A magazine cover features a lampooning cartoon of older politicians using walkers.
A comedian makes demeaning jokes about a mature Hollywood actress.
An advertisement promises the many “anti-aging” benefits of a face cream.
These are examples of ageism that are more likely to get noticed and – sometimes – called out in our society.
Less-recognized and often-unaddressed is the ageism endemic in our government, corporate, social, health and other systems. The baked-in ageism that hinders people from living their best and fullest lives at any age – and the basis of our Age-Friendly North Jersey alliance’s wide-ranging advocacy and education efforts.
Saturday, Oct. 7, is Ageism Awareness Day, and our alliance will be joining the American Society on Aging and advocates around the country in calling attention to the depth and breadth of ageism’s toll on our laws and policies, our healthcare and social services, our business and employment practices, and our everyday lives.
ASA and advocacy organizations have compiled a number of suggestions for how to stoke conversations and challenge assumptions about aging– from hosting a book or film discussion to starting an anti-ageist birthday card campaign to persuading local government leaders to adopt a sample proclamation, and many other strategies.
Educational activities like those examples above are among the approaches recommended by the World Health Organization to reduce or eliminate ageism by helping people understand the many forms it can take:
· Internalized ageism: How we feel about ourselves as aging people and ageism in which older adults marginalize other older people.
· Cultural ageism: The everyday and normalized negative messages about aging and old people embedded in movies, TV, songs, jokes, etc.
· Implicit ageism: The unconscious bias that includes attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward people of other age groups
· Benevolent ageism: Patronizing, paternalistic beliefs or behaviors that older people need to be protected and taken care of by younger people
Education is our alliance’s chief tool. We seek not only to raise awareness of the degree to which ageism is normalized in our everyday lives, but also educate about the ways in which ageism has influenced our laws and policies, our health and social system structures, and our community designs.
On Sept. 22, Bergen County leaders in our alliance hosted a conference attended by more than 150 community leaders and advocates interested in learning strategies for making their towns better environments for people of all ages.
The previous fall, our alliance hosted a statewide Virtual Age-Friendly Fair that covered myriad subjects – from strategies to improve transportation, housing, social inclusion, communication and collaboration within a community to examinations of how New Jersey’s physical infrastructure, social support services, and elder-care systems can be redesigned to better support aging in place.
Those events – combined with our 7 years of advocacy and coalition-building – have raised consciousness and won new allies to the cause of addressing housing, transportation, pedestrian safety, social inclusion, and other barriers to health and wellbeing that older adults routinely encounter in the communities where they live.
But the need for more awareness about ageism – and the ways in which it is one of the most widespread and socially accepted forms of prejudice – is still vast.
Our alliance works at the community, county, and state level, while organizations like ASA strive to show the global toll of ageism across many policy arenas – from our health care system to our economy.
Here are some helpful resources to use and share on Ageism Awareness Day:
· ASA’s Ageism Awareness Web Page
· Changing the Narrative Action Toolkit