Manifestations of Ageism[1]
Ageism can
be manifested in many different forms.
At a systematic level, laws and policies may be made without regard to
the needs of older adults, or service cuts may have a disproportionate impact
on older adults. Ageism may take
the form of “granny bashing” in the popular press (blaming many of society’s
current economic worries on older adults). It can be reflected in media where older adults are
portrayed as uniformly poor (and consequently perceived potential drain on
society) or as a uniformly well of group who are unconcerned about the need of
others.
Ageism may
be more commonplace in economic and political literature where demographic
shifts in the population are characterized as portending a future health crisis
or “age wars” with you and old fighting over their share oaf social and health services. Ageism and age discrimination are
abased on social fears, and social response expresses those fears.
It has been
suggested that there can be both internalized and externalized ageism. Internalized ageism refers to the
extent to which older adults take on the social norms that devalue or marginalize
older persons. They may do this at
the individual level by acting in ways that reinforces the youth norm –
battling the obvious and visible markers of aging such as grey hair or
wrinkles. Internalized ageism may also be manifested by denial of any
commonality with others in a cohort, such as the familiar objection of an
eighty-five year old woman or man who vehemently does not want to be associated
with “all those older people”.
No comments:
Post a Comment