Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller; #74; How To End Ageism - Ashton Applewhite, Activist & Author"

thing one came up to me after a talk one time and she said you don't get i have children to support and if i didn't die my hair my boss would think i was older he would hire me i'm always on a mission as old as humanity itself to change our attitudes about each and ej i feel much freer in my body free of my speech more confident that i did when i was younger i wouldn't be a teenager or in my twenties again for a million billion dollars thank you npr you can wind one came up to being

a master at one time and she said you don't get i have children to support and if i did die my hair and my boss would think i was older he would fire me and she's right but the problem is not whether here the problem is with the society and of course it's appalling pushing a damn big ron hubbard be a big deal to say we need to change our attitudes and a look at how our attitudes have changed about race and about sacks great you know gender and they will begin in will change around age because we know it's not ok we do when she was at her native ashton applewhite like many of us resisted the idea of getting older everything she thought about old age he learned from moving tv in ads some projects on the premise that aging is a problem to be solved like with the right anti wrinkle cream or medication you can overcome it and somehow stop time people can make money so there's a

lot of market forces training aging as a problem or a disease is neither is a natural powerful lifelong process that we all share and that should unite us of course we all have our perceptions of what holden is like when i was twelve that thirty was able to do it wasn't until asked and have the opportunity to learn what life was actually like from people in their ad is that she realized everything she thought about eating was wrong what she discovered inspired her not only to learn more about the real true aging process but also to quit her job to retire and focusing all of her energy and being an activist to leave the fight against what she calls the last acceptable prejudice ages past and has just published a manifesto against teaches them called this chair

rocks think about infection plate radiated outward in egypt had talked this artist complex ending teaches at the end she received a standing ovation is on to something like most women my age in which if you care of reveal later in the show i've fallen for the narrative that aging and getting older might mean it being less relevant less interesting and less employable not to mention our lux is now having older parents i've fallen and i can't get out well i've become irrelevant or obsolete in your eyes or years as i get older it easier or harder for me to continue the work that i'm passionate about and so many women talk about being liberated and feeling powerful and you know i don't know if that's been your experience about it i feel

much freer in my body free advice be to more confident than i did when i was younger i wouldn't be a teenager in my twenties again for a million billion dollars what is a design look like and if we see it through asked how can we can i stop trying to stop getting old and start increasing as an amazing part of the human condition snappy comeback to backhanded compliments like you rate for your age think is a start but then being judged ruin so this idea that you had that you'd just didn't wanna get old and when i think about getting older and we're hearing it tell me what you've learned about yourself well it was going to be this project called i i started a blog called so when you get a retired dot com and i did have a proposal about why work is good for you and it was boring the board evenly be close the

reasons why work is good for us are intuitively obvious and i was stumped for a long timeline new that age is something i did one of those word clouds on my blogging as you can see which turns crop up the most visually and it was it was always front and center it was obvious that we you know that the culture drowns out all but the negative about late life because especially american consumer culture is so focused on youth i was really stumped for a couple of very unhappy years but i remember thinking to myself look if all you get out of this is that you feel so much better about your own later life because this is day that this is science this is not on you know some to some move theory you know these are these are hundreds and hundreds of studies and then that's a lot of that has to be enough you know that has to be enough and then what happened was i got invited to work in a theater

festival to speak at a theater fest older has a theme every year that's run by a friend of mine everything of course your life is to you know i have a number and then as you get older you know saying that you know more people hear you ladies and i thought you might go try your friends die you know and they're savvy careful get that right i mean it's it is really really important to keep making friends of all ages and her theme this year she's she was a good friend and she'd heard me male mealy being intrigued by this subject also very frustrating feeling stymied by what how what was i going to do with it so she picked aging answers came an older theater friends said that before you are you crazy you're going to lose all your subscribers and she tripled her subscribers and i was i was just the leading monologue or a lot of other people but on this team and the reason is because we know even if you've never even if you don't want to think about aging and you don't have any kind of political or social consciousness about it we know that the process of getting older

