Daily Times

Ageism is the latest innovation in patriarchy that is bound to be the ultimate battlefield of all women who are fighting their equality and empowerment cases in hostile board rooms; trying to break the brass and glass ceilings; opposing the language of discrimination; rejecting benevolence, sexism and paradigms of limitations

Despite experiencing a cycle of discrimination that starts at the prenatal stage girls have greater survival rate and longevity. According to the medical journal The Lancet (2009), more than half of all babies born in industrialized nations since the year 2000 can expect to live into the triple digits. Thus, a little girl born after 2007 will have an average life expectancy, of100 in many western countries and 104 in the US. Would there be a global gender harmony then or is she most likely to face a wounding nexus of abuse and ageism and her career stalled by a reduced tolerance for aging women at work?

According to the global age watch index (2015) Afghanistan graded lowest in the list of 96 countries and Pakistan bagged 92nd position. Pakistan’s life expectancy will increase to 72 years by 2023 and yet geriatric medicine is neither customary nor routinely exercise in Pakistan. The influence of ageism in countries like ours that are characterised by the patriarchal consensus in socio-development sectors, low scores on human development indicators and marked gender disparities remains an untapped area of research and policy advocacy.

Ageism is one of the many expressions of chauvinism and is a relatively less recognized reality. In the 1960’s along with the feminism and racism, the term ageism was constructed. The creator was the Pulitzer Prize-winning geriatrician Robert Butler who defined it as a process of systematic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old, just as racism and sexism accomplish this with skin colour and gender. Old people are categorised as senile, rigid in thought and manner, old-fashioned in morality and skills. Ageism allows the younger generations to see older people as different from themselves; thus they subtly cease to identify with their elders as human beings.”

According to the Global AgeWatch Index 2015, Afghanistan graded lowest in the list of 96 countries and Pakistan bagged 92nd position

Canada, (currently governed by a feminist premier) used to hold the top spot on gender equality in 1995, but plummeted to 25th over the last 20 years. It has the poorest of the poor women within its vulnerable populations. The comparative rate of poverty among the Canadian single senior women (18 percent) is double the poverty rate among single senior men.

The US, (number 28 on gender inequality in the year 2016) has the robust evidence of age discrimination, in hiring against older women despite having an ADEA (Age Discrimination in Employment Act) that protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age.

Age discrimination is the number one cause of poverty in Japan, standing 111 on gender inequality. Women in China (63rd in gender inequality), where girls are banned from studying a variety of subjects — apparently out of respect for women’s safety, face the great wall of inequity in employment.

Ageism-discrimination is experienced by women in nearly all countries including brazenly dependent countries like ours where human/gender equality is seldom an actual practice but merely a widely consumed jargon in the technical proposals of aid agencies and official stances.

In the prime of my youth I re-read Simon de Beauvoir’s, “the coming of old age” and was struck by this insight. While wondering that are old people really human beings, I framed a portrait of “Pakistani Society’s secret shame” in sinfaur burhapa (gender and old age), one of the 19-episodes in my award-winning series “Gender Watch” in 1999-2000 on the state owned PTV, as a private producer.

For the past twenty-five years or so, I have been living as a self-made professional (a without botox ageing woman) and been travelling across the globe including Pakistan, doing rights based advocacy, vocalising and conducting research on women’s issues like gender based violence, social entrepreneurship, leadership, career growth, reproductive health, representation of women in politics, media and security sectors. One of my key discoveries is to “value youth over experience” which is an almost implicit policy and an explicit practice for the last 8-10 years in the case of women.

Single parents and divorced women bear the greater burden of ageism. Globally, 70 percent of the world’s poor are women, and old women are the poorest of the poor. While it may take an estimated 170 years to achieve global economic equality, women, it seems, are eternally destined to cope with the scrutiny on their physical appearance — a sexist trial that does not seem to similarly impact men. The sanguinity that the world is finally entering the age of women may need a review.

Mere avoidance of ageist adjectives and usage of badass in feminist fora’s may have soothing effects acoustically, visually and emotionally but it would neither increase the call back rate of competent ageing women job applicants nor create roles and relevance of seasoned women performers in film, theatre and TV.

Ageism is the latest innovation in patriarchy that is bound to be the ultimate battle field of all women who are fighting their equality and empowerment cases in hostile board rooms; trying to break the brass and glass ceilings; opposing the language of discrimination; rejecting benevolence, sexism and limiting paradigms. Ageism is the reflection of an intellectual crisis, and must be attended as a disaster by policy makers in all sectors, social gatekeepers and the media.

The writer is a Gender Expert, researcher, activist and a free thinker. She can be reached at dr.r.perveen@gmail.com

Published in Daily Times, September 19^th 2017.