Rising Above Ageism

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 experien...

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" ↓   Label Vocabulary Concept Type Subdivision Type Identifier 1. Ageism LC Subject Headings Topic sh90001720 2. Ageism in advertising LC Subject Headings Topic s...

Let's just start out with the stereotype, shall we?  Here we have the Wicked Witch from the fairy tale, the alter ego of the Queen who had been the "fairest of them all" before her little princess stepdaughter began to come of age as a maiden.  The Queen sought the death of the maiden in order to remove her as competition for the role of "fairest" female in the kingdom.  Of course, in the end Snow White was rescued by a charming prince to live happily every after, while the Queen was sent to a horrible (yet, according the the story, deserved) death. Raise your hand if you want to be "the fairest of them all" forever!  I certainly do. Since she was a teenager, whenever I have gone out with my daughter the male heads that turned have been for her.  As we both grew older, if we approached a counter together, the salesperson or concierge would sometimes address her first, as the person more capable, unless I asserted myself.  I remember this happen...