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Being OLD With Pride and Passion! (Over 40 W/O)Feb 14 '02 (Updated Feb 19 '02) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line This is an important essay on aging that I needed to re-write and re-post. It is also my tribute to a wonderful woman who just passed away in December 2001.
This essay on Ageism is an additional entry for the Over 40 write-off. When I held my Aging Write-Off in 2001, I begged for a place to post reviews to no avail. Since Epinions did away with the category I used in K&F to previously post this essay, I will re-post it under Member Advice, General Comments and hope for the best. Epinions doesn’t seem to think that OLD people matter, but we know better! We are all getting old--and even the baby boomers are being forced to face the fact that they will soon join the ranks of the retired. How they will handle the discrimination that comes with it is another matter. Although most of my resource material is related to the LGBT community, there is no reason these thoughts couldn’t be applied to any community that wishes to use it. After all, they took our Red HIV/AIDS Ribbon, changed the color at every chance they got, and used our idea to bring attention to everything under the sun. In 1996 I wrote a lengthy piece about OLD Gays, Invisibility and Ageism for our local LGBT publication. I sent a copy to a lesbian friend who lives in the southwest with her partner of many years and got an e-mail with a short lecture and a rough tally of my use of every word but OLD to describe who we were. It seems I used the words “Elder” 8 times; “Older” 25 times; “Senior” 3 times and “Old” only 7 times. This gal was a stickler for the use of the O-word. She patiently explained it all to me saying, “It’s hard to use the word old, given the amount of brainwashing we have had, but it was also very empowering when you can get past the bad stuff and just say it. For most people what comes up is the instant picture you get when you say that word. We have to change that.” For myself, I have been calling myself an old man since I received that very revealing e-mail. Shevy Healy recently passed away and I will miss her very much. I am re-posting this piece as a tribute to her. Her partner has installed a web page with a short biography with a section of Eulogies, Tributes and a Guest Book. It has been signed by some of the most famous lesbian activists of our day, not to mention more than a few gay men who believed in what she tried to teach us. Go have a look if you’re so inclined; it’s at http://www.impactvr.com/shevy. Shevy Healy became an activist early on, and came out as a lesbian at age 50. She liked to be called old, as that’s what she says she was . . . OLD. She said, “I am old, and I choose to call myself old with passion and pride.” She said she and others were reclaiming that word from all of its negative connotations. She said with pride, “I am old, and this is what old looks like.“ As for calling anyone older, her favorite retort to that is: Older than what? What she has to say about the word elderly isn’t printable. Shevy was one of the founders of OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). I often got large manila envelopes filled with literature she had written for one purpose or another. The latest one was an exercise titled Ageism Fishbowl. It relies on a facilitator and 22 participants. She gave me permission to quote from it. The exercise is a series of twenty-two statements that start with “I never want to hear ______ again.” The blank is filled in with endings such as: You don’t look your age. “This,” she says, “is no compliment, it’s a direct expression of ageism. It says that to be old is synonymous with being ugly. What you really are saying when you tell me I don’t look my age is that if I did I would look awful, so isn’t it wonderful that I don’t.” I recently turned 70. I’ve been applying for some aging benefits I missed the first time around. I get ageist comments all the time and when I explain that I don’t appreciate them, City, County and Federal workers seem very surprised and say they thought they were paying me a compliment. At this point I give them my friend’s lecture and ask them to think for a moment what it means to an old person to hear over and over again how awful it is for them to look his or her own age! I usually get a “thank you for that,” but some of them just don’t get it. This goes for internalized ageism and homophobia within the LGBT community, too. There is an LGBT group called SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment). My friend says, “almost all of the employees are younger folks, and most of the volunteers are old gays and lesbians. So since ageism is something we all incorporate, unless there is lots of work to be done to ride ourselves of it, the very structure of this organization . . . leads to ageism. . . .” Other example of what my friend and her friends never want to hear are words and phrases like: “you’re