Jun 13, 2013 - 6:20 pm
I’m happy to report that the NYC Elder Abuse Center has posted my interview on their blog, just in time for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on June 15. It was fun to record, and got me thinking about the connections between ageism and abuse, some obvious and some less so.
Jun 3, 2013 - 6:43 pm
A friend recently put me in touch with Sharon Raphael, a gerontologist and Professor Emerita of Sociology at California State University and an early member of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. Their primary mission, Raphael wrote me, was “to fight and educate about ageism as it affects women and Lesbians and others within and without the lgbt community.” I’d heard of the organization, was pleased that Raphael thinks my work is on the right track, and am grateful for a lengthy email “about our herstory so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.”
May 22, 2013 - 5:14 pm
About 35 members of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) heard my talk last week as the last of a week of free workshops. RSVP “connects individuals who are 55+ to meaningful volunteer opportunities throughout New York City.” Since people who do meaningful work on a regular basis aren’t retired, RSVP is a lousy name, as director Meredith Gemeiner readily admits. But it’s a good program, the volunteers liked what I had to say, and two of them told great stories during the follow-up conversation.
May 17, 2013 - 12:16 pm
Readers of this blog know how much the work of eminent cultural critic Margaret Gullette has informed my thinking.
May 13, 2013 - 12:17 pm
A good friend passed on a DVD of my This Chair Rocks talk to a filmmaker acquaintance, who had a serious critique. She found the talk compelling and called me “a smart and wise cheerleader for this next passage,” but continued, “What I felt missing in her talk was death. She moved quickly over it, saying that her big surprise was how little older folks feared death. I think she is wrong, but she has been immersed in this research far longer than I have. I think we [all] fear death; it is the great unanswered question.
I used to dread the prospect of getting old, so much so that I took the bull by the horns: I started interviewing people over 80 and reading and writing about longevity. The weirdest thing happened: the more I learned about old age, the better it looked. The lives I encountered were constrained in lots of ways, but they remained absolutely worth living. The research surprised me too. Study after study, for example, showed that people are happiest at the beginnings and ends of their lives. The vast majority of older Americans enjoy their independent lives.
How come so many of us unthinkingly assume that aging equals a grim slide into depression, diapers, and dementia? Why is the 20th century’s astonishing leap in life expectancy typically portrayed as a disaster-in-the-making? Underlying all the hand-wringing, I realized, was ageism: the relegation of older people to second-class citizenship—ignored, invisible, insulted. No wonder we're so ambivalent about growing older! Unlike racism and sexism, ageism has has barely bleeped onto our radar. And it affects everyone.
So I’m on a crusade to get people of all ages to wake up to the ageism in and around us, cheer up, and push back. I’ve been blogging about it since 2007. In 2012 I started a Q & A blog, Yo, Is This Ageist? (Go ahead, ask me.) And I’m giving a 40-minute talk called This Chair Rocks: How Ageism Warps Our View of Long Life. All tools to generate a more positive and accurate view of late life and to mobilize people against discrimination and stereotyping on the basis of age.
Jun 13, 2013 - 6:20 pm
I’m happy to report that the NYC Elder Abuse Center has posted my interview on their blog, just in time for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day on June 15. It was fun to record, and got me thinking about the connections between ageism and abuse, some obvious and some less so.
Jun 3, 2013 - 6:43 pm
A friend recently put me in touch with Sharon Raphael, a gerontologist and Professor Emerita of Sociology at California State University and an early member of Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. Their primary mission, Raphael wrote me, was “to fight and educate about ageism as it affects women and Lesbians and others within and without the lgbt community.” I’d heard of the organization, was pleased that Raphael thinks my work is on the right track, and am grateful for a lengthy email “about our herstory so you don't have to reinvent the wheel.”
May 22, 2013 - 5:14 pm
About 35 members of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) heard my talk last week as the last of a week of free workshops. RSVP “connects individuals who are 55+ to meaningful volunteer opportunities throughout New York City.” Since people who do meaningful work on a regular basis aren’t retired, RSVP is a lousy name, as director Meredith Gemeiner readily admits. But it’s a good program, the volunteers liked what I had to say, and two of them told great stories during the follow-up conversation.
“We now have a way to determine whether age-related remarks and attitudes are offensive: a blog called ‘Yo, Is This Ageist?’”
— Paula Span, New York Times New Old Age blog
“Ashton Applewhite is the very clever inventor of the blog Yo, Is This Ageist?, where she offers snappy retorts to ageist hits and usefully decided opinions about age protocol.”
— Margaret Morganroth Gullette, author of Agewise and Aged by Culture
