Ashton Applewhite is the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism. An internationally recognized expert on ageism, she speaks widely at venues that have included the TED mainstage and the United Nations, has written for Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times, and is the voice of Yo, Is This Ageist?
Ashton is a leading spokesperson for the emerging movement against discrimination on the basis of age. Ms. magazine called her previous book, Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well, “rocket fuel for launching new lives.”
In this episode-Ageing:
- How and why Ashton wrote this book on ageing and ageism
- Ageism defined
- This impacts younger and older people
- “As we age we grow more different from each other.”
- Busting myths about medical costs and being older
- The United States is the center of pop culture and corporate profit lead which reinforces looking youthful
- Class Bias
- Ending the pathologizing of the ageing process
- Self-acceptance, advocating for yourself and ending criticisms one another as women
- It takes effort to break old patterns and habits
- Your color, age, and gender are not the issue
- Independence vs interdependence
- Autonomy requires collaboration
- These two things will happen as we get older
- Removing the shame around asking for help
- Getting older is not a binary process
- Reasons behind the anger from a kind gesture
- We are all ageist
- The bull looks different
- Grieving the loss or changes in life and adapting
- Changing how medication studies are done to include older people and both genders
- Saying “olders” and “youngers” as nouns
- We age in relation
- The more friends we have in various ages helps decrease loneliness
- Creating mutually beneficial relationships
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