New Bonds of Intimacy: In/ter/dependence and Ageing in Recent Women’s Writing in French

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how female francophone authors in the twenty-first century are re-envisaging modes of love, intimacy, and connectedness in old age, in the process moving away from an ideal of independence towards a valorization of interdependence. While second-wave feminism concentrated its efforts on women’s bodily, reproductive, and financial autonomy as a reflection of the concerns of the young women at the heart of the movement, second-wave feminists have since questioned the goal of independence as they have moved into middle and old age. Modelling the interdependencies posited by second-wave feminists as sustaining both individual lives and wider communities, recent women’s writing in French is shown to engage with the re-evaluation of in/dependence in its contemplation of the relationships formed by its authors and textual subjects. Through a critical framework of research in feminist ethics and gerontology, this article offers close readings of recent works by Noëlle Châtelet, Annie Ernaux, Nancy Huston, and Douna Loup that feature new bonds of intimacy built on reciprocity, exchange, and mutual dependence to envisage scenarios of ageing that recognize our complex mutual dependencies while pushing back against the myths and stereotypes of ageing.