is different and richer and more nuanced than what the media says it is right we know even if you watch tv and you you would think from the ads that the only thing the older people by our like medicines and cruz's ill and that all those marketing checklist that end with the box it's sixty five you know seventeen to twenty four and then twenty four to thirty six and so on as though everyone over sixty five mike buys the same stuff and does the same things we know that's not true and i gave i boiled down every interesting thing i'd read every smart idea i had had an eye delivered a monologue and the response was astonishing because it was really true to people's experience it's like a jimmy openness crack in people and that you know and since then i mean i've gone on to be you know do a ton of public speaking ever in the book i have you know two blocks blah blah blah and that people say well you were talking about is the you know its its hidden in plain sight they're

all these aha moments that are very very close to the surface we just need to stop and look at them and the minute you start to see a joe some you see it everywhere the first and toughest challenge though is to see it in ourselves because we can challenge by us allies were aware of it so the first task is a tough one but i'm curious because you started this ten years ago in your mid fifties now you're in your mid sixties i am indeed that reference and sixty five because i became officially old just a few weeks ago it's all over when you're imagining when you were thinking of yourself ten years from then you know when i'm in my mid sixties until a vet's did you have a conception of white you know what at what you're in for no and i don't think i did i think it's really hard i mean i think part of our inability to look forwards or backwards is just human you know any group of seven year old of course they're all completely distinct people but they have a lot more common

developmentally and socially because they haven't been on the world that long been a group of seventeen year olds which has a lot more in common than a group of forty seven year old and so on because we at different rates physically mentally and socially so the longer we live the less that number tells us about a person's right and i don't think i have a specific idea you know what what it would be like to be sixty five or seventy five i still don't you know it's funny i just i just quit my day job so i could become an activist full time and i am i have a pension that they have paid into when i was employed and i was like well i liked how you control over wherever i went i was like whoa whoa i am the age i have been saving for yeah like a light bulb yeah i leave my husband and i just went through the process of re cut retirement of retirement planning to get rich and unremitting the dials back and forth on the subtle planning tool that lead we're using online and we start off in the red and then and then as we'd adjust to the

nods and one of the things with how long you know i have a man that we had this whole debate he's like i'm only get a lithuanian like that you might little money and what is and then suddenly i'm like what does that look like you are way out what we doing you cannot know i mean it's a really like one like he just yelled thing you see in benghazi just others like it you know sixty is the new forty sixty is not the new forty sixty after sixty no matter what you look like no matter what you're capable of so it's a really important to realize that there is no great way there is no one way you are aging successfully if you wake up in the morning and there were big air quotes around the word successfully because a lot of the media and organizations even really well intentioned was about positive aging you know they're working to counteract these negative stereotypes for to go to the other end of the spectrum and say well you know if you you know eat more kale and do enough sit ups and an acid

oakland whatever this awful aging thing won't happen to you well it's happening to all of us it's happening from the minute were born aging is not just something inconvenient write that parents do or pop stars do so it's really important to think you know that the aging is leaving and not to conflate aging with the late life which which is utterly different for each one of us you know some people are gonna wanna sit on the porch swing and relax and other people are going to want it you know jump on airplanes and try and change the world and that doesn't make my way of getting older better or more successful than someone who just wants to you know take it easy we each we age in our own way at her own speed and someone might be really active are you know mentally but not be able to get around physically or vice versa so it's really important to realize that you know that there is a big big beard there's a commercial going around aarp did a little video which was beautifully beautifully

done called what i want when the millennials wonder young people think you get old something like that you know what his old look like two young people and eight pierrot nato took a bunch of telegenic younger people and asked them well was and they said you know fifty maybe sixty day and what has all look like and maybe no they bent over where one other pretended to open a flip phone in a little slow and then he did a very smart thing they paired each of these i think it was five younger people with an older person which is brilliant because the minute you're looking at an individual you're looking at them as an individual right your stereotypes a way you're looking at that person and saying you know what are they going to look like what it seem interested in whatever you know what you look like they're capable of and then you learn and they had eaten the orders show the young person teach they had each person keeps the other person how to do something and the older people one guy did the tango and one woman was a yoga instructor and another of the older man did some kind of you know kick boxing martial arts thing he and they went through the mall you know it as a

