Young Women’s “Prospective Old Lady Project” ①: Thinking About Aging
By Horang Jibsa [Tiger Butler]
Published April 18, 2026
Translated by Marilyn Hook
Editor’s note: Women in their 20s and 30s,
grappling with the challenges of aging and housing insecurity, gathered to
reflect: “As we grow old, experience illnesses, and eventually need a place to
settle and relationships we can rely on, perhaps we need a ‘living community’?”
While contemplating living communities, we studied the concepts of family, aging,
and housing together. We also planned visits to those who have already formed
living communities to ask questions and engage in conversation. This is the
so-called “Prospective Old Lady Project.” With whom, in which neighborhood, and
in what kind of relationships of solidarity and care will we grow old? We
gently introduce some questions for prospective old ladies that a group of
around 20 young women have been slowly but steadily developing over the past
year.
Why am I worried about becoming an old lady?
“Still, blood relatives are the best in the end.”
“When you’re sick, you have no one but family."
People like me lose our way amidst such words,
which may be comforting to some but sometimes make others feel small. It is
inevitable that a young woman ages into an old woman, yet fear lingers on this
natural order of things. This is also the reason why prospective old ladies
already feel overwhelmed when contemplating their old age that will unfold
decades from now. It is due to the vulnerability inherent in aging.
In Korean society, the only place vulnerable
individuals can turn to is the family, specifically the ‘normal family’ bound
by marriage and blood ties. In other words, there is a deeply rooted order in
which vulnerable individuals left defenseless outside the ‘normal family’ find
it difficult to be optimistic about living a safe and fulfilling life. The book
Family Status Society (2025), published by the Institution for the Right
to Found Family, states the following: “In a society where the responsibilities
and the role that the family must shoulder in welfare is excessive, the basic
survival and care of individuals who have broken free of the family can only be
unstable and precarious.”
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| The 2025 first meeting of the Prospective Old Lady Project. We started by digging together into the reason behind fears related to old age. (Photo credit: Prospective Old Lady Project) |
What is it about family? The 17 women in their 20s and 30s gathered for the Prospective Old Lady Project decided to reflect on the moments when family is needed. We lean on family (or hope to be able to do so) from when housework becomes overwhelming to when we urgently need money, when we run into serious matters like needing to find a home or hold a funeral, when we suddenly fall ill or have mobility challenges, or when we become unemployed. Even when we need our own space but want to connect with someone, or when we simply want to tell someone how our day went, we’re glad we have family for that (or wish we did).
Furthermore, when living with your family
provides emotional and physical stability, you desire for this situation to
continue; conversely, when you’re unable to be your true self within your
family of origin, you feel the need for a different family. The moment a family
is needed is essentially a time when one requires a place and relationships to
rely on.
In other words, what we need is a community
where we can be okay outside of the confines of the ‘normal family’ and lives
are interconnected through the exchange of care. Family Status Society
introduces the ‘living community’ as follows: “Diverse family forms extend
beyond the category of family under civil law (…) encompassing ‘living
communities’ that break free from the typical framework of the heterosexual
nuclear family. The central theme connected to the ‘living’ here is precisely
care among family members.” The book goes on to ask and propose: “With whom
will you form an interdependent relationship where you care for one another,
entrust your back in moments of crisis, and share happy times? When we think beyond
institutions and families in considering the question of whom we have such a
relationship with, broader civic bonds will take root in our society.”
With whom, and in what neighborhood, do I want
to grow old?
The questions of how and with whom you will grow
old naturally leads to the question of where you will do so.
One of the prospective old ladies in the group
wants a small plot of farmland the size of two tables. Another wants to run a
restaurant but only have it open for four hours a day. There are prospective
old ladies who plan to retire from the workforce completely, and there are
those who plan to take a job for seniors so they can socialize with other old
ladies. There are prospective old ladies who want to own their own home, and
there are those aiming for 50-year or permanent public housing. There are prospective
old ladies who imagine a lot of money, and there are those who think about
poverty.
The community in which we, who envision such
diverse lives, wish to live, either individually or together, will be realized
through concrete physical places and relationships. Therefore, exploring where
and how this is already being practiced could also provide us with valuable
inspiration.
We spent last summer and autumn exploring
neighborhoods where feminist bookstores, medical social cooperatives, and
community spaces/cafes have taken root within the local community. Through the
process of experiencing these specific places, we learned that we can naturally
incorporate elements of a communal life into our individual future plans. It
was quite moving to find out that this was not a vague fantasy, but something
that real people were already doing every day, a concrete scene of life that we
could be optimistic about.
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| A field trip to the Seongsan-dong neighborhood in Mapo-gu, Seoul. We visited a feminist bookstore and local community spaces. (Photo credit: Prospective Old Lady Project) |
Envisioning with others what kind of community I would like to live in once I became an old lady was a precious shared experience that resolved my and our anxieties. Perhaps what we need is not a grand strategy, but rather relationships and time spent consistently doing things together and intertwining our daily lives. The more concretely we imagined and planned our future, the more I felt that the imaginations of these ‘prospective old ladies’ would approach reality. We also shared the thought that more concrete plans from more prospective old ladies are needed, if only to gather the courage to start a life beyond the ‘normal family’ together.
