Which discrimination -ism is still alive and well?

[Slytovhand]

Racism is bad.

Sexism is bad.

Religion-ism is bad.

Yet, age-ism is alive and well!

Ain't it funny how it's perfectly alright to judge a person merely on a number - a number, I might add, that no-one knows until you tell them (or they find out some other way).

Ain't it also just pathetic that once a person knows that number, they automatically make judgements about what you're supposed to like or dislike, how you're supposed to behave and how not... about how 'mature' you are, what you should or shouldn't be doing with your life... and, of course, the things you are supposed to have done or achieved.

Don't it just suck that you can't take a person for who they are... based solely on how they are to you, how they speak to you, etc??


Yes, I'm somewhat jaded with the old "you're too old for XYZ" (especially if 'XYZ' = 'me').

[Gravekeeper]

Is there an example to back up this hypothesis? -.-

[Greenday]

Is there an example to back up this hypothesis? -.-

One of my co-workers would talk down to me because I'm "young therefore I don't know anything." Who cares if he's spent his entire life working pharmaceuticals and I've spent the past four years studying forensics. Obviously he knows more about explosives and forensics than I do because he's older.

[lupo pazzesco]

I don't know that I fully agree with the OP without some kind of evidence or facts, but I can offer personal experience.

I recently started taking cooking and technique classes ever Sunday. The instructors cycle out, and one of the apparently doesn't believe anyone under 30 is worth listening to or taking questions from. I've made friends with an older couple in the class, and we've all three of us noticed. This particular instructor would ask if there were any questions, and I'd try to ask one. She'd talk right over me.

However, cue one of them asking the same thing I asked, but in a softer voice, and the instructor would pause the class, and ask for the question to be repeated. Then she'd say "that's a great question! Well, when you..." etc, etc, etc.

Normally, I'd consider it a one off, but every single class I've attended with this instructor, without fail, it has happened several times. Also, one particular class was on tarts and pies, and she asked if anyone had ever made an all butter crust. I raised my hand because I had. She then asked "so you know you can't cut butter that's been in the freezer."

I said "well, actually, I put my butter in the freezer for a half hour, then use a sharp knife and it cuts just fine..."

Ooooh, I got glared at and ignored after that...

*shrugs* Wouldn't call it evidence per se, but it's a personal example of what I consider being ignored because I'm younger...

[bex1218]

I deal with it all the time. My ex gf used to use my age against me "You're 19 years old, you don't know what love is!" This was 2 years ago. She was 23 then. A whole 4 years worth of nothing. Dingbat.

Everyone experience things differently and mature differently. I was more mature for my age when I was 3 years old than a lot of kids. When I was in High School, people thought I was way older when I was 15 due to that fact.

[Andara Bledin]

You can see it on CS.

Children are a protected status, with them being the only ones you can't refer to with harsh names. Old people, on the other hand, can be called just about any age-related slur that doesn't violate another rule with impunity.

It's something that's notable enough that I've mention it to a mod or two when specific examples crop up. From my non-mod perspective, nothing came of it.

^-.-^

[SongsOfDragons]

I can understand ageism when it's used against children: 'you're too young to go on the big slide, Billy', etc etc. There is a time of life where you really will be 'too young for X', especially if X requires height, strength or basic maturity rather than something more mandated by law such as driving or voting.

However, I'm sure there's a fuzzy line there. I'd like to think that if you can act like an adult then you may well be treated like one - and 'adult' has a veeery wide definition. XD I know I have matured in the last five years - I've looked at my posts on here and CS pre-2010...X.x shoot me...

Every so often the British press has a hoo-ha about ageism, usually when some middle-aged woman of some description has been let go from X programme.

[Jaden]

I've matured a lot between the time I used to be around here/CS and now as well.

