ABSTRACT
An older woman's lived experience—as a convergence of history, culture, and the opportunities as well as the hurdles she may have faced in her life—is being recognized only in recent works of feminist gerontology. In this paper, based on netnographic research of older women in India who are navigating Facebook, this paper argues that Internet literacy has added to the cornucopia of these experiences of older women in India, by improving their level of participation in their own society, and their overall their quality of life and well-being. In my interviews with the research participants, these were among the first questions to them: What do you enjoy posting on Facebook? What do you enjoy consuming? What kinds of goals do you achieve by participating in Facebook groups? Each of the research participants had varied responses to these questions. By parsing through what they post on Facebook, followed by in-depth open-ended interviews, it was found that the mobile phone usage means that the women are often able to expand their interpersonal relationships beyond their immediate social context. Age was visible only behind-the-scenes: In learning about different functions within the smartphone, and the different languages of the Internet. The ideas of self-identity—and their desire to shift this—are far more pronounced with a strong intent, as they express their views, opinions and feelings on a rather public platform. This research has revealed how middle-class older women in India today are reclaiming the lost spaces and creating a new life course for themselves. The prevailing disposition of wanting to belong to something beyond their ascribed societal identity of an older woman seems to be the resistance against the infantilization of their personhood.