feisty,” “age is only a state of mind,” “you’re not old, you’re young at heart” or “you remind me of my grandmother/father.” No old person wants to have someone speaking for him or her as though they don’t have the sense to speak for themselves. They don’t like to be labeled as selfish, childish or crotchety simply because they have grown mature enough to know what they want and to ask for it. We aren’t very fond of having someone say, “Oh, do you still ______?” You can fill in the blank with phrases like “play tennis,” “hike” or “swim” or any other activity you don’t think you should see old people doing. When I’m out riding my bike and I hear someone make comments about it, I tell them that they have an ageist assumption that “old equals decrepit,” and it ain’t true! Some are amazed and agree. Some are shocked that an old man would dare to speak up. Another ageist comment I particularly dislike is for a doctor or nurse--both of whom who should know better-- say, “What do you expect at your age?” I have my doctor trained. He got “the lecture” the moment I had my first visit and he and I respect each other all the more for it. If he has to call someone in for consultation, he lets them know how I expect to be treated--with respect, honesty and a little humor. I want medicines and procedures explained to me. I want constructive help with my Power of Attorney for Health Care. What I don’t want is to be treated like some “old fool.” My friend wrote: “What I expect as I grow old is better care, not worse, since I know that old age is not a disease. Science tells me that with a proper diet, exercise and proper medical attention, old people can live in a state of wellness until just briefly before death.” I think it’s important for all people--young and old--gay and straight--to know that old age is a process of improvement. It should not be looked at as “what has been lost (our youth), but rather what has been gained (experience and knowledge). She went into quite a rant regarding age and asexuality. Just because we are old does not mean we are asexual. Hardly! To assume, as most people do, that age and asexuality go together is false, ageist and insulting. Many old people have rewarding sex lives. Many old people choose to be alone, and many who didn’t like the segregation they experienced in their younger years, certainly don’t want to experience that feeling when they grow old. To assume that all old people are sick, lonely and despairing is a mistake. As far as research and questionnaires go, old people don’t want to be a part of them without some input. My friend took a stand with the people in the Disability Rights Movement who say, “Nothing About Me Without Me.” She wanted to be an integral part of her community--neither a relic nor a role model. She wanted to be appreciated for who she was and she wanted to contribute now! Some other ageist things my friend and her friends don’t want to encounter are beauty ads that tell them to “fight” growing old and to “fight” wrinkles. The beauty business is built on a woman’s fear of growing old. The equation of youthful attractiveness is based on being young, skinny and white! She and her friends don’t want to have to “pass” for being younger. She asks how they can have a good old age when you’re in a war zone? That’s degrading and alienating. Like my friend, I believe that the work should focus on helping old gays and lesbians to help themselves and/or to ask for help as needed. Not, as she said, “from a one-down position, but from a place of pride in their maturity and their contributions past and current.” My friend didn’t want to be dragged out and put on exhibit on a yearly basis; she wanted to be on the Board where she could help. Another thing I don’t like hearing is someone who says, “I didn’t mean it that way!” Well, maybe you didn’t, but maybe you are uninformed. You can’t be blamed for the thoughtlessness and poison of ageism. Ageism affects everyone and I hope this essay has helped you to understand what age discrimination can do to you, no matter who you are. From now on, when you are with an old person in any situation, I hope you can treat them as you would like to be treated yourself. After all, one day you will be us! Robert Butler coined the word Ageism in 1968. He defined it as "a process of systematic stereotyping of, and discrimination against, people because they are old, just as racism and sexism accomplished this with skin color and gender." Ageism is invisible and continues its discrimination regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or sexual preference. It affects everyone in every community--heterosexual as well as homosexual, bisexual and transgendered folks who have a double prejudice going for them. Imagine the joy of being called an “old f*g” or an “old dyke” by people in your own community. It happens, and the guilty range in age from their teens to over 60. We need to work on our own “internalized” ageism and homophobia.  |
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