Overview

How do older women come to terms with widowhood? Are they vulnerable or courageous, predictable or creative in dealing with this life challenge? Whilst most books about widows usually focus on younger women; this book interweaves the voices of older women -- their experiences and insights -- to show how they have come to terms with widowhood and have recreated their lives in new, unsuspected ways. The widows speak about how they relate to their children, their friends, to men. With powerful emotions they describe their husbands' final illnesses and deaths, and the challenging early days of widowhood. Disputing stereotypes about older women and widows, The Widowed Self allows the reader to visualize the impact of losing one's partner and offers a new way of thinking about widowhood. This book fills a void in previous work on widowhood. Rather than seeing these women as unfortunate, passive victims of life, the reader will come to appreciate the strength and creativity with which these women face one of life's greatest challenges, a challenge that affects more than half of all women over the age of sixty-five.

Full Product Details

9780889203464

Table of Contents

Reviews

Selected features of this book, such as the way it enables widows to give voice to their own experiences, and its recognition of the important larger social context of 'community' in shaping the context of widowhood, are noteworthy.... This book contributes to our understanding of diversity in older women's experiences of loss of a spouse in later life and of how women understand and renegotiate their own lives in widowhood.''--Anne Martin-Matthews

Deborah van den Hoonaard has succeeded in combining sociological theory with her use of autobiographical accounts to produce an accessible, refreshingly jargon free insight into the lives of those under investigation here.... It is a pleasure to read a book about olderwomenand widowhood, which is not primarily depressing and doom laden.... I would strongly recommend it for students of gerontology as an excellent example of the successful intersection of theory and methodology, symbolic interaction and qualitative research. However, the special strength of this book is that it also speaks to older widowed women and their families in a language that is accessible and meaningful with a story that has true relevance to their lives. - Kate Davidson, University of Surrey, England

Selected features of this book, such as the way it enables widows to give voice to their own experiences, and its recognition of the important larger social context of community in shaping the context of widowhood, are noteworthy.... This book contributes to our understanding of diversity in older women s experiences of loss of a spouse in later life and of how women understand and renegotiate their own lives in widowhood. --Anne Martin-Matthews, University of British Columbia

Author Information

Deborah Kestin van den Hoonaard is an Associate Professor of Gerontology at St Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick.

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