When Ashton Applewhite hit 55 years old, she dyed her hair. It's ageism, a prejudice that pits us against our future selves -- and each other. Tara Bahrampour. Ashton Applewhite’s 'Let's End Ageism' One type of discrimination that’s less considered in the civil rights realm is ageism. Anne Lamott, a New York Times bestselling author, said: “I never use the word empower, but this book has empowered me.”, Despite the acclaim, however, the prevailing message about age and ageing is, Applewhite says, uniformly negative: “There are giant, legitimate challenges individually and structurally to scaling up the support an older population will require, and to the personal fears about running out of money and ending up alone. Cutting Loose is an essential resource for women who want to leave their marriage but fear the consequences.Shattering the media-generated image of the lonely, deprived and financially strapped divorcee, Applewhite provides a much needed reality check. It is not news that the population is ageing. Author Ashton Applewhite is one of these women, having sued for divorce after enduring an unfulfilling ten-year marriage. Ask Amy: This year, everybody needs a book on their bed. How did old people become political enemies of the young? Cutting Loose is an essential resource for women who want to leave their marriage but fear the consequences. ‘How come so many of us assume that depression, diapers and dementia lie ahead?’ ... Applewhite. Introduction by Nina Simon, Bioneers Co-Founder and Chief Relationship Strategist. All change starts within.”. So what? This keynote talk was given at the 2018 National Bioneers Conference. Applewhite has been recognized by The New York Times, National Public Radio, the New Yorker, and the American Society on Aging as an expert on ageism. "The Chair Rocks," by Ashton Applewhite: Lively, funny, and deeply researched, tracing Applewhite's journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-aging radical, and in … Today, when people are fretting about Amazon putting robots in place of cashiers at Whole Foods, and voice assistants are common productivity tools, we are still using the principles of humanizing automation that were first advanced by psychologist, engineer, and famous mom Lillian Gilbreth. That’s what women the world over do, you might think: dye grey hair to hide their age. Some 10 million of us alive in the UK are likely to live past the age of 100. In the video, the audience gives Applewhite repeated standing ovations as she talks about how it is not the passage of time that makes it so hard to get older, it’s ageism: a totally illogical prejudice that pits us against our future selves. It is a lively read—Ms. “That the 20th century’s astonishing leap in life expectancy is a disaster in the making? And despite the fear that most of us have of care homes, the vast majority of people over 65 live independently: “How come so many of us unthinkingly assume that depression, diapers, and dementia lie ahead?” asks Applewhite. And that her words and her work remain visible and seen and continue to be of use to those who have something important to say and who should be heard. Above all, “we must be proud of our age,” she says. blog. But it’s high time we mobilised against it. —Roger Kisby 7 of 12. Applewhite is clear about where we all need to start: “The first and most essential step is to look at our own attitudes towards age and ageing because most bias is unconscious and we can’t challenge bias without thinking about it. “My call to action skews towards the first and foundational step of confronting internalised ageism,” she says. With her husband Frank, she embarked on But despite the overwhelming message from media and society that wrinkles are unattractive, old people are incompetent and ageing is something to be feared, research also shows that people are happiest at the beginning and the end of their lives. ... A divorc e enthusiastically explains why shedding one's husband can be the smartest, healthiest move an unhappily married woman can make. In 2016, she joined the PBS site Next Avenue’s annual list of 50 Influencers in Aging as their Influencer of the Year. Denise was about giving a voice to people, particularly women. The number of people in the UK aged 85 or more is expected to more than double in the next 25 years and by 2040, nearly one in seven Britons will be over 75. But I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. But what Applewhite did was different: she dyed her hair grey. Not Kim Kardashian-platinum grey, but defiantly uncool, bog-standard grey. And every year, this expanding collection Read post, There’s a great recent TED talk from physician, bestselling author, and frequent speaker Atul Gawande that makes a great case for getting a coach–and in the process of giving this talk, Gawande tackles directly a barrier I face when working with highly trained individuals: They think they’ve been