pair and then they asked the younger people was all but like you know can they say oh all this seventy old is at right and seance great everyone loved it except me because here's the problem with that message it appears indeed the yardstick of aging to physical capacity it says you're aging well in the degree to which you can look and move like a younger version of yourself right and that's a problem because sooner or later we can't as long as the standard is to stop the clock it's a standard but none of us cannot hold then the irony of all of this is that kids always wanna be older and scientists are working really hard to extend our life expectancy is so unlike all this they had such a strict intersection have you know wouldn't see it

like society and that area is not yet think it beat it beats the alternative which which i'd which dawned on a one day it's like what that really means is the only thing worse than being old is being dead i mean i got really cranky couple weeks ago and best of a blog post post called its aging is so awful how come no one wants to be any younger right and even the people who were you know had begun to think about the switch which most people have and you know these are new ideas that i'm putting out there and are sort of the first one but there's more morris every day which is really exciting but you know even if you haven't thought about aging in a broader sense if you ask people well you could be twenty five again on how you age acts but you don't have to take your present experiences back with you i have never never met a person who would actually choose that i now do with you know i mean i have a hole in the book

about the term age was some pushback on that which i appreciate which as refine my thinking in that people say will your spirit can be ageless but in general the weight ageless is used as a construct its use on make up all the time right cosmetic argentine the candidate let's write a magazine covers all time it's used in gerontology to another study of all this if you will and the idea is that things um you know can remain unchanged but if you think about that it's like that model deprives us of our most precious assets as we get older which is our universe which is our experience which is all these you know all the things we've seen and done that make us office and that you know rich it were just an ice it saved half half jokingly but i say hand out what when we become age full instead of ageless quiet why should question that you made this is inflection point i'm lauren

shuler my guest is ashton applewhite her new book is this chair rocks a manifesto against each islam will be right back i'm lauren shuler and this is inflection point i'm talking with ashton applewhite an activist against it isn't i kind of feel like you're pushing a rock up a whole you know when you talk about like for women in particular an elected to dig into that a bit more this idea that we need to continue to look at ya neck and in order to be you know successful in

relationships successful and work and how a lot of friends you know like the costars the online etcetera etcetera children for fat hands yet the billions of dollars that go into that stocks are as i have to embrace saying the effects of aging which are naturally or i mean look look at the body acceptance movement you know there's a lot to be learned from that i mean it may seem like pushing a rock uphill but look how far we've come in a look how far the gay rights movement has come in just a few decades right i mean we used to think of gender as binary until really recently right and now we understand it's a spectrum so why on earth are we so hung up on this old young binary i think i'll get back to your point about women but we understand it think whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing that our american society is becoming more diverse the world is becoming more globalized the diversity is here to stay so i often ask people what you think

up as criteria for diversity and young people see race and they see gender and inviting new no ability disability and i say what about age and no one says that's a dumb idea right because it intuitively obvious that if you wanta live in a society where access to opportunity is not determined by what you look like whether you're blind whether you're young whether you're salman abed age belongs in secretariat so i think you know fifteen years ago to say that you know a woman could run a fortune five hundred company or a black guy could be president those or huge ass i think most people would say that you don't really have severe misgivings look how far i mean fifty years is not yesterday but you know it's not that long either if we think culturally the ground is really is has been pointed out for this last to overcome this last acceptable prejudice were getting momentum fast so i think it's less of a hill and a

smaller rocket unless you really wanna believe like well this is the way it is is the way it's always been you know society changes and we can change obviously have to believe that so i mean and for free to mess our athletes if you are often formed by the people we grow up with and our parents and couldn't put our elders and increasing elders new framework i say older self oh tears and younger it's ok that's my word lenders were unharmed by the opinions of our older is so when you were growing up what was the attitude in your house about aging how did your mom talk to you about getting older i don't remember her talking about it at all and i would even say that when you're younger as we listen much more younger son told her i think it's highly highly individual and i am a tremendous number of people who are into the field of geriatrics gerontology our arm as

