Skip to main content

Ageism: What Is It?


What is "Ageism"?  It's complicated ... 

 

I went to our public library to see what I might find about "ageism".  For the subject heading there were 8 books across the multi-city locations.  Only one was in our local library, Still Here by Ram Dass (which I happen to own, and highly recommend), so I expanded my search to keywords, and within our library found a book by Robert N. Butler.  The description in the catalog record indicated he claims to have coined the term, "ageism" (see note below).  So I went to the stacks and found his book, The Longevity Revolution in the 612.6 Dewey Decimal area, picked up Butler's book and a few others adjacent to it, and retreated to a quiet table to peruse them.  

As the LC Subject headings note, the subject is "complex" ↓  

LabelVocabularyConcept TypeSubdivision TypeIdentifier
1.AgeismLC Subject HeadingsTopicsh90001720
2.Ageism in advertisingLC Subject HeadingsTopicsh2008006394
3.Ageism--United StatesLC Subject HeadingsComplex Subjectsh2009114092

Many of the books shelved near Butler's focused on anti-aging, efforts to appear to be younger through cosmetics and clothing choices, hormonal treatments (pros and cons), and other ways to try to avoid aging or the appearance of aging.

In The Longevity Revolution, Butler reminded readers that simultaneously the percentage of elders is growing and people are living longer, and points out that our society would benefit more from honoring and encouraging the wisdom, knowledge, skills and continued contributions from elders than from pushing them aside as no longer useful.  

He examines the nature of ageism as an institutionalized prejudice, similar to racism, gender discrimination or anti-gay prejudice.  He writes:  "An ageist younger generation sees older people as different than itself; it subtly ceases to identify with its elders as human beings as men become geezers, old goats, gaffers, fogies, coots ... and old women are gophers and geese.  A crone, hag or withered old woman." 

 These excerpts from Butler's book look at ageism and some of his recommendations:



...


...




Transforming cultural sensitivity will include shifts in how elders are seen.  "It is time to change the language and imagery of old age in the media and to sensitive journalists and writers about the language of ageism."  (Butler)

In order to work towards this transformation, we who identify ourselves as elders must shift our own inner perceptions of ourselves and our peers.  It is not a small thing to change our thinking, to straighten up and walk tall (metaphorically if not always physically), to present ourselves to ourselves AND to the world as strong and beautiful in our own right, just as we each are today.


Note:  According to his book, Robert Butler's first use of the term in 1969 was both for a conference speech and for an article, "Ageism:  Another Form of Bigotry" in the Gerontologist Volume 9, pages 243-246.  (See: http://www.romolocapuano.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Butler_Age-ism.pdf )





Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments are moderated before posting, generally within 24 hours.

Popular posts from this blog

The Seasons of a Woman: Harvest Queen

Harvest Queen  The  Harvest Queen  represents the Autumn Equinox, also known as the celebration of Mabon.  The light and the dark are in balance on the equinox, and as the days unfold the darkness begins to overcome the light.  We celebrate our harvests, and then come the days of contemplation.  Wisdom emerges from our depths into our conscious minds, and if we fully accept this upwelling of knowing from within, we enter a time of new strength, preparing ourselves as we become, day by day, one who understands grace.    Celebrating the Autumn Equinox    She who has matured through her seasons, from infancy and childhood to maiden, thence to mother, and as she ascends her Autumn Throne, her crops are fully grown.  She has earned her crown. The left half of the painting represents the end of summer, and the fullness of nature, and that of a woman fully matured. The right half of the painting represents the beginning of autumn; the beginning of the fall ... the very beginning of the descen
Post a Comment
Read more

Becoming a Work of Art

Advanced Style:  Girls Just Wanna Have Fun! For many people of all ages that includes playing with one's presentation to the world, to friends, and to oneself.  Yet in our culture, women who are beyond their reproductive years are shamed into invisibility, retreating into clothes they were taught were more suitable for older women.  But not everyone succumbs to the idea that due to being older they should just shuffle off the stage of life, retreating to the comfort of sensible shoes, a cup of tea and the couch.   The photos on this page are from Advanced Style, the work of Ari Seth Cohen. To celebrate the sense of style of some stylish over-age-60 women he'd seen on the streets of NYC,  Cohen used his photography to focus on them and got to know many through interviews and repeated photo sessions.  He eventually published a book as well as a documentary about women who don't give up the self-expression they've enjoyed all their lives just because they are "ge
Post a Comment
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 protect from the cold entering the
Post a Comment
Read more