Abstract

ALDANA-GONZALEZ, Gabriela  and  LIMA-ROBLES, Tania Gabriela. Madness, rebellion and overload: Life journeys of elderly women community leaders in México. Prospectiva [online]. 2023, n.36, e21512642.  Epub July 25, 2023. ISSN 0122-1213.  https://doi.org/10.25100/prts.v0i36.12642.

This article recovers life stories of older women who serve as leaders in groups of elders in the communities of Ixtenco and Panotla in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico, which allowed us to understand the challenges they faced to position themselves as leaders. Likewise, the actions they currently carry out when coordinating their groups were located, which are images of active and healthy aging. For this purpose, qualitative methodology was used, with life stories as the main technique and also an ethnographic approach to the daily life of women leaders within their groups in the period from May 2021 to March 2022.

This research showed that the elderly women leaders during their life course faced obstacles, mostly related to gender construction, to set themselves up as leaders and to be qualified as crazy and rebellious before the dominant patriarchal system, embodied in the social mandates of their communities: women mothers-wives. However, the personal impulse together with the educational experiences, determined a need for change in the construction of gender, thus favoring to direct life towards leadership experiences, which continue to persist in a current position of leaders of groups of aging people in their communities. There is the specter of burnout due to overload as they seek to fulfill their family and community activities. However, these women teach us that in old age it is possible to continue being active, participating politically in the community, as well as generating and continuing with personal and group projects.

Keywords : Leadership; Leader; Older women; Aging; Eld.

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