This Chair Rocks

This Chair Rocks

Adult nonfiction
"I've never lied about my age--I have no problem saying 'I'm
sixty-five' loud and clear--but I sure know a lot of people who do.
People who've lied on resumes and on airlines and on dates. There was
the opera singer who fudged upward at the beginning of her career so
she could get cast as Norma, but was holding at thirty-nine and the
woman who loved passing off her granddaughters as her daughters, and
who was regularly connected to her bank's fraud department because she
couldn't remember what birth date she was using."
I bet you know at least person who's fudging her age: having
yet another 29th birthday or spending mad bucks on everything from
hair dye to toxin injections. Call it what it is: passing. As in
other forms of passing (for white, for straight) it happens in a
society where a false binary sorts humanity into normative and
despised other with serious penalties for being in the wrong group.
America is a decidedly ageist nation. Ashton Applewhite, quoted
above, spells out the whole sordid state of affairs in her This Chair
Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, exposing practices that range from
discouraging to deadly including:
*how politicians pit younger and older voters against each other (well
we can increase funding for schools or "elder" housing, but not both)
to successfully ditract all of us from seeing how we're being screwed
by the greed of the wealthy and their bought and owned legislators;
*how language really matters. Words like elderly reinforce
stereotypes of senility, incompetence, and fragility. Internalizing
these stereotypes actually leads to earlier deaths;
*how unfounded stereotypes on the part of managers and other hirers
prevent older people from getting jobs for which they're perfectly
qualified;
and *how older patients tend to get both under treated and over
medicated.
"Like racism and sexism, ageism is not about how we look. It's
about what people in power want our appearance to mean. Ageism occurs
when the dominant group uses its power to oppress or exploit or
silence or simply ignore people who are much younger or significantly
older. We experience ageism any time someone assumes we're too old
for something--a task, a relationship, a haircut--instead of finding
our who we are and what we're capable of..."
The book isn't all gloom and doom though. Applewhite has plenty
of ways we can all work together to turn our current sorry state of
affairs around. She ends her introduction with this very inspiring
paragraph:
"This book is a call to wake up to the ageism in and around us,
embrace a much more nuanced and accurate view of growing older, cheer
up, and push back...What might an age-friendly world--friendly to all
ages, that is--look like? What can we do, individually and
collectively, to provoke the necessary change in consciousness, and
catalyze a necessary age movement to make it happen?
Let's find out."
Amen to that! You can start by reading the book.
On a purrrsonal note, I did have enough iron to donate blood
yesterday. Yay! I found out my blood pressure is 114/68 which is
EXCELLENT! I volunteered 4 1/2 hours at canteen. Then I went to a
most excellent study session for the theories final.
The next couple of weeks I will be achieving all my academics and work
shifts for the semester. I have the biggest incentive ever to offer
myself. When I have all the school stuff taken care of I am going to
check out the credible rumors that Old Town Animal Orphanage has some
cuddle cats. What I really want for Christmas is a feline friend.
And I have a lot to offer a home needing cat.
Great big shout outs go out to everyone involved in the blood drive,
the sweet little cat who I have to believe is out there, and the best
little cat in the world who left indellible paw prints on my heart.
jules hathaway


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