Ageism: Disrespect Your Elders

Author: Reese Moore

            In today’s society, inequality has made its home in those around us, whether we like it or not.  It can be noticed in almost every aspect of our daily lives: through race, gender, status, and resource.  However, there is another form of inequality growing in our society that has been overlooked, ageism.  Ageism describes prejudice against elderly persons based on their age.  People often stereotype older people as useless or a burden to ourselves and others around us. Due to the rising number of elderly individuals in our society, this issue is becoming more widespread.  Ageism can be found in many different aspects of our society, such as, institutional, social, and individual levels. 

            The institutional (mezzo) level, refers to professionals who work within small groups or institutions, such as, long-term health care facilities for elderly persons.  Often, residents within these facilities face poor treatment and neglect from both their families and their caretakers.  In a recent study, a researcher wanted to know if there was a link between neglect and ageism in such facilities.  She interviewed multiple nurses working in different nursing homes, to gain insight on what actually happens within the home.  What she discovered was appalling.  For instance, this description of an everyday “shower time” for the residents:

“8-10 older men and women are placed together in a row, then each in turn is passed to the nurse for a shower, and then passed back to be dressed, one after the other, all in wheel chairs, like on a conveyer belt…The older person is treated like a commodity, transferred from place to pace, like in a factory” (Winterstein, 2015, p. 19).

These ageist beliefs do, in fact, lead to elder neglect.  Ageism creates an environment where elderly people are seen as objects within these facilities, just to be shuffled through their daily routines without care or warmth.  Seeing older patients as nothing more than an inanimate object, or worse, completely invisible or void of all feeling, creates a mindset for neglect.  If you see someone as worthless, you are likely to treat them that way, which is exactly what Winterstein discovered in her research.  Ageism and neglect are a daily routine in these facilities, while the system they are run in promotes such treatment to save money, which seems to be more important to them than human decency (i.e. using cheap towels that do not completely dry their residents, which leads to fungus and rashes forming on their skin, just to save a couple bucks (Winterstein, 2015). 

While I have not personally witnessed ageism in a healthcare facility, I can confirm that the environment within the homes are less than ideal.  A few years ago, I volunteered to entertain the residents of an old folk’s home with some students from Webster.  While my classmates were singing and playing instruments, I was taking note of my surroundings.  The room we were in was the main living space where the residents would eat, talk, play board games, etc.  The atmosphere reminded me of a run-down lunch room, with shabby furniture and worn flooring.  The food was served on lunch trays and looked neither healthy nor appetizing, and all the residents looked just as dull as the surroundings.  A few of them were enjoying the music the students were playing, but most of them seemed quite sad.  Their surroundings definitely had a sense of neglect and ageism.  It made me feel as if the workers really didn’t care about their residents, because if they did the living conditions would be much more homey and clean. 

            Ageism can also be found at the individual (micro) level, which is the smallest and most personal level of prejudice.  Everyday people of all ages experience and express ageism in multiple ways.  Picture this: you are walking out of grocery store heading to your car with a small bag of food when you see an older woman limping along with an armful of bags.  She looks so frail and you think she must need help carrying all of those groceries.  So, without hesitating you walk over to the woman and take some of the load off of her arms, helping her reach her car, placing the groceries safely inside.  The woman thanks you quietly for your help and gets inside her vehicle.  You feel happy, knowing you have done your good deed for the day, however, unknowingly you have committed an act of ageism. 

          Maybe this scenario sounds familiar, maybe it doesn’t.  Either way, the individual in this story has stereotyped an elderly person as “fragile,” and displayed motherly behavior by helping a person who may have actually been able to help herself.  While the individual intentions may have been good, it can still make elderly persons feel inferior.  That is why knowledge about these issues plays such an important role in stopping them for good.  For example, in a recent study on the ageist behaviors linked with knowledge (or lack thereof), researchers asked 202 people from the age of 13 to 91 to answer some questions related to their beliefs and knowledge relating to elderly persons.  They concluded that the less knowledge people have about ageism and the behaviors that go with it, the more likely they are to display ageism themselves (Cherry et al., 2016).  These results show that we collectively need to become more aware of the topic of ageism in order to combat it (and hopefully stop it for good).  However, education is not the only way we can promote a more positive outlook on aging, we can also support something known as “active aging.”

            Active aging is defined as “the process of optimizing opportunities for health, participation and security in order to enhance quality of life as people age” (Swift et al., 2018, p. 196), which basically means that we can make life much better for elderly persons and other individuals who are aging (which, is everyone in case you were wondering), by supporting continued participation in all aspects of society, such as, social, economic and spiritual affairs.  Researchers propose a Risks of Ageism Model (RAM; see below) to help identify where and how we can strategically address ageism and the attitudes that go along with it in order to promote active aging for all.

The left half of figure one shows the determinants of active aging, such as, physical and economic.  These are things that can affect the process of active aging and certain aspects of one’s life can hinder or improve quality of life.  For example, there is an elderly woman who lives in my apartment building.  She worked at a high school nearby as a secretary and loved her job.  However, late last year she was in a car accident and received a knee injury.  Due to her lack of movement and pain, she had to quit her job and move out of her home.  She can barely carry her groceries up the stairs to her apartment and falls often while doing chores that were once easy to complete.  I often help her carry groceries to her house, while we talk about her injury and how it disrupted her life and how she views herself.  She was once the epitome of active aging and now her physical circumstances prevent her from feeling confident in her abilities.  Her injury is preventing her from continuing to participate in society, making her a perfect victim for ageism and prejudice.  She often feels embarrassed when she falls at the store, because she feels that people will see her as a weak old woman, which is not how she personally sees herself.  However, due to her injury she is using a mechanism of aging called stereotype embodiment.  If people view her as useless and frail, she will begin to assume she truly is useless and frail, thus embodying those false characteristics. However, she always insists on taking one handle of her grocery bag, while I take the other.  I can tell she’s strong willed and obviously capable of handling herself and I’m rooting for her full recovery after her knee replacement surgery in August!

            So, remember, just because someone is old does not mean they are useless or helpless.  Please, pay more attention to ageist thoughts and behaviors, and for God’s sake respect your elders!

References

  Band-Winterstein, T. (2013). Health Care Provision for Older Persons. Journal of Applied Gerontology,34(3).

  Cherry, K. E., Brigman, S., Lyon, B. A., Blanchard, B., Walker, E. J., & Smitherman, E. A. (2016). Self-Reported Ageism Across the Lifespan. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development,83(4), 366-380.

  Swift, H. J., Abrams, D., Lamont, R. A., & Drury, L. (2017). The Risks of Ageism Model: How Ageism and Negative Attitudes toward Age Can Be a Barrier to Active Aging. Social Issues and Policy Review,11(1), 195-231.