Why Ageism Happens and How To Address It

. Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:06 What is ageism 0:27 Where does it affect people 0:47 Why ageism happens 1:13 How ageism propagates itself 3:15 How to address it Ageism, also spelled agism, is stereotyping and/or discrimination against individuals or groups on the basis of their age. This may be casual or systemic.[1][2] The term was coined in 1969 by Robert Neil Butler to describe discrimination against seniors, and patterned on sexism and racism.[3] Butler defined “ageism“ as a combination of three connected elements. Originally it was identified chiefly towards older people, old age, and the aging process; discriminatory practices against older people; and institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about elderly people.[4][5] The term “ageism“ has also been used to describe the oppression of younger people by older people, for example in a 1976 pamphlet published by Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor, MI.[6] In the UK, Councillor Richard Thomas at a meeting of Bracknell Forest Council (March 1983), pointed out that age discrimination works against younger as well as older people.[citation needed] It has much later (February 2021) been used in regards to prejudice and discrimination against especially adolescents and children, such as denying them certain rights and privileges usually reserved for adults such as the right to vote, run for political office, buy and use alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis, marry, own a gun, gamble, consent or refuse medical treatment, sign contracts, and so forth.[7] This can also include ignoring their ideas because they are considered “too young“, or assuming that they should behave in certain ways because of their age. Ageism against the young also includes penalties, burdens, or requirements imposed exclusively or to a greater degree on young people than on older people, such as age-based military conscription.[8] In a youth-oriented society, however, older people bear the brunt of age bias and discrimination. Older people themselves can be deeply ageist, having internalized a lifetime of negative stereotypes about aging.[9] Ageism is often attributed to fears of death and disability, with avoiding, segregating, and rejecting older people serving as coping mechanisms that allow people to avoid thinking about their own mortality.[10] Stigma and discrimination around the loss of physical or mental capacity is actually ableism, not ageism, and aging is lifelong. Like other forms of bias, ageism is not based in biology but socially constructed. Contents Ageism in common parlance and age studies usually refers to negative discriminatory practices against old people, people in their middle years, teenagers and children. There are several forms of age-related bias. Adultism is a predisposition towards adults, which is seen as biased against children, youth, and all young people who are not addressed or viewed as adults.[11] This includes political candidacies, jobs, and cultural settings where the supposed greater vitality and/or physical beauty of youth is more appreciated than the supposed greater moral and/or intellectual rigor of adulthood. Adultcentrism is the “exaggerated egocentrism of adults“.[12] Adultocracy is the social convention which defines “maturity“ and “immaturity“, placing adults in a dominant position over young people, both theoretically and practically.[13] Gerontocracy is a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population.[14] Chronocentrism is primarily the belief that a certain state of humanity is superior to all previous and/or future times.[15] Based on a conceptual analysis of ageism, a new definition of ageism was introduced by Iversen, Larsen, & Solem in 2009. This definition constitutes the foundation for higher reliability and validity in future research about ageism and its complexity offers a new way of systemizing theories on ageism: “Ageism is defined as negative or positive stereotypes, prejudice and/or discrimination against (or to the advantage of) elderly people on the basis of their chronological age or on the basis of a perception of them as being 'old' or 'elderly'. Ageism can be implicit or explicit and can be expressed on a micro-, meso- or macro-level“ (Iversen, Larsen & Solem, 2009).[16] Other conditions of fear or aversion associated with age groups have their own names, particularly: paedophobia, the fear of infants and children; ephebiphobia, the fear of youth,[17] sometimes also referred to as an irrational fear of adolescents or a prejudice against teenagers;[18] and gerontophobia, the fear of elderly people.[19] Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0;06 what is ageism 0;47 Why ageism happens 1:13 how Ageism Propagates Itself 3:15 How to address it