By HLTD51 student AMVB

Ageism? What in the world is ageism? I’m aware that some people aren’t very fond of aging, but before this course I didn’t know that this issue was so prevalent. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this word, “ageism,” until I started to notice its frequent appearance in the course readings. I first stumbled upon the word “ageist” in Week 1’s reading from Age Studies: Credos, Manifestos and Reflections and decided to put a sticky note on it. Ageism is the recurring theme in this week’s readings on Shakespeare’s King Lear and Woodwards’ Figuring Age Introduction.

According to the World Health Organization, “Ageism is the stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination against people on the basis of their age.“2 Ageism comes from socially constructed negative views about older people that are detrimental to their health. Systematic age discrimination happens in various settings such as the workplace, housing accommodation, and other locations that provide services or goods.The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has classified two kinds of ageist behaviours: the social construction of age including misconceptions and stereotyping, and a societal structure that only benefits the young and neglects the needs of older people. They also identified that negative ideas about aging are attitudinal because, “it is not a real component of aging, but rather society’s response to the process”.

Similarly, Woodward’s Introduction to Figuring Age emphasized the under-representation and invisibility of older women. Some concepts and examples that were provided are invisibility, double marginality, ignorance to old age and ageism. The term “ageism” was coined in the 1960s by Robert Butler to define the “widespread discrimination against elderly based on prejudice rooted in the very fact of being older”. Butler also emphasizes that it is rooted in people’s own fears regarding aging and death which results to the “repression of aging” and “denial of old age”5. This critique of society’s ageist views reinforces the fact that we should combat ageism.

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Ageism is also portrayed in Shakespeare’s King Lear. In this play, both King Lear and Gloucester become victims of ageism. The first manifestation of ageism is found at the end of Act I scene 1 where Goneril and Regan discuss their father’s poor judgement and blames it on his old age. This is demonstrated when Goneril says:  

You see how full of changes his age is; the
observation we have made of it hath not been
little: he always loved our sister most; and
with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly. (I.1.13).

After this conversation, both daughters agree to plot against and deny shelter and care to their aged father because he is becoming of no use to them. Another example of ageism is portrayed by Edmund’s deception and betrayal of his father Gloucester in order to claim his brother Edgar’s inheritance. Edmund’s actions towards his father demonstrates ageism because they are unjust and is in complete disregard for his father’s feelings and health.The experiences of King Lear and Gloucester illustrates the same kind discrimination that old people face at present, based on the definitions from the OHRC and WHO that I provide above.

In addition, with ageism in mind, I would like to focus on some observations that I noticed in Ian Pollock’s illustration of King Lear. In class, Professor Charise highlighted King Lear’s crown. The crown decreases in size in Act I Scene 1 from page 2, until it slowly diminishes and finally disappears in page 5 (as shown in the excerpts below).

 

In this part of the play, King Lear initiates his love test. Visually, it is apparent that his crown starts to decrease in size until it disappears – at the very moment he becomes enraged by Cordelia’s refusal to profess her love for him. As a result, the King decides to banish Cordelia and divide his kingdom between Regan and Goneril. It seems like his crown decreasingly diminishes as soon as he no longer has power and authority from his kingdom.

The diminishment of his crown may also represent “death by invisibility” as per Woodward, where older people cease to be recognized as valuable and are thus disregarded in society. Another thing that I also noticed are the grotesque images of the characters in the book. These images illustrate the fact that at some point in our life, we’ve had a negative and biased opinion against older people. It demonstrates the ugly part of society that enables for the social construction of age and the creation of structures that benefits the young and disregards the older members of society.In addition, the grotesque images may also represent individual person’s fear of aging and death.

Canada’s Association for the Fifty-Plus (CARP) Age Poster Campaign (2003)

In Shakespeare’s time and in our own, ageism is a serious issue that has detrimental effects on the health of older persons. The Supreme Court of Canada recently emphasized that age diversity and inclusion should be emulated in “policies, programs, services, facilities and so forth so that physical, attitudinal and systemic barriers are not created”.In order to combat ageism, the OHRC has administered initiatives to increase public education, increase public awareness through the CARP poster campaign, and revised the Human Rights at Work Publication.7[3]One of the posters that CARP used to increase public awareness against ageism is shown here. This image of an old man with a best before age 65 sticker on his forehead bears an interesting visual relationship to King Lear’s crown in Act I, scene 1. Both the “best before” age sticker and King Lear’s crown represents old age invisibility due to societal ageism. How would you feel if your grandparents or parents were treated like they had a “best before” sticker on their forehead? How would you feel if you discovered one stuck to you, too? In November 2017, the government of Ontario created Ontario’s Action Plan for Seniors Whether this initiative is successful remains to be seen. What else can we can do to acknowledge and improve the needs of the aging population? How can we encourage the media to increase its positive representation of old age? Perhaps this course is part of a broader, multidisciplinary commitment to addressing ageism through the ages.

 

References

[1] Charise, The Future Is Certain: Manifesting Age, Culture, Humanities 

2 WHO, Ageism from  http://www.who.int/ageing/ageism/en/

3 The Ontario Human Rights Commission from

http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/ageism-and-age-discrimination-fact-sheet

4 http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/time-action-advancing-human-rights-older-ontarians/ageism

5Woodward, Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations

6 Shakespeare, King Lear Illustatred by Ian Pollock

7 OHRC, “Increasing awareness through public education and partnerships”

8 Ontario, Action Plan for Seniors from

https://www.ontario.ca/page/aging-confidence-ontario-action-plan-seniors

9 OHRC Image from Age Poster Campaign