you surmise deeply influenced are typically by a grandmother you know or leaving intergenerational households if you leave i'm with people who are different from you whether you ever raise different gender different whenever of course it's harder for stereotypes to persist so we think that's a huge influx for a lot of people you didn't happen to be mine let me get back to your point about women which relates also to the rolling the giant rock uphill you know we know that being judged by appearance is punishing right we know we know we want to be judged by more than what we look like when it comes to aging the current model is that women compete to stay young are quotes or look young right when we do that we reinforce a truism we reinforce looks is i'm just kind of a funny we had this idea that you know your appearance is the most import thing we surely reinforce sexism and we reinforce patriarchy now

to say we need to do it differently is a huge task but we needed to do it if we're going to have sisterhood and solidarity and stop competing against each other in a way that just digs the damn hole deeper with age if we don't we're honest and immensely especially for women and when you look at the age difference between older men and younger women who are dating versus younger man an older white man in the movies or yeah i mean i'm just thinking specifically about all that who have that was coming out around the crown their new president ever helen dillon all come she puts out she had she was refused a piece played party movie she was told i forget exactly how he is mid thirties she was thought he was too old to play the lover of amanda's but what she did is she made noise about see that's i mean that's the ask and i understand it's not for everybody and i understand it

takes courage that many guillen all instead of saying oh geez i'm over the hill said the hell with this is not ok and i'm gonna make noise about it as opposed to you anne hathaway talked about i mean i think she's ready to know and she talked about getting passed over for roles they were now going to actors in their twenties actresses and she said that's just the way it is that's right i love the way i don't mean to track her butt and when we accept the idea that that's just the way it is nothing changes and when we lie about our age or to have plastic surgery or die are here to cover the gray i totally understand why people do this and no judgement i swear to god but he is like any gay person trying to pass for straight or person of color trying to pass for white it's not good for us because it's based in shame about something that should not be shameful that is shameful only because of discrimination

and bias right and shameful about anything to do with the human condition society says it's shameful to bets against each other so it's based in shame and when you're ashamed of something that's fundamental about yourself that's not good for you and also it gives a pass to the discrimination that makes those behaviors necessary why not a little toll we stand up nothing will change yeah and i also think that it's very distracting silly here we are as women trying to rise up to equality and sends that image that we're spending you know our third week and money that we've learned to die or hair and buy them a cab and the swimming for banks and this and so on and so forth which i don't appreciate and respect i learned that i am i don't wear spandex and as the latino mayor it's a little bit meaner but arm i have not met monica lewinsky i respect what she's been up to and she's she has some form of it he's done a ted talk and

she had some connection to ted such that they sent out a little arm booklet of tips for people before you actually pack your bag for a big tent and one of the tips for monica lewinsky was to worse banks did you not well and to say that you the better and on camera and he did they tell them and worse banks don't think so and i am i actually had a big benefit codify will say i had a conflict with a friend because i had suggested that she wear lipstick for a tv appearance and she thought that i was unfolding her arm literally i was just trying to pass along all something that i'd be helpful exactly is that it's i mean we're we're not in that post a just era yet rate so how do we operate in between you know i used to be a lot more doctrinaire and the minute the words of doubts banks were out of my mouth i was like ashton you sound really judgmental i think there is you think you look better in

spandex and are comfortable wearing them then by all means go out and worse banks it bothered me and it had context because it was a different message from one of who you know and a lot of the ted speakers were incredibly tight twenty cattle prices by the way it was like wow some things have not changed but no one was saying you gotta promise can't i can't compress the warrant they looked fantastic and they projected power of confidence did you know it would be wearing in your ted talk and dress and stockings times banks free if you must know something something comfortable i mean you know i wear comfortable clothes not it's not baby is not shapeless but i don't like skin tight clothes a camel venom and i'm wary about what i look like so ever for something that's a little you know a little more really i you know i totally addicted to lipstick i can't you know practically put it on when i get up in the morning but that's often all i do wear a note says makes me feel i've made of africa's that's my hand so whatever makes you feel okay with yourself i mean i you know used to

