Article by Gwen Jones, Department of Family Services
(Posted 2023 October)
October 7 is Ageism Awareness Day, an opportunity to reflect on ageism and its impact. To help us better recognize ageism, understand its wide-ranging and negative impacts, and learn strategies to combat it, we spoke to Dr. Tracey Gendron, Chair of the Department of Gerontology at Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. Gendron is a leading authority on the issues of age bias and discrimination and the toll they take on both individuals and society. She explores these issues, along with the history of age bias, in her book “Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End it.”
What is Ageism?
Ageism is reflexively forming opinions about people, and how we should interact with them, based on their age. It is something that we all do, often unconsciously, because ageism is so deeply infused in our thinking, language, and actions that it is nearly invisible. This practice of age-based judgment leads to the creation of stereotypes, which leads to prejudice and discrimination.
Dr. Gendron believes that the ageism directed toward older adults begins with our fundamental misunderstanding of what aging is. “We tend to talk about aging as something that happens to older people instead of aging as a universal experience that we all participate in throughout our entire lives. There’s no such thing as someone who isn’t aging,” she says. We also tend to think about aging solely as a process of decline instead of recognizing it as the complex multi-directional and multi-dimensional process that it is.
Recognizing Ageism
Has anyone ever told you that you look younger than your actual age? If you took their comment as a compliment, you may be experiencing internalized (or self-directed) ageism. “When we feed into this narrative of decline and feed into this narrative that my best years are behind me, when we reach a certain age or have a driving desire to look younger, feel younger, act younger, we are not only perpetuating ageism, but we are potentially manifesting the very things that we fear,” Dr. Gendron says. Studies show that negative thoughts and feelings about your own aging can be just as harmful to your health as social isolation, poor eating habits, and lack of exercise. Inversely, data shows that people with positive views of aging live longer, happier, and more fulfilling lives.
Another form of ageism, called benevolent or compassionate ageism, often goes unrecognized because it is disguised as being helpful. It can take the form of infantilizing older adults, sometimes by referring to older adulthood as a “second childhood.” This form of ageism leads people to make assumptions about what is best for an older adult. “Don’t assume that someone wants or needs your help because they look a certain way. Don’t assume that something they want to do is too dangerous for them when they probably have better decision-making capacity than you do. When we make assumptions about frailty or infantilize people, we are stripping away their agency in autonomy in the name of ‘but I’m doing a nice thing’,” says Dr. Gendron.
One driving force behind ageism is generational myths. Have you ever heard the phrase “OK Boomer”? It has been widely used on social media in recent years to mock the opinions of Baby Boomers, branding them as clueless and stuck in the past, two ageist myths about older people. Younger people must also contend with ageist myths. Millennials and Gen Z are branded as bad employees due to their supposed poor work ethic and need for constant praise. These generational myths draw on crude, ageist stereotypes, ignoring that we are all unique individuals shaped by life experiences that have nothing to do with the year we were born. “The concept of generations feeds into the myths. We’re taking people born into 15-to-20-year spans and saying that all these people have something in common, which isn’t possible,” Dr. Gendron points out.
Factors that Drive Ageism
One factor driving ageism in our society is ableism, the tendency to regard people with a disability as inferior to people without a disability. Dr. Gendron recently published a study examining how ableist views influence our negative feelings toward aging. “I asked people if they felt like they would be valued less if they had any kind of disability and found that the fear of disabilities was a significant contributor to fear of aging. It’s not just being older that we think of as a stage of life that is not valued; we clearly value certain abilities over others and when we lose those abilities, we feel as if we are less valuable in society and that there is less opportunity for us to contribute,” she says.
Underlying the fear of disability and growing older is the fear of losing one’s independence and becoming a burden. Dr. Gendron suggests that we need to reexamine this notion and challenge it, saying “The truth is we are never fully independent. We rely on each other and know that being socially disconnected is bad for us. Our brains need other people.” She also challenges the assumption that caring for older people is a burden but caring for children is a privilege. “Why is caregiving synonymous with burden and burnout but parenthood is thought of as exhausting but rewarding at the same time? That’s not in balance. Why did they become so disconnected instead of caregiving being thought of as something we do throughout our lives for multiple people that has challenges and benefits?” she wonders.
Another huge factor driving ageism is the general belief that younger is always better. We are bombarded with ads for products that promise to make us look, feel, and act younger. Until we start to recognize all the positives that come with aging, we will continue to believe these messages.
Positive Aspects of Aging
Our tendency to focus on the negative aspects of aging distracts from the positive aspects of getting older. Many of these positives are the result of our brains continuing to grow in wisdom and knowledge from our lived experiences. One example of this is crystallized intelligence, which is the culmination of all our learning over time. As we age and accumulate new knowledge and understanding, crystallized intelligence becomes stronger, allowing us to be better at something because we’ve done it before or experienced something similar.
One overlooked benefit of aging is how we feel about ourselves. “As we age, we feel a greater sense of freedom to be authentically us. We don’t care as much about what others think and are more comfortable in our own skin,” says Dr. Gendron.
Another positive aspect of aging is the coping mechanisms that we continue to develop over time. Dr. Gendron cites the COVID-19 pandemic as an example, saying “If you look at the data from the pandemic, older people showed the most resilience. There is a tremendous amount of resilience we build over a lifetime.”
Embracing Elderhood
Many older adults self-identify as “retired” during their later years, a term that Dr. Gendron takes issue with, saying “Part of what has led us to this ageist time and culture is that we don’t have a term for development in later life. Retirement is not a life stage; it is a social institution. It is inherently a withdrawal – it tells who you used to be based on what you used to do. It is not strengths-based and does not describe how we continue to grow and evolve.” She suggests referring to the developmental stage of life that encompasses older age as Elderhood, a period with its own defined goals and opportunities, just like all the other life stages. “If we had different goals and milestones, maybe it would be something we looked forward to as the next iteration as ourselves, as opposed to thinking of it as over the hill or decline. Elderhood is about becoming. The growth never stops,” she says.
Combatting Ageism
Pushing back against ageism begins with each of us reexamining how we think, feel, and talk about aging. A first step is rejecting the notion of older age as a period of decline, instead recognizing it as another stage of life with both positive and negative aspects. Rejecting generational myths and making age-based assumptions about others is another way to combat ageism. Dr. Gendron suggests being a role model for the age you are. “Recognize that you feel the age you are today because that is what it feels like for you. Stop stigmatizing the word old in preference over the word young. Say your age with pride instead of trying to cover it up. Recognize that it’s okay to look the age you are. Change happens because everyday people do everyday things,” she says.
Want to learn more? Copies of Tracey Gendron’s book, “Ageism Unmasked: Exploring Age Bias and How to End it” are available at Fairfax County Public Library.
This article is part of the Golden Gazette monthly newsletter which covers a variety of topics and community news concerning older adults and caregivers in Fairfax County. Are you new to the Golden Gazette? Don’t miss out on future newsletters! Subscribe to get the electronic or free printed version mailed to you. Have a suggestion for a topic? Share it in an email or call 703-324-GOLD (4653).