Negative bias toward aging

I’ve pledged to respond to incidents of ageism when I am subjected to or exposed to them. An aspect of ageism includes statements that infer that the gift of years is a negative quality rather than a positive one. Clearly the negative bias toward aging makes no sense when one considers that the alternative to not growing older, not having another birthday is death.

So today I report experiencing negative bias toward aging in a public venue, in a situation in which a presenter addressed some 40 - 50 people, all of whom work with elders. It was an “innocent” enough statement. In her introductory remarks, the speaker asked how many in the audience were parents. Then she asked how many were grandparents, but quickly added, “Oh, no one here is old enough to be grandparents.” Clearly, the majority of the participants were old enough to be grandparents, and many of us old enough to be great-grandparents.

The speaker caved to the broader society’s value of the worship of youthfulness, to valuing youthfulness over maturity and old age. That is a negative bias toward aging. As such, it is an example of ageism.
I dare say that the vast majority of the participants did not recognize this “innocent” question as rooted in an, albeit unconscious, ageist attitude. To state again the obvious: Ageism is so prevalent and so deeply imbedded in our culture that we are not aware of it and we do not recognize its presence.

It is not logical to place a value, positive or negative, on a person based solely on their chronological age. Since most of our society’s biases toward aging are negative, those subject to ageism are devalued by this bias. This cohort of elders, seen through the bias, the prejudice, of ageism becomes marginalized and oppressed.

We cannot address this societal prejudice until we are first consciously aware of its pervasive presence.