I looked up the word ‘ageism’ on the internet and got about 88,60,000 results within 0.42 seconds, but what does it really mean?
In simple words, ageism is discrimination based on age. Ageism includes stereotypes, myths, avoidance of contact and discrimination in housing, etc.. like other forms of discrimination, ageism can have a negative impact on an individual whether it may be mentally, socially, or physically, and in fact, some of us even advertise ageism, for example, in hair color ads, there is always a woman/man who has gray hair and she/he wants to hide it and when they do, their hair is shown to look absolutely flawless!
Some more examples of ageism can be viewing older people as out of touch, less productive, or stuck in their ways. I feel the main cause of ageism is fear of dependence and death. As we grow older we begin to overthink and feel that we are depending on someone whether it may be in your workplace or even your household, addressing an older woman as a ‘young lady’ can also be a form of ageism, why can we just admit that she's old, in fact, we choose to subtly address the idea that ‘old’ is bad! Telling someone to consider the idea of retirement can also be a form of promoting ageism, even if you mean it for their own benefit!