Skip to main content

This Chair Rocks! Ashton Applewhite’s Work



This Chair Rocks!

Continuing my ageism research, I found Ashton Applewhite's book, This Chair Rocks:  A Manifest Against Ageism.  Applewhite also maintains a blog and has given TED talks on the subject.  (Links for those are at https://thischairrocks.com).

Applewhite covers the origins of the term ageism (Robert Butler), the reasons ageism is as important to combat as other culturally constructed "-isms", and goes on to consider economics, memory, health, sex and intimacy and the workplace.  She doesn't flinch when it comes to examining the end of life and how it might be well navigated.

She points out that ageism is a form of self-hatred:  "Like racism and sexism, ageism is not about how we look.  It's about what people in power want our appearance to mean.  Ageism occurs when the dominant group uses its power to oppress or exploit or silence or simply ignore people who are much younger or significantly older.  We experience ageism any time someone assumes we're "too old" for something -- a task, a relationship, or a haircut -- instead of finding out who we are and what we're capable of.  Or if someone assumes that we're 'too young;' ageism cuts both ways ... "

She writes:

The more time goes by, the more 
damage clinging to youth does 
to our sense of self 
and our place in the world.

This is the place where I start.  Although there are economic, social, political and other big-picture aspects to consider, right now I am working on personal identity as the place to begin to make a cultural shift.  Only if I can truly embrace who I am NOW and relax about how I "appear" to the world will I be able to contribute to "rising above" the ageist messages embedded in our media, etc.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated before posting, generally within 24 hours.

Popular posts from this blog

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes ...

Nikolaus Gyzis' painting:  Grandma Dancing with Granddaughters, 1883. I'm reading Mary Pipher's recent book, _Women_Rowing_North_, in which she shares her ideas about being a woman as  entering her elder years. In her second chapter, Pipher wrote about ageism directly. The line that has stayed with me most clearly is this: What women mean when they say  "I'm not old," is "I won't accept the ideas that culture has about me." However, in the real world, I've been taking my grandchild to a weekly preschool music class where we delight in rhythms, songs, trying out instrument.  At circle time I used to sit down on the floor along with many (but not all) of the other parents and grandparents and their kids.  Those who chose to sit on chairs instead of on the floor had their reasons, but I liked to participate, even on days when, in order to stand up, I'd first have to get on my hands and knees then push up slowly.  I liked hol...
4 comments
Read more

The Shadow Self

  I'm exploring this concept at the request of Kathleen V., who is leading a Crone workshop in which I'm participating.  She asked whether I'd ever written about any aspect of my shadow self in my journaling over the years. I immediately thought of one experience I had in my early 20's.  I had just left a difficult relationship and had moved to a house with two friends near Bass Harbor, Maine.  The small house was rural, built above the rocky shore facing the harbor.  Behind it the forest rose up into the hills.   One winter night I was dropped off on the road.  As I trudged up the lonely driveway to the house through the snow I realized the house was empty.   I had not lived there long, and I had not been home alone before.  I kicked the snow from my boots and opened the kitchen porch door.  As is the case for many farm houses, the small enclosed back porch stored coats and boots and when the outer door was closed an inner door helped p...
Post a Comment
Read more

Singing Like an Old Lady

Aretha belts it out! Singing like an Old Lady.   My voice has changed ...  ... but I'm not alone in this. I love to sing, but my training was long ago when I was in high school and college.  I learned to be true to the pitch, to use my diaphragm, to pay attention to my breathing, to be dynamic with my volumes and to be respectful of the song.  It was classical training, albeit at a student level.  When I met my current partner Dan, a professional musician, a few years ago, he was eager to have me sing with him, especially in public. A person can sing all day long at home or in the studio, but a singer needs to sing in public in order to improve, he would tell me. He's a great musician and a great mentor and because of him I've gotten up in front of audiences (in wine bars, after I've had a little wine myself) and I've been received pretty well by friends and other wine drinkers.  But he has recorded me a few times, and I hear thing...
2 comments
Read more