taught everything Read post, I read a lot about women and public speaking, and post my finds first on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook. This website upgrade is making sure that her voice remains loud and heard. In fact, this year marked a demographic turning point: for the first time since the early 1980s there were more people either too old or too young to work than there were of working age. “I went to a matinee, so it was all old people,” she says, grinning widely as she absentmindedly tousles her hair, the brown roots showing. That’s Applewhite’s partner, Bob Stein, one of the international publishing scene’s most visible commentators, recognized for his pioneering work in CD-ROM publishing with The Voyager Company and his Institute for the Future of the Book, which describes itself as “a small think-and-do tank investigating the evolution of intellectual discourse as it shifts from printed pages to networked screens.” Since 2007 Applewhite has been writing about ageing and ageism at This Chair Rocks. Ashton Applewhite interviewed older people for her book, This Chair Rocks, to dispel myths, fears, and prejudices about ageing, writes Lorna Siggins Wed, 31 Jul, 2019 - 16:00 Lorna Siggins DM: What brought you to the world of aging and end of life? She identifies common ground where all ages can … The activist on her manifesto to empower older people, how to challenge age prejudice – and why she dyes her hair grey, Last modified on Mon 17 Jun 2019 11.38 BST. It is clear that upending discrimination on the basis of age will require fundamental changes in the way society is structured.”. Ashton Applewhite is an author, advocate and influencer for social change. In This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto against Ageism, Ashton Applewhite has created an informative and entertaining guide for living the second half of our lives with confidence and power. And in her 2017 TED talk, she made a call to action to the audience, since, as she made clear from the start, older is what everyone in the room is going to become. Watch out for sanitised or romanticised views of ageing: sexless, placid depictions of older people on a cruise or playing the token wise elder: “Idealised depictions of later life distract from the real challenges of ageing and the need to confront them.” Don’t use adjectives for older people that you wouldn’t use for younger ones, like feisty and kindly. So what? She is the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism and a spokesperson for a movement to mobilize against discrimination on the basis of age. Furthermore, in 2014, the average age of the UK population exceeded 40 for the first time – up from 33.9 in 1974. But what never occurs to most of us is that hugely amplifying those fears and contextualising them is the culture in which we age. This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite is published by Melville House UK for (£12.99). But I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. Famous Speech Friday: Lillian Gilbreth on the human side of automation, African-American Folktales: New resource for storytellers, Manal al-Sharif on women speaking up in Saudi Arabia, Famous Speech Friday: Ashton Applewhite’s TED talk “Let’s stop ageism”, The Eloquent Woman’s weekly speaker toolkit, For #BlackHistoryMonth, 50 famous speeches by black women, Let a doctor (and frequent speaker) explain why you need a coach, Famous Speech Friday: Megan Red Shirt-Shaw’s convocation speech, New volume of talks from The Moth focuses on uncertainty. Quote by Ashton Applewhite on the percentage of Americans in nursing homes. Discriminating against the elderly is nothing new, says Ashton Applewhite. Author Ashton Applewhite is one of these women, having sued for divorce after enduring an unfulfilling ten-year marriage. “Ageing is not a problem to be fixed or a disease to be cured,” she exhorts from the TED stage, to shouts of support. I've reached out to some of my favorite independent booksellers for their special picks for books for all ages. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Hartford Courant and Seasons Magazine, among others. The story of the 80-year-old supergeezer jumping out of an aeroplane or the 50-year-old woman waylaid by early Alzheimer’s is going to get a lot more readers than the true story, which is that most of us muddle along fine and continue to do everything we always did, or at least, versions of it, right to the end.”, Ageism, she believes, is the “last socially sanctioned prejudice”. