TITLE:
Rural elderly women: The sweat of their bodies and the work of his hands. The paradigms of the Greek polis still present in the current days
AUTHORS:
Alcione Tavora Kullok
KEYWORDS:
Critical Ethnography; Older Women; Rural; Retirement
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.6 No.5,
February
21,
2014
ABSTRACT: Background: In Brazil
between 1960 and 1990 there established the hegemony of young people between 15 and 24 years old, a phenomenon known worldwide as “youth wave”. Forty years later, with continued declining
levels of fertility and mortality, in the first decade of this century, the
young country came to bear white hair with the continued growth of the aging rate. Official census data show the
growth of the elderly population, above sixty years, predominantly female,
and population growth increasingly urbanized [1, 2]. This article reports the
findings from a recent study of elderly women, in the contexts of “rurality”. Objectives:
The aim of this study was to analyze the social construction of gender division
of work and retirement of older rural women. Comprehending through historically
dialectical materialism, the process of exclusion of rural elderly women, some
public policies and programs aimed at elderly populace. Ethnographic Method: fieldwork and interviews (one-to-one and in groups), field notes, participant observation, photography, and
archival review. Sample: 27 women aged between 68 to 92 years. Findings: Only
four receive retirement as peasant, three owners of land and a former employee;
the other receive her husband’s pension or are included in the Provision of
Continued Benefit (PBC). Conclusion: Non-receipt of retirement for these women,
as citizen’s peasant, it is a violation of her rights recognized under the
Federal Constitution of 1988, and reveals how the Aristotelian paradigm persists in their activities: That
sweat of her bodies and the work of her hands, it is not considered as work; it
is labor.