be really judgment all about plastic surgery i think you know it's expensive the middle all the other stuff it's like it's a remedy that's not available to most people and it's dangerous but you gotta do what you gotta do to get up in the morning it is a harsh society this is inflection point i learned show where my guest is ashton applewhite her new book is this chair rocks a manifesto against each of them if you're enjoying this conversation and you'd like to hear more like it to search for us wherever you get your podcasts will be right back after a break these things

nice nice nice i'm more insular and this is inflection point i'm talking with ashton applewhite her new book is this chair rocks a manifesto against each of them oh that is so let's talk about women at work and how wage impacts the ability for women to think he has to move up in their careers or get promotions and it's not just a german i just this morning right a depressing article in the new york times about how women get past the

glass ceiling and even then run up against boundaries and it was about how there were more um i don't have exactly you know what what the category but more female ceo's in two thousand seventeen than ever before and yet i'm somebody which is not a whole why maybe twenty twenty seven of thirty but but unusually high percentage of them had stepped down this year because women are investigated more frequently by boards and they are more often given top positions at companies that have to be turned around right so if you succeed and you know i guess get more glory but so that even at the highest levels of power and gender counts against women at so these are i mean all these forms of discrimination compound and reinforce each other i don't know if you're familiar with the term intersection audi yes but please explain it it's an ugly word for a really important concept that was invented the term was invented by a black feminist scholar named kimberly crenshaw i believe in the seventies because she was she heard about a case where

a an african american woman brought a workplace discrimination suit and thirty was tossed out of caulk court because they said you kinney be discriminated against because you're black or because you're female that you can claim you have to pick your box check your boxer and it's not you can bring a suit on both grounds and it that really provoked that was the catalyst for this whole group of study i think every every feminist under thirty knows this term i learned a few years ago now your record six times before breakfast but it's really important in that all these different forms of prejudice compound and reinforce each other so that if you are a woman in the workplace you're discriminated against in the way that men or not if you are a person of color that's another layer if you have a disability that's another huge and powerful layer the positive side of that though is that when we chip away at the basis for an a one of the we are owed the basis on which they all stand because the idea of course is to look at each person as an individual

and see what they are capable of right yes and this is actually are making me wonder why it your experience has been as youth as eve aged in the workplace and whether this has ever come out as an issue or problem for you to have to face i'm unusual in that i have been largely self employed arms since i had i had a real job and then i had kids and never went back into the full time workforce i have had a wonderful halftime job i'm from which i resigned so that i could become a fulltime activist so my experience is not typical i had a lunch appointment with a woman next tuesday who wrote me a heartbreaking really an hour ago to say she said you cannot imagine how disappointed i am having to break her lunch date it to me is my fifty seventh birthday and i cannot afford the bus fare or even know where she notion of sort of bust a sense of your arm i cannot afford the bus fare it it

is a pr person she cannot find employment she has interviewed for countless jobs know and i looked at her resume a minimum judge but you know she's obviously an intelligent articulate person who has been looking really hard for work and she said i am only paying the rent with the help of a family friend who administers it with her dose of scorn of guilt and shame wally and said it had said last heard her job her previous tournaments has been unable to find anyone in a shiite homes first i mean i did the the idea had an op ed in the new york times on labor day last year which were titled you're how old welcome back theo about workplace discrimination it is heartbreaking and ed is worse before women and of course again you know for women of color et cetera for older women because as you age deer your appearance is held more against you so all this stuff compounds

