Diversity Resources Portal: Age

Along with race and gender, people commonly use age to categorize -- and form stereotypes about -- others. Of the three categories, age is the only one in which the members of the in-group (the young) will eventually join the out-group (the old). Although ageism is found cross-culturally, it is especially prevalent in the United States, where most people regard growing older with depression, fear, and anxiety. Older people in the United States are stigmatized and marginalized, with often devastating consequences.

Let's face it: almost everyone fears growing older. We worry about losing our looks, our health, our jobs, our self-esteem--and being supplanted in work and love by younger people. It feels like the natural, inevitable consequence of the passing years, But what if it's not? What if nearly everything that we think of as the "natural" process of aging is anything but? In Agewise, renowned cultural critic Margaret Morganroth Gullette reveals that much of what we dread about aging is actually the result of ageism--which we can, and should, battle as strongly as we do racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.

This book promotes an understanding of ageism, discrimination and mistreatment of older adult workers, incorporating an international human rights perspective. The impact of ageism on the mistreatment of older adult workers has not to date been examined in depth through the lens of international human rights instruments, nor has discrimination against older adults in the workplace been framed as a form of elder abuse for research and policy making purposes.