Unmasking the ‘elderly mystique’: Why it is time to make the personal political in ageing research

Abstract

This article uses feminist scholarship to investigate 'the elderly mystique' -which contends that the potential of old age is masked by a set of false beliefs about ageing (i.e. ageism) which permeate social, economic and political life (Cohen, 1988).The article presents a theoretical model which explores the extent to which institutionalised ageism shapes the trajectory of life after 60. i The hypothesis underpinning the model is simple: The challenge for ageing societies is not the average age of a given population but, rather, how age is used to structure economic, social and political life. An inter-disciplinary framework is used to examine how biological facts about ageing are used to segregate older from younger people, giving older people the status of "other"; economically through retirement, politically through assumptions about 'the grey vote' and socially through ageist stereotyping in the media and through denial and ridicule of the sexuality of older people. Each domain is informed by the achievements of feminist theory and research on sexism and how its successes and failures can inform critical investigations of ageism.The paper recognises the role of ageism in de-politicising the lived experience of ageing. The paper concludes that feminist scholarship, particularly work by feminists in their seventies, eighties and nineties has much to offer in terms of re-framing gerontology as an emancipatory project for current and future cohorts of older people.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Retired

“…In describing their retirement transitions, participants described an abrupt shift from having been the one in charge to being someone who acquiesced to ageist norms while holding strong desires to continue to remain engaged in the paid workforce. These findings reinforce the notion that the true challenge for aging societies is not that the proportion of older adults is increasing, but instead how age is used to influence economic and social life (Carney & Gray, 2015).…”

A Theory of Relational Ageism: A Discourse Analysis of the 2015 White House Conference on Aging

“…Each of us in the aging services network has an ethical obligation to address the unintentional communication and perpetuation of ageism by focusing attention on our own use of language. By making the personal political, we can link activism and scholarship in our efforts to disrupt the negative master cultural narrative about aging, drawing inspiration from the women's movement (Carney & Gray, 2015). Perhaps, the start to this process is to challenge our dissonant beliefs about our own aging and to publicly express the value of aging and pride in our age.…”

Toward a gender politics of aging

“…women) at different points on their life course. First, the view proposed in this article -that aging at the population level is not necessarily a problem, but is conceived as a problem due to endemic sexism at the societal level (Carney and Gray, 2015) is supported by the notion of anti-ageism as a belief system, rather than an evidence based, neutral, policy intervention. For critical gerontologists (myself included) anti-ageism is more than a research question, it is a belief system akin to feminist politics.…”