Appleton Takes on "Ageism"

Picking up the baton from Dr. Robert Butler

In my latest Risking Old Age in America podcast I talk with writer and advocate Ashton Applewhite about “ageism.” She makes that point that we throw all people aged 65 and older into the same bucket even though people are more different from one another the older they get. There are people who are 90 who are healthy and active and people in their 40s needing around-the-clock care.

Applewhite is the author of This Chair Rocks! A Manifesto Against Ageism and the presenter of the popular TED talk, “Let’s end ageism”. In her campaign against ageism she picks up the baton from Dr. Robert Butler, who coined the term and wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning Why Survive? Being Old in America.

Applewhite argues that ageism has dire health consequences since health care workers and others make assumptions about older people that are wrong as often as they are correct. Further, since people age differently, have such different desires and goals, and live in various circumstances, blunt instruments such as the Social Security retirement age don’t work well. Just as we have retirement off ramps, we need on ramps for people who want to go back to work.