WHERE AGEISM COMES FROM AND WHAT IT DOES

When geriatrician Robert Butler coined the term "ageism" in 1969 — not long after "sexism" made its debut — he defined it as a combination of prejudicial attitudes toward older people, old age, and aging itself; discriminatory practices against olders; and institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about them. The term was quickly adopted by the media and added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Almost half a century later, it's barely made inroads into public consciousness, not to mention provoked outcry.

Negative messages about aging cast a shadow across the entire life of every American, stunting our prospects, economy, and civic life. This is oppression: being controlled or treated unjustly. However, most Americans have yet to put their concerns about aging in a social or political context. When I ask people if they know what ageism is, most reflect for a moment, compare the word to other "isms," and realize what it must mean. The concept rings true, and they nod. But it's still a new idea to most. And unless social oppression is called out, we don't see it as oppression. Perpetuating it doesn't require conscious prejudice or deliberate discrimination. This lesser life is "just the way it is," and the way it probably always will be.

IT WASN'T ALWAYS LIKE THIS

In most prehistoric and agrarian societies, the few people who lived to old age were esteemed as teachers and custodians of culture. Religion gave older men power. History was a living thing passed down across generations. This oral tradition took a serious hit with the invention of the printing press, when books became alternative repositories of knowledge. As long as old age remained relatively rare, though, olders retained social standing as possessors of valuable skills and information. The young United States was a gerontocracy, which served the older men who held the reins; younger citizens had to age into positions of authority.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a reversal. Modernity brought massive transitions that reduced the visibility of older members of society, diminished their opportunities, and eroded their authority. Rapid social change made learning about the past seem less relevant. Aging turned from a natural process into a social problem to be "solved" by programs like Social Security and "retirement villages." The nursing home, a "shotgun marriage of the poorhouse and the hospital" in geriatrician Bill Thomas's memorable phrase, came into being and created a growth industry. The historians Thomas R. Cole and David Hackett Fischer have documented how, at the start of the nineteenth century, the idea of aging as part of the human condition, with its inevitable limits, increasingly gave way to a conception of old age as a biomedical problem to which there might be a scientific solution. What was lost was a sense of the life span, with each stage having value and meaning.

Propelled by postwar leisure and prosperity, the explosion of consumer culture, and research into a stage of life newly dubbed "adolescence," youth culture emerged as a distinct twentieth-century phenomenon. As this "cult of youth" grew, gerontophobia — fear of aging and dislike, even hatred, of old people — gained traction. Those of us who grew up in the 1960s and '70s were warned not to trust anyone over thirty, perhaps the first overt exhortation to take sides across a generational divide. The decades beyond thirty appeared ever less enviable. "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" crooned the Beatles.

GROWING OLD HAS BECOME SHAMEFUL

The status of older Americans is rooted not only in historic and economic circumstances but also in deeply human fears about the inherent vulnerabilities of old age: the loss of mobility, visibility, and autonomy. Not all of these transitions befall us all, and only two unwelcome ones are inevitable: We'll lose people we've known all our lives, and some part of our bodies will fall apart. These changes are natural. But we live in a culture that has yet to develop the language and tools to help us deal with them. That's partly because these changes make us feel vulnerable, partly because longer lives are such a new phenomenon, and partly because of ageism, both internalized and in the culture at large. As a result, all too often these transitions are characterized by shame and loss of self-esteem.

Internalized, these fears and anxieties pave the way for a host of unhealthy behaviors that include denial, overcompensation, and worse: actual contempt, which legitimizes stigma and discrimination. Two characteristics of marginalized populations are self-loathing and passivity — what my daughter tactfully dubbed the "yuck/pity factor" that the prospect of growing old invokes in so many.

As a friend who bought a house from a wheelchair user observed, "Damn, it's nice to have wide doorways, and a toilet positioned this way — they should just do it for everyone." That's the premise of universal design — that products designed for older people and people with disabilities work great for everyone else too. Age-friendly products improve the built environment and make it more accessible, but stigma keeps them off the market. Realtors advise removing ramps and grip bars before putting a house on the market, as though no buyer could see accessibility as a bonus or aging into it as a necessity. Alas, thanks to internalized ageism, they've got a point.

Stigma trumps even the bottom line. There's a fast-growing "silver market," especially for products that promote "age-independence technology," yet advertisers continue to pay a premium to target eighteen-to-thirty-five-year-olds. Despite the significant purchasing power of older buyers, retailers are uneasy about stocking products for them and companies are leery of investing. Unless they're selling health aids, brands don't want to be associated with the no-longer-young set either. Just as telling is the resistance of older consumers themselves to buying products that might telegraph poor eyesight or balance.

Instead we blame ourselves for a vast range of circumstances not of our making and over which we have no control. Difficulties turn us into "problem people." When labels are hard to read or handrails missing or containers hard to open, we fault ourselves for not being more limber or dexterous or better prepared. Watching an older person struggling to heave herself out of a low chair, we assume her leg muscles are weak or her balance is shot, instead of considering the inadequacies of seating so deep or low to the ground. If we see a teenager...