Age and Ageism Dominate This Week’s Headlines

On Thursday, February 16, CNN This Morning co-anchor Don Lemon declared on the air to his female co-anchors that 51-year-old Nikki Haley, newly-announced Republican candidate for president, was not “in her prime,” a statement he made in reference to her age. When given the opportunity to walk back his ageist and sexist pronouncement, he instead doubled-down, imploring his colleagues to “look it up.”

Fast forward twenty-four hours, and the family of 67-year-old Bruce Willis sadly announced he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). FTD is the second-most prevalent form of early-onset dementia after Alzheimer’s disease, and though dementia is most commonly associated with much older adults, the signs and symptoms of FTD often appear between the ages of 45 and 65.

Then, just twenty-four hours after that, the family of former President Jimmy Carter announced that, at the age of 98, he had elected to enter hospice care at home. While a 98-year-old man entering hospice care may not seem unexpected, the fact that this same man was hard at work building homes on behalf of Habitat for Humanity just three years earlier—after having been diagnosed with and treated for brain cancer, no less—does seem rather extraordinary.

What do these three news-making stories have in common? They all serve as critical reminders that one CANNOT—and SHOULD NOT—make generalizations when it comes to age.

In its 2015 report, Gauging Aging: Mapping the Gaps Between Expert and Public Understandings of Aging in America, the FrameWorks Institute found that ageism, what many consider to be the last “acceptable” form of discrimination, is the only form of discrimination in which the victims are also the perpetrators. Numerous other sources note that gendered ageism—the intersection of age and gender bias—make the situation even worse for women.

Case in point, Mr. Lemon, who publicly questioned 51-year-old Ms. Haley’s abilities, even though he, at age 56, is five years her senior. That said, his remarks came in response to Ms. Haley’s proposal that politicians over the age of 75 be subject to a mental competency test—a clear example of the victim as perpetrator.

The fact is age is nothing more than a barometer of time on this earth. It is not a predictor of intellect, energy, stamina, talent, charisma, or ability (cognitive, physical, or otherwise). Neither is it an indicator of a person’s willingness or ability to work hard, learn new skills, adapt to change, entertain new ideas, or engage in new experiences. And contrary to popular belief, “aging” does not begin in one’s 40’s, 50’s, or 60’s. It begins at birth. While many people are “old” in their 50’s, others remain “young” well into their 90’s.

The same can be said for gender—cis, trans, non-binary, or otherwise. Gender itself does not hamper a person’s ability to make a contribution to or achieve success in this world. Sadly, society takes care of that—by imposing constraints on a woman’s earning power, ability to assert herself in the workplace, and opportunity to move up the corporate ladder after having children. In fact, a woman with C-suite experience in her 50’s reported she was told by a potential employer, “I can hire you, or I can hire a 25-year-old who’s pretty.” Ageist? Yes. An isolated incident? No.

It's time for people—and, perhaps, the media in particular—to stop labeling or making assumptions about individuals based on their age or gender. It is no different than making assumptions on them based on their skin color, sexual preference, religion, ethnicity, and so on. It does both them and society an enormous disservice and perpetuates negative stereotypes that should long ago have been abandoned.

More importantly, it’s time for society to see aging for what it actually is. Because no matter how old a person is—or what gender a person is—Aging. Is. Living. And that’s a good thing. Period.