but interestingly i think i'm a dozen in the workplace is often the first form of discrimination that white men encounter right it's there it's their first for some of them the first time a bang up against the idea that you know we know it's not a meritocracy and some of them are getting radicalized you know the ones who are open to the idea that i really foundational way that in which they've been looking at the world taking you know payments of course ties in with privilege you know where you go you got of course it has to do with what you're capable of and how hard you work but it also has to do with what color you are and where you were born and you know what advantages you've had that other people didn't happen let's be honest about that and to be to have your age count against you is their first encounter of the idea like well this is not my fault there's nothing i can do about this you know preventing some women to say well welcome to our world i'm you know it's kind of shocking there's a ton of stuff especially recently about it as an intact and in silicon valley in particular because it is so

huge centered and here in silicon valley there are engineers having botox and getting hair plugged be forty interviews and these are skilled white men in their thirties nacho welcomes delayed until then but even more horrendously think about the effects further down the food chain right so the skis into something i think is a really important point to fall first all ages and cuts both ways it also affects effects if you know if you think someone is too young for something he couldn't possibly be competent my niece's to season two's a physician and you just as through medical school and people don't like you can be a doctor you know how i mean how do you know you can't know anything that's ages up so ages of cuts both ways at any judgment about a person or a group of people on the basis of how old you think they are and it isn't really does affect everybody not just because we our goal to grow old and most of

us don't you don't change sachs and don't change race but we do we progress from a disadvantage status as a child into sort of full social capital and then back out again so it's interesting that it is a visiting capacity that we will all face right and it's all prejudice serves a social function which is to maintain existing power structures write it pits us against each other the thing about right i mean like you know that dd example for marks that the you know it gets the factory workers the irish factory workers against the polish factory workers or the black against the white workers so that they compete like like women competing to stay young reinforcing patriarchy right like instead of mobilizing for better wages straight anyone the context of ages and it's cast as old versus young you hear this all the time around healthcare why should we spend money on all people who are gonna die soon only they don't say that part out loud when we could spend it on young people and it's the wrong argument

we would never accept a similar debate based on race or sex for you would never say well we have enough for guys but not for women right well enough for you know hispanic people but not for easing people you we would never accept that anymore i mean not that they're not as a sign that he is is they are not that we don't have a long way to go on all these on on social equity but still we understand ethically those arguments are unacceptable that's where we need to be with old versus young because it's a it's a distraction from the underlying issue which is equity for everyone right and it you know it it distracts us so anytime something his friend that we think about it because the changes in the workplace that would benefit older workers like flexible schedules right and accessibility also benefit people with disabilities also benefit students also benefit people with young kids right same with the imf you heard the term age friendly cities you know inventing the built environment to be there's a big sip started out of the world health

organization but portland oregon is one year cd is wanders and gets you know and it's mainly centered around for accessibility public transport park's benches well you know runners like to sit on benches to anti their shoes and delivery boys like raps to and everyone like sparks so i would like to change that term to be all age friendly right so that it's not framed as expensive stuff we do for a sad sack all people and things we do to improve the environment whether it's the work environment the home environment the urban environment for everyone it's not old versus young it's not people with disabilities versus people who don't have disabilities it's about equity in making a world that works better for everybody the question that he was burning in my mind is that we we have a president who's over seventy and if we have bbq beef we have that in office and we've got a number of people who are running our country you are are the older is and how how are policies that benefit

orders not coming down policy why are we now seeing the benefit of that in the way that our society works because those older people are reluctant to acknowledge that they were older people and they mean it was really telling because of internalized ages right it is um takes root in denial our reluctance to admit that we are getting older that we are in fact older right and it was so fascinating to me that the idea of age never came out medicare nothing during the entire presidential campaign even though trump was pushing seventy and heller is what sixty eight or something so pretty interesting and a sad example of the way age itself is such a scary you know your key topic for so many people such as a college could ease that nobody wanted to bring it up so it is this crazy irony it's like the irony of odd no one wants to get old but no one wants to die