While I agree ageism is most likely a bigger problem in the way of the elderly, I can think of one major way in which ageism hurts young people a lot - teenagers, and parents' attitudes towards them. I'm not going to be too harsh on my parents. They've been very supportive since they found out I have depression. But, I probably could've gotten treatment a lot sooner if I hadn't come down with depression as a teenager, because my parents' reaction towards my behavior wasn't to try to talk to me about why I was feeling so bad, it was "Teenagers hate everything, one day you'll grow out of this and see how much of a brat you were being." So that made me feel guilty, which made me more depressed, which...well, you get the idea. And that seems to be the attitude of most adults towards teenagers. It may be true fairly often that teenagers are angsty, but I think it's best to not write it off and find out if it's something deeper first. It could've saved me a lot of pain and anguish =/

[Ginger Tea]

I don't know if the OP is on about online or real life for the finding out of the age or not, least face to face you can see that one is a teenager/early 20 something and the other is more 40+

I guess a fair few adult males could be seen as creepy for being on a forum for a band that is favoured by a more late teen mid twenty audience, but if they like the music and perhaps it reminds them of music from their youth, then perhaps they are there cos they like the music and are not there to try and pull younger women.

or berating someone younger for liking a 'classic' movie like Citizen Kane, normally it's a movie that people are forced to discover on film school assignments, or part of a film snobs bingo card, good as it may be I have yet to watch it.
But said person could have been exposed to it at a very early age by a parent and seen it many many times.

When I was younger most of my peers were watching Disney and similar movies on VHS, I had a few kids movies, but I watched the shit out of the wild bunch, once upon a time in the west convoy and driver, it's been years since I watched the spaghettie westerns of Eastwood's career or later westerns, but my dad loved westerns, didn't get me into John Wayne movies though.

Hell I was too busy listnening to my dad's LP's to even notice 90's music save for grunge and he liked Jagged little pill more than I did.

[Ree]

You can see it on CS.

Children are a protected status, with them being the only ones you can't refer to with harsh names.

In my case, as a mod, I don't allow bashing of children simply because they are young and not totally accountable for their actions. When any slurs occur, it's usually because the children are behaving badly in public and in almost every case, their parent is standing by, oblivious, or even seemingly encouraging the bad behaviour.
That, to me, speaks more of lousy parenting than bad character in the child, so why take it out on them and use filthy, disgusting names?

In the case of a senior, unless they have lost all their mental faculties, they are responsible for their behaviour.

They have lived long enough to know how to behave in public, and how to treat other people.
Even if they had parents who did a lousy job, at some point, they must have observed how society expects a person to behave. If they didn't adjust their behaviour accordingly, then, yeah, I have no problem with someone pointing out that they are "old and miserable".

Of course, if the person is actually senile, and I am aware of bashing against them, I'm pretty sure that's something I would speak against. If there has been such an incident that was brought to my attention, and I haven't acted on, I apologize.

Can you cite examples where an insult or label as comparably heinous as "crotch fruit" or "vagina nugget" has been used against an elderly person and left unchecked?

Those are the usual things we clamp down on when it comes to insults against children, you see.

I'm pretty sure it's still open season on teens at CS as well, even though I do have a huge problem with all teens being generalized as spoiled, selfish brats who swarm in hordes to business with only one thought in mind - to steal as much as they can and deface as much as they can.

So, yeah, it's pretty much the young and/or defenseless who get protection from the CS mods, although, always, at heart, we ask people to post tastefully, and with respect.

[KellyHabersham]

Is there an example to back up this hypothesis? -.-

A few from my personal experiences.....

- back in high school, I remember my grandma calling the house wanting to talk to my mom about something, and ( I forget how this came up) I mentioned something about being tired because of rehearsals for the school musical. Grandma just kind of laughed in a condescending way, and brushed it off with "Oh, you don't know what work is!"

- my brother used to complain about one of our aunts sometimes talking to him as though he was still a little kid, and she occasionally did the same thing with me.

[HYHYBT]

One of the categories that got dropped from CS pretty early on was entitled "Sick of Seniors." Mostly stuff about taking too long filing out checks, from what little I can remember.

[Rapscallion]

I don't even remember that one - must have been long before I took over.

Rapscallion

[HYHYBT]

I'm pretty sure it was gone long before you started posting, much less rescued the site. There were areas based on the static lists that were the original site. The only others I remember the names of were "Customers Suck When..." (a catchall, more or less) and "The Dumb are Dining."

[Slytovhand]

I guess a fair few adult males could be seen as creepy for being on a forum for a band that is favoured by a more late teen mid twenty audience, but if they like the music and perhaps it reminds them of music from their youth, then perhaps they are there cos they like the music and are not there to try and pull younger women..

Ummm, what's "creepy" about an older person trying to pull a younger woman (of the legally consenting variety - especially, say, "mid-20's")?? That is precisely my point...