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently gave a speech on behalf of her late husband--his words, his witty and wry language, much of it recounting stories from their shared past. This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism. To order a copy for £11.34 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. E veryone worries about getting old, yet no one wants to die young. It has to be among the toughest--and most moving--speaking challenges. Whether African, American or from elsewhere in the world, they make up close to 20 percent of the speeches we’ve collected and featured so far. “But that is only the first step. | Ashton Applewhite, 'I refuse to regret waking up a day older': Ashton Applewhite's fight for age pride. Now a resident of Australia, Al-Sharif is on a book tour and was interviewed recently by Read post, Writer Ashton Applewhite has made ageism her target with the This Chair Rocks blog and Yo, is this ageist? “Until then,” she says, “ageism will pit us against each other: it will rob society of an immense accrual of knowledge and experience; and it will poison our futures by framing longer, healthier lives as problems instead of the remarkable achievements and opportunities they represent.”, So how to counter ageism? Not Kim Kardashian-platinum grey, but defiantly uncool, bog-standard grey. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. I was 55 and afraid of getting old. Here’s what I’ve been reading lately: Let’s look at the data; Wielding Data, Women Force a Reckoning Over Bias in the Read post, Black women speakers from all over the world are often featured in The Eloquent Woman Index of Famous Speeches by Women. Tara Bahrampour. “Age pride is for everyone who refuses to regret waking up a day older, who acknowledges long life as the privilege it is, and who is prepared to challenge the power structures that underlie all discrimination.”. Ashton Applewhite is a visionary whose time has come, tackling one of the most persistent biases of our day with originality, verve, and humor. The catalyst for the project was learning that the percentage of Americans in nursing homes is 2.5% and dropping, and I thought it was at least 30%. Ashton Applewhite would like us to think differently about growing older. “But other people’s reactions varied. She blogs at ThisChairRocks.com, and has written for Harper’s, the Guardian, and The … It's not the passage of time that makes it so hard to get older. Ashton Applewhite, anti ageism blogger and author, says it’s no longer cool to make fun of growing old (Photo by Adrian Buckmaster) By . May 1, 2019. 2021 Lyfebulb and Bristol Myers Squibb Innovation Challenge. Exit Interview conducted by Devorah Medwin. By Ashton Applewhite. But she decided that if she was going to talk the talk, she needed to walk the walk: “The big, if shallow, surprise is how much I liked having grey hair, because I didn’t expect to,” she says. I went into publishing because I loved to read and didn’t have any better ideas. It was a well-timed choice, focused as this volume is on talks about Read post. Life expectancy in Britain is growing by a dramatic five hours a day. Circuit Court of Appeals' conference in Colorado Shattering the media-generated image of the lonely, deprived and financially strapped divorcee, Applewhite provides a much needed reality check. Citing research and credible sources, she dismantles the stereotypes about older age, giving us a practical assessment of the good and the bad. That’s the fact which I start my main talks with. Don’t compliment an older person by telling her she is different – fitter, stronger, more stylish – than other people her age, she says. I didn’t set out to become a writer. Ms. Kuhn might have enjoyed Ashton Applewhite’s contemporary book, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Agism. I looked down and there was not a grey head to be spotted. This is no mere blip; the trend will continue as life expectancy increases. Everyone worries about being old, yet no one actually wants to be young again. This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism by Ashton Applewhite is published by Melville House UK for (£12.99). ‎For women contemplating divorce or for those who have already divorced, Ashton Applewhite’s insightful book sheds light on what to consider before making the decision to end your marriage, how to protect yourself—both financially and emotionally—and how much your life will change. A movement against ageism is underway — and I’m all in.” —Ashton Applewhite, 64, author, This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism And now … Applewhite kicks off 2017 with a TED talk, a chance to introduce a whole new audience to ageism as a global human-rights issue. Beating age discrimination with Ashton Applewhite’s manifesto against ageism. One out… I suddenly thought: ‘This is one way we collude, en masse, in making ourselves invisible as older women – and that’s a real problem, because when people are invisible, so are the issues that affect them’.”, When Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, gave a TED talk titled Let’s End Ageism in 2017, it was an unexpected hit, with 1.5m views to date. “Racist and sexist comments no longer get a pass, but who even blinks when old people are described as worthless, incompetent, or ‘out