ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the experience of domestic violence is influenced by women's age and position in the life span. Domestic violence has been viewed as primarily a problem of women in their teens to thirties, with the highest levels of violence being found to occur in younger women. The historical socio-political climate cannot be overlooked in understanding women's circumstances and behaviours across different age cohorts, particularly in understanding older women's experiences of domestic violence. The availability of more emancipated feminine subject positions also impacted on older women who had suffered longstanding abuse and were still living with the abuser. While exposure to domestic violence and women's rights discourses over time created new and more emancipated subject positions for older women, dominant discourses of mother-blaming and exclusive mothering meant that older women still blamed themselves, rather than the abuser, for the issues and problems of their adult children.
