How Do We Recognize Ageism?

I like to consider myself a bit of an ageism advocate.

I have been a strong proponent against ageism and actively speak out against it whenever I see it. I have written articles about ageism, spoken publicly about it and recognize that it’s not just only older people who are impacted.

Ageism can affect anyone at any age.

I thought I had a pretty good handle on what ageism is and how to recognize it but recently my view of ageism started to get a little blurry. I’m discovering that the issue is not as clear cut as I originally thought.

Let’s start with defining what ageism is.

This is how the World Health Organization describes it;

“Ageism refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or oneself based on age.”

What pushed me towards my confusion about ageism was an article that was published about a new gym opening in Australia that is catering only to older members. In fact, they were banning memberships and access to anyone born after 1970.

So, if ageism is having prejudice or discrimination towards a particular age group, by this gym restricting access to younger people wouldn’t this be considered ageist?

We shared this article with our community on social media and asked whether they thought this gym was being ageist. We received a variety of responses. Some felt it was ageist, others weren’t sure and some saw nothing wrong with it.

Which then led me to ask myself, how exactly do we recognize ageism?

I began to think about other programs and activities that might fall into this same category.

For example, what about retirement residences, senior discounts or social programs only available for seniors? These are also restrictive in age. So, does this mean that these programs or services are also ageist?

As much as I say that ageism can happen to anyone at any age, we do need to acknowledge that it is mostly prevalent for older people.

A National Poll on Healthy Aging found that 82% of older adults reported experiencing ageism in their everyday lives. Given this situation, is it then necessary to develop and support specific programs and services to counter and combat this reality? Afterall, we do accept special programs and support for other marginalized groups.

I’m not exactly sure what the right answer is.

I can see both sides of this equation. We don’t want to restrict one group to unnecessarily lift another one up. But we may also need to level the playing field too so specific, targeted programs or services may be required to help us do this.

One thing I do know is that we do need to keep the conversation about ageism going and increase our collective awareness, understanding and knowledge of ageism. If we are successful at doing this, then hopefully this will eventually become less of a topic that we need to even discuss because it’s no longer an issue.