Abstract
Activism is viewed as a youthful domain, a view contributing to the limited attention in gerontology, or social movement scholarship, to older activists – especially older women activists. As a result, we know little about the experiences aging women bring to their activism and how they shape organizations’ goals and activities. This paper addresses this issue using interviews with 10 members of London’s Older Feminist Network, emerging in the 1980s in response to older women’s feelings of marginalization from the mainstream women’s movement. The data revealed two ways that members’ experiences as older women shaped the group’s activism. First, the women’s lifelong activism in feminist and other social justice movements broadened the group’s focus. However, the expanded social justice scope simultaneously lessened the focus on older women’s concerns that had motivated the group’s creation. Second, the data revealed that members engaged in “optimized activism,” influenced by age-related constraints and orientations.