 By Jim Selman | Bio
There is nothing new about ageism, other than
the fact that there are increasing numbers of people growing older
(which means increasing numbers of examples of age discrimination
against older people). The latest statistics from AARP show formal
anti-discrimination complaints are up roughly 30% in the workplace. I
had some fun with this in my recent blog, proposing we create the
National Organization of Pissed-Off Elders (N.O.P.E.). However, it
isn’t a laughing matter when we see a potentially tragic problem
growing in our society that can be prevented.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
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Germany's problems with ageism just took a different turn last week. Playboy Rolf Eden has his own perspective on age discrimination. The 77-year-old is suing a 19-year-old woman he dated for refusing to have sex with him on the basis that he was too old for her. [ Read More]
Written by eldering at News
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I was talking to a friend recently who was suggesting I commit this
blog to defeating ‘ageism’ in all of its often subtle and insidious
forms. I said, I don’t want to make this about being ‘against’ ageism
for three reasons. First, if there is one thing I have learned in life
it is that we get what we resist. Even Martin Luther King wasn’t so
much against discrimination as he was ‘for’ equality. Secondly, I want
to be ‘for’ the possibility of aging and that is as much about
discovery and creating than it is about political power or ‘fixing’
the status quo. Thirdly, and probably most important, is that ‘ageism’
isn’t the problem we face as we get older. It is a symptom. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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I notice I am getting more ‘age’ jokes in my email these days. Most of them are kind of silly: they’re either about leaky parts or real or imagined sexual fantasies among octogenarians (watching or wishing in all sorts of unusual circumstances, like learning to bounce your walker on a trampoline so you can peak at the nude beauty in the next yard). Like most humor, it is about people laughing at themselves or their situation. I don’t find most of them particularly funny, probably because while I am now officially a ‘senior citizen’, I don’t yet identify with the core realities that are being spoofed. While I don’t mind this attempt to ‘laugh it up’ in the nursing home set and I don’t think this kind of levity is ageist, it does reflect our expectations and our fears of what we are in for as we grow older. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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I just came across news of a humdinger of a research report from Georgia Tech about how older people process information differently than younger people depending upon whether they are in a ‘positive’ or a ‘negative’ mood. I have seen some pretty nonsensical conclusions reached by social scientists and statisticians, but this is about a flaky as they come. Granted I haven’t read the research itself, only a description of it which concludes: "So it shows that the young and old are motivated by different goals and, therefore, perceive and process information differently because of the changes in goals across the lifespan,” said Blanchard-Fields.
[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at News
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I was speaking with a woman today, probably in her late 20s, who works for the Public Service in Canada. She is a graduate of one of top colleges and presumably someone the government doesn’t want to lose. She has a both a big vision for change and a seriously self-limiting conversation about what she is and is not able to accomplish in a big bureaucracy at her age. In the absence of a change in her internal conversation about her future, she will probably leave the Public Service early and we’ll lose a potentially very strong leader. [ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Personal Empowerment
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Age discrimination is probably one of the last forms of negative
stereotyping left—perhaps even the subtlest. It wasn’t so long ago that
color, sexual orientation and gender were in the spotlight. Now, as 70
million of us are becoming the dominant demographic force in the world,
we can begin to see our culture’s bias toward age appearing as overt
forms of discrimination.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Retirement
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Ronni at TGB recently took a whack at being inundated by wrap-around sexually explicit media
and how it can negatively stereotype older folks whose libidos are in a
state of “natural” decline. I wonder if a declining libido is natural.
If we know of examples of late-life lust, then it can’t be natural. It
is a choice.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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Why do organizations, companies and government offer seniors
discounts? Next spring, according to the airlines and almost every
other organization that gives perks to folks 65 and older, I will
officially be considered a ‘senior’. I will have to wait at least an
additional 10 months to qualify for the Everest of aging — Social
Security. Why they make this distinction at age 65 is a bit of a
mystery to me.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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I’ve asked a lot of people how old they would be if they really had a choice. In a recent essay entitled Complaint and the Blind Men,
Laurence Platt, who writes from his experience of Werner Erhard’s work,
wrote about the idea of choice as a creative act as opposed to a
conclusion based on some analytical reasoning. The message is that
happiness is the result of choosing ‘what is’, what some disciplines
call ‘profound acceptance’ or ‘surrender’.[ Read More]
Written by Jim Selman at Fearless Aging
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