Talk Title: Agelessness? No thanks!
- What is ageism?
- How ageism affects self-esteem and sense of self.
- Where ageism comes from—in ourselves and the world at large.
- Who benefits from ageism (medical and commercial interests that profit hugely by framing aging as an illness to be cured or problem to be “fixed” or process to be “stopped”).
- How ageism diminishes our prospects and weakens the social fabric.
- Why our goal should be health, not youth (aka “agelessness”).
- Why embracing aging as a natural, inevitable, and powerful process is infinitely preferable to chasing the punitive and unattainable goal of “staying young.”
- Why we need a movement to make discrimination on the basis of age as unacceptable as any other kind —age pride!
Author and activist Ashton Applewhite has been recognized as an expert on ageism by the New York Times, National Public Radio, and the American Society on Aging.
She blogs at This Chair Rocks , speaks widely, has written for Harper’s and Playboy, and is the voice of Yo, Is This Ageist?
In 2015 she was included in Salt magazine’s list of 100 inspiring women—along with Aung San Suu Kyi, Angelina Jolie, Elizabeth Warren, Germaine Greer, Naomi Klein, and other remarkable activists—who are committed to social change.
She believes, Ageism is emerging as a pressing human rights and social justice issue, and Ashton has become a leading spokesperson in the movement against it.
Longevity is here to stay. Everyone is aging. Ending ageism benefits us all. Ashton’s work is a call to wake up to the ageism in and around us, cheer up, and push back against the forces that frame it as decline. She is the author of Amazon best-seller This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism.