The cases of Eunpyeong-gu’s Salim Health Welfare
Social Cooperative and Jeonju’s Bibi Cooperative, a women’s living and cultural
space
An elderly person said to me, “When you get
older, you live on the joy of watching your grandchildren.” However, I know now
that a life pursuing only the joy of watching grandchildren is not an option
available to us. Moreover, we already have amazing old ladies (and prospective
ones). Relationships and practices that overturn the fears about old age held
by women in their 20s and 30s already exist throughout the region. The representative
places that members of the Prospective Old Lady Project visited are the Salim
Health Welfare Social Cooperative and the Bibi Cooperative.
Salim Health Welfare Social Cooperative
(hereafter “Salim”), located in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul, was created by area
residents with shared needs and desires like, “I want to live a healthy life,” “I
wish there was a medical center you could trust,” “I want to receive good care
when I’m ill,” “I want to live with dignity even if I become sick and disabled,”
“I want to live the way I like until the very end, and die surrounded by
familiar faces.” To explain it in other words, Salim is “a medical/welfare/care
facility created and operated cooperatively by area residents based on feminist
views of health.”
To be honest, many people believe that the
individual and their family should be responsible for dealing with their own
physical ailments. They rarely experience a world where this is not the case.
Therefore, the field trip to Salim was a very important experience for the
prospective old ladies. Here is a place where everyone has accepted the belief
that rather than sending people whose bodies have become frail to an
institution, we can live together with them in the local community. The time
spent getting to know Salim allowed the prospective old ladies to affirm the
possibility of a "local community where people age safely and care for one
another" and to tangibly experience its concrete reality.
Now, what if there were a living community of
women that met in their 30s and have stayed together for over 20 years? This is
the case for the second place we visited: Bibi, a women’s living and cultural space,
located in Jeonju, North Jeolla Province. The members, now in their 50s,
established the “Women’s Housing Community Bibi Social Cooperative” [the
organization’s official name] and through our conversations, we were able to
learn about the importance of housing and this real example of collective
housing. As we expressed our hope that Bibi’s housing community practices,
where members proactively give and receive care for one another, will [continue
to] be wonderfully realized, we confirmed that our own hopes are the same.
The experience of Bibi as a community of non-married [bi-hon] women formed when the members were in their 30s and continuing now in their 50s, was a valuable opportunity for us—who are only in our first year of participating in the Prospective Old Lady group—to cultivate a lighter and freer mindset. When we find out that the future we imagine is someone else’s present, we gain the strength to look forward with greater confidence and optimism. It was reassuring to be able to share joy while imagining a future where we form diverse living communities and are connected to one another through relationship networks.
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| The “Strategy Notes for Prospective Old Ladies” our group created. Toward an old age where we age safely and respect each other! The prospective old ladies’ operations to find and attract each other continue. [The numbered petals read: 1. Why am I worried about becoming an old lady?; 2. Who do I want to grow old with?; 3. How and where do I approach someone?; 4. What kind of neighborhood do I want to live in?; 5. What kind of family will we become? Creating our group culture; 6. Bingo game: What values and everyday life do we want to share?] (Image credit: Prospective Old Lady Project) |
“My wish is to be an old lady that lives in the same neighborhood as you all”
Our group compiled the questions and
conversations exchanged during our meetings to create the "Strategy Notes
for Prospective Old Ladies." We hoped that through this notebook, you
could 1) examine the conditions for a dignified life you wish to enjoy as you
age, and imagine 2) with whom you will form a living community, 3) where and
how to approach them about it, 4) where you will live together, and 5) what
kind of family you want to create.
The feeling of relief that you might not be terribly
lonely in old age, relationships where—even if the future remains unclear—you
can exchange reassurance that you’re not alone in worrying, and the process of
confirming the basis for hope that those of us outside the order of the normal
family can overcome housing insecurity and the fear of aging: these are also
scenes from real life that I would like to share with more ‘prospective old
ladies.’
Networks of relationships where we become each
other's potential need to be further expanded. Having already confirmed this
sentiment, a group of about 20 prospective old ladies welcomed 2026 together,
dreaming of a living community that welcomes one another as they age joyfully
and safely. This year, too, the process continues; prospective old ladies are
gathering to find good answers and solutions to questions and concerns regarding
family, caregiving, housing, neighborhoods, community culture, and other issues
related to aging. I want to spread the word that we should walk this path
together and contemplate all kinds of communities together—starting right here,
right now!
About the Author: Horang Jibsa. For a poor
feminist, what does it mean to grow old? My childbearing years will end, my
body will weaken, and my housing will remain insecure. To gain the courage to
face my fears and the evidence to be optimistic about my old age, I conceived
and started a gathering for prospective old ladies.
Original Article: https://ildaro.com/10435
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