young if you would which makes no sense i mean the obvious more sensible more compassionate way to be in the world and compassionate towards yourself is to acknowledge that were all embark on this amazing journey and were all at someplace along and of course were older than some people and younger than others rather than to be afraid of this you know bogus take a fearsome divide between old and young after which you know everything goes downhill and you know that we know we know that's not how it works we know it from our own lives we know from people who are further along the road than us so let's look what's out there instead of being terrified by the imaginary barriers that separate us and i mean in another huge factor behind this is capitalism and consumer culture you see this with the body awareness you mention how much women spend on makeup is aging is framed as a problem we can be persuaded to buy stuff to fix it and cosmetics is the obvious you know example and its aging is framed as a

disease we can be sold stuff to cure it massive massive money out there and taking care of old people and pharmaceuticals orders are by far the largest consumers of prescription drugs some of which is fine but a lot of wage is because natural transition slight peri menopause and lowering testosterone for men and what they call a mild cognitive impairment which a lot of people do not think she'd even be a diagnosis even if the medical industrial complex as oh that's a medical condition you'd better treat that gets it makes money that trillion dollar pharmaceutical industry right this is inflection point i learned schiller my guest is ashton applewhite her new book is this chair rocks a manifesto against each is that would be sure to subscribe to our podcast wherever you get yours will be back right after this break i'm lauren shuler and this is inflection point i'm talking with ashton applewhite

her new book is this chair rocks and had a festive against it isn't so how do you become an activist easy to quit your job you're you did it yourself full time that is how we were to plant i'm going to do it with your help ten hour in common to do it with the help of everyone who's listening to this who's interested because you know because a movement needs a thousand leaders and millions of people who get caught up in it so i you know i'm doing it through public speaking i'm doing it through my book i wrote the book and as it's called this chair rocks a manifesto against ages and by self published it read the reviews on amazon it's got over a hundred five star reviews it's really fun to read and it will change the way you think it has a whole chapter chapter the last chapter is called occupy age and it has a whole bunch of suggestions for how you can start to

look at the way you think about your own aging as a first step right and become aware of your own biased internalized ages him is when when these negative messages about a teenager when we sort of you know we come to accept them and they become part of our identity unconsciously because we've never thought to question all right so see and where we all have them meet to all the time right but at least once you start to become aware of tom that's a first step and in the ways you can say say things that people out in the world and point out at stuff in the world i have a blog called yo is this a just which is modeled on this fantastic blog called your was this racist which was out there long before mine which is a question and answer blog where you can send in a picture or to tell me something you've heard is it just you know most of the time it's a just most of the time it's racist not always these are new changes longer lives you know we're the american life's been increased by thirty years in

one century and it takes time for roles in institutions and attitudes to catch up so this stuff does take time but that's natural right and another thing you can do is start a consciousness raising group that an end on my blog which is this chair rocks dot com under resources there isn't a bubble booklet that i wrote called whom ea just how to start a consciousness raising died a consciousness raising group is simply where people come together and talk about a subject in a safe space right but but says in the room stays in the rom know you may have to listen respectfully to each other not interrupt blah blah then that it was the tool that catalyzed the women's movement because what's happened is that women came together and they started comparing notes and they saw that what they have been thinking of as possible problems you know dr blinder love their boobs were big enough their husbands didn't make enough money whatever you know they didn't make enough money there from boston listen to them or not personal problems they were widely shared political problems that require collective

action and that is what catalyzed the women's movement with aging we're not there yet we think if i can get a job it's because i don't know excel i have wrinkles i have grey here i'm not smart enough i not young enough i'm not pretty enough i'm not you know we internalize these messages that to look t h is to lose all those competencies and to lose value and those are not personal problems they are the result of structural discrimination right if we can open a jar we think oh i should be stronger or if we'd there's no handrail and you're willing to lead and they go i shouldn't go that stadium anymore know they should put in derailing is right and they should make jersey easy to openly gay man on the moon we can make people cannot plan right so the point is not to feel that you are lesser when in fact you are facing structural discrimination that we need to all join together to compete in whatever way at whatever scale make sense to you even if it's just to watch your language a little bit but we do

that the same time getting older does mean getting your face and your body are changing so but instead of it being something that is being at a calculated and perceived and judged in a certain to meet a certain thing it sounds like what you're saying is or whatever that love is it's a badge of honor and of life and of experience and it's really not up to me the other person to tell them what i think of how they're just taken what i would say is i know what i would put it back on the internal experience because it's all we are we have the power to carry ourselves a certain way in the world when when the natural when we experience the natural transitions of aging as betrayal that's very different than if we see them they would then if we accept them and if we carry ourselves with you know i mean i'm not proud of my wrinkles but i'm not ashamed of them

either and i don't you know i don't try and you know i haven't tried to cover them up any drastic fashion etc and i think that and i don't mean to make it about me but i think you know when we're satisfied with ourselves and comfortable in our own skins we project something very attractive that it and it's permanent and it stays with you and it doesn't cost you money it doesn't take up any room in your suitcase and it's clearly there are units less baggage if you will to move here to accept eating and physical transitions in that way and also to you know to acknowledge the ruling for the really wonderful gifts that eating does bring mar no pollyanna you don't hear me saying on waging is a breeze and we should all in and there's a lot of you know positive aging stuff that i think is a little bit too much happy talk but there are fantastic plus issue i mean i was pretty excited to turn forty and then after that i got was unveiled on how i think this is the year when your experience it

keeps getting better i you know and i think that i think you know so it's not such a deadlock and that's why it's not totally rock yeah yeah and i think i think talking about it is a great first act and i applied your your full time division set to this effort is a leader's summit had advice i would like to be glean from yale has if you haven't already given us a match that with the never been given about how to accept who you are where you are off i would say i'm trying not to be judgemental you know that we it's just at it it ties into the idea you know all produces based on stereotypes right and i'm saying that all members of the group are the same and the week we turn a group into the other right the other other nationality other whatever religion and then they're wealthier becomes less of a human right in ages of that other as ourself our own future self right

it's discrimination against her own self which began it's like it's so ironic it makes no sense but it is never make sense right so it's not as though that that makes it isn't unique but it's particularly a right to discriminate against your own self you know to try and accept what is inevitably happening which is that we make up a day older and i'm with all the you know all the pains in all the pleasures of that and she tried not to be judgemental of the ways in which other people managed this transition because we each come to it in our own way in our own time if at all that's ashton applewhite author of this chair rocks a manifesto against each other every city and understanding for her ted talk up a link to

that on her website and fortunately radio dot org before inflection point i worked on a show where the producer is discouraged me at my cohost from revealing our beaches the fear was that the twenty five to thirty five year olds of our listening audience knew how old we were they might start listening i was thirty eight my cohost was forty three four years younger than i am right now or there against the advice of many radio producers who seek to appeal to a younger demographic and i have revealed my age there is a question now that you know how old i am what does that mean to you how does that change your perception of me are you formulating ideas about who i am and what i'm tickled all of us are more likely to listen to what i have to say ashton applewhite is teaching us that when we start listening to the clear strong voices of the people because they've aged passed an imaginary barrier between young and old

were shouting out the voices of our future selves and the wisdom they have to offer and if we're ever going to overcome the barriers that hold us back we need the voices of the past to the future to guide us away we'll go to our facebook page and inflection point radio and share your favorite come back to the question how old are you know how much do you weigh has already been submitted this is how women rise at this is inflection point i'm lauren shuler that's an inflection point for today is there are women changing the status quo you'd like to hear from lettuce know inadvertently revealed dot org and while you're there and they become a veteran of inflection point your contribution let's bring the voices and views of powerful women years ago everyone and you'll be rewarded think steele body care bill camp a meat farm girl flowers

and three times a string of providing our patron rewards dictators and inflection point radio dot org we're on facebook and inflection point radio and follow me on twitter at la center to find out more about the guests you heard today and unfortunately unfortunately radio dot org inflection point is produced at the studios of kalw ninety one point seven fm and delivered to public radio stations nationwide care act's find our podcast on itunes stitcher and pure white and give us a review are you interested