Ageism

Ageism in America

ABSTRACT

American society is obsessed with youth. Age is seen as an affliction and America's aged are fighting back. Science has made it possible for human beings to live well into their eighties and the aged are no longer expendable. The aged are not naturally senile nor are they incapable. They have to be given more opportunities in society and in order to get these opportunities battle lines have been drawn between the young and aged as America's seniors fight for the social and economic recognition that is rightfully theirs.

INTRODUCTION

From Thomas Jefferson's era to our time, the lines of change have been straight and stable. For the two-hundred years plus of American society things have changed at a dizzy speed, but with a remarkable amount of regularity. However, a movement, historical in its origin, began about the end of the 18th century and has continued into the 20th. The great historical wave changed age relations in several ways at once. First, it multiplied the numbers of the aged. "In American society the elderly part of the population grew from 2 percent in the 1800's to over 10 percent in the 1970's" (Fischer 114). But at the same time, as old age became more common, it also came to be regarded with increasing contempt. Where the Puritans had made a cult of age, their prosperity had made a cult of youth. This cult of youth has continued into the 1990's at a time where the aged are seen as a burden and problem for the society. With their productivity waning, the youth question their value and treat them with scorn, but the aged are responding to this cult of youth and sometimes militantly, to bring about the equality of the aged in a society they have built and feel they still have a right to be an active and productive part of.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Ageism: it could be called "Catch 65." Like Catch 22, it is a loophole tightening around the necks of those who attempt to struggle against it. The American society survives on the short-term high-level gains of youth productivity, while discouraging the members of the work force from thinking about their later years until it is too late. More concerned with the quantity of production than the quality of life, Uncle Sam grins like P.T. Barnum, tips his hat to the old and ushers them to see the "rare egress"-"This way out." Once out the back door of productivity, the aged are expected to disappear. In America, being old is somehow wrong.

"People's feelings suffer from a failure to grow as they get older. They feel too old to learn" (Kleyman 30). In fact, people do continue to learn. According to Kleyman, Mr. Ed Levitt trained himself as a Spanish teacher when he was 85 and taught classes to older people at Glide until his death at the age of 93 (30). The myth teaches that when people reach the age of retirement the slough off their sense of importance to a responsibility to the community. Yet the community itself may indicate that it doesn't need them anymore by regrading older people as having no consequence.

The second myth is that older people are necessarily broken down (Canter 99). Medicine and nutrition have made major advances,however, so that such people are not automatically debilitated by the time they reach the age of 65.

The puerile image of themselves that society offers the aged is that of white-haired and venerable sage, rich in experience planning high above the common state of mankind. The counter-part of the first image is that of the old fool in his dotage, a laughing stock for children. In any case, either by virtue or by degradation, they stand outside humanity. The world, therefore, need feel no scruple in refusing them the minimum of support which is considered necessary for living like a human being . Simone de Beauvoir

Ageism is particularly virulent against those who are already vulnerable to other kinds of discrimination. A political observer to the problems of the aged, Professor Robert Binstock, has written, "In almost every measurable respect, Black aged persons are about twice as badly off as the rest of the aged population" (Riley and Riley 89) Even more widely experienced than the cruel combination of ageism and racism is the decider ageism brings upon women in the sexist society. According to Congresswomen Martha Griffins, for example, "Fourteen percent of aged women, as compared to one percent of men, have no income...Among persons age 65 or over who have income , the median annual income for men is $3,750 while for women it is only $1,900" (Kleyman 33). However, in fact, most women over the age of 65 live on less than $2,000 per year (Kleyman 33).

One may ask if those who are old, poor, and oppressed are strong enough to form a viable political force which can counter the youth cult. While the abject, those who have been too far down for too long, can seldom relate to more than their personal needs, they shouldn't be confused with the current core of old-age advocates. The politically active seniors come from three main groups: the church, the middle class service occupations, and organized labor (Fischer 156). Much of their strength is attributed to medical and technological advances made by the same society that is bailing them out of the mainstream by forced retirements at age 65 or before. They form a veritable army of capable and potentially angry citizens.

One of the main problems in counteracting the youth cult, however, is that few people identify their troubles as stemming from their agedness, and fewer regard themselves as members of one of the most deprived minorities in American society. However, the headline making actions of senior advocacy and the solid issue-by-issue legislative and court victories won by old-age power groups have begun to reveal the truth to the public and have proven that the aged are not as vulnerable as the social order would like them to be.

Terry Donnelly, 30 year old sociologist of the California Rural Assistance Senior Citizens Program, remarks on the resiliency of those dedicated to bringing the youth cult to an end:

They have survived, and that's a goddam hard thing to do...They've lived through a tremendous amount of change, and technology has even accelerated these changes that older people-all of us-have to withstand. I myself get to the point of change fatigue. I can't deal with it. I have to get away-I have to stop. Older persons, to feel any sense of aliveness in society, have to be adaptable, flexible individuals with a phenomenal sense of identity. Otherwise they will disintegrate (Kleyman 34).

The sciences have

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