduct their own health survey within the borough to identify the concerns of older women, including medical care and the cost of medicine or rehabilitation services.
They also want to encourage older women who may be reluctant to ask for help to insist on adequate housing and amenities such as heating and security.
Earlier this year, members of the project marched on Parliament to protest the government’s proposal to impose value-added tax on heating bills. Following a nationwide outcry, Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke’s November budget included a compensation package for the elderly, who will be most affected by the higher costs.
The women also are campaigning to retain government financing for continuing-education classes and to educate younger women about the country’s complicated pension schemes, which in some cases pay inadequate entitlements to widows or women who were divorced late in life, Sclater says.
