How to fight ageism in the world around you — and in yourself

Leanne Clark-Shirley has always loved to dance. She goes to nightclubs near her home in Durham, North Carolina, on a regular basis. But in recent years she's detected a change in how she's treated.

"There is a sense that I don't belong there sometimes," she says. "I work through it and I go anyway, but I'm noticing that change."

Clark-Shirley is 45. She says she and her husband are just about the only people there in her age group. She says other club–goers often push her aside or stand in front of her as if she wasn't there. "I feel entirely invisible," she says.

Clark-Shirley is president and CEO of the American Society on Aging, so she knows a thing or two about ageism.

Ageism — discrimination and prejudice based on someone's age — is so ingrained in society that most of us don't notice it. Yet "we all face the consequences and we all have a role in fixing it," Clark-Shirley says.

Experts say that fighting ageism isn't only important to create an equitable and fair society, it also helps all of us live longer, healthier — even more fulfilling — lives.

Yale professor Becca Levy studies the psychology of aging. Her research found that people who had positive beliefs about aging bounced back more effectively from illnesses and other setbacks than those who had negative perceptions about what it meant to be older.

The positive people even lived an average of 7 1/2 years longer than those who thought aging was a bummer.

Pushing back against assumptions

Fighting ageism today is an uphill battle, Clark-Shirley and other experts say. We are steeped in a culture of youth, with a global anti-aging products industry worth billions of dollars, and even women in their twenties using Botox.

Still, despite all this, social gerontologist Jeanette Leardi says, "We are coming to a tipping point," in how Americans view older age. Leardi, the author of the book Aging Sideways: Changing Our Perspectives on Getting Older, says a growing number of people like her are not content to be portrayed as grumpy and creaky, or any other stereotype of an older person. When there's offensive content, she and others will call out companies on social media and write to them to educate them.

Leardi, who is 72 and has gray hair, has noticed that when she's waiting for service at a store, a younger person will often be attended to first. "The way to handle that is to be assertive," she says. "So I go up to the sales clerk and say, 'I've been here for a while, can you serve me? I need to get on with my day.' "

She also resists what she calls benevolent ageism, where a clerk will call her "young lady" when she clearly isn't. "They're trying to make you feel better. They're coming from a place of, 'Well, to be old is not a good thing — it's better to be young than old.' " Leardi jokes back that they must have eye problems if they think she's young, and that she's fine being old.

Another place people often encounter ageism — and can tackle it — is at the doctor's office. Kris Geerken is with Changing the Narrative, a nonprofit that aims to end ageism. She says if you go to a health care provider with, say, back pain and the provider shrugs and says, "'Well, you are in your 70s, it's just what you can expect at this age," don't accept the response.

"You'll say, 'No, this really matters to me,' " says Geerken. "'My quality of life is really important to me. There are activities that I do… I need to know how I address this pain so that I can continue to do the things I value."

The trap of internalized ageism

Geerken says older people often fall into ageism's trap themselves, seeing themselves as less valuable as they age.

Raymond Jetson has seen this firsthand. He is the founder of Aging While Black, a movement to improve the aging experience of Black Americans. Jetson, a former politician and pastor in his native Louisiana, says ageism combined with racism makes life as an older adult particularly challenging for many Black people. He says it's difficult "to thrive as you age" when you've faced systemic barriers in accessing work, housing and health care over the years.

But he says there are many positive things about aging that Black culture — and other cultures — should focus on.

"I have great value to add to this world," says Jetson, who is 68, cares for his mother, and acts as a mentor to a group of Black men from 28 to 50 years old. They help him, too.

"I call it reciprocal wisdom sharing," he says, noting the group helps to combat ageism at both ends of the age spectrum. Jetson says he offers the younger men insights from his experience that may help them, but "they also pour into me," he says, "so that I might learn different perspectives and different takes based on the way they see the world."

Jetson says it's important to resist when someone makes what they consider a jokey comment about your age, or sends you one of those old-fart-themed birthday cards.

"Just respectfully share with them that [you] see aging very differently, and put a different perspective on it so you challenge this ageism," he says.

Taking a stand against 'elderspeak'

Other ways not to be ageist include considering whether that stereotype you're using is the way you want to be seen when you're older. Would you want to be called 'my dear' or 'sweetie' by someone you didn't know at a store or the doctor's office? If the answer is 'no,' don't use elderspeak.

Leanne Clark-Shirley says people may think they're giving a compliment, but when they call an older adult 'cute' it's anything but. She hears this on the dancefloor sometimes. She says someone will bring a grandparent to a club, and people in the crowd go wild, exclaiming, "Oh, how cute! He's adorable!" Then they whip out their cellphones to record the 70- or 80-something dancing to electronica.

Clark-Shirley is mortified by this spectacle.

"I just think, if anyone ever records me here because they think I'm entertaining or cute, I'll grab their phone and smash it," she says.

She believes that as the sheer number of older people continues to increase, ageism will decrease. In 25 years, almost a quarter of Americans will be over the age of 65.

Leardi is less sanguine. She says the media still plays a huge role in perpetuating stereotypes about older people. On the other hand she says pop culture portrayals are becoming more nuanced. She cites shows like Grace and Frankie and the new Netflix series A Man on the Inside, as stories that portray older adults as complex human beings.

And no matter how old or young we are, Leardi says one key to becoming anti-ageist is to have friends from different generations.

"If people start to mingle with other people who are vastly different from their own age, that is where you start to get the lesson," Leardi says, that we are all human beings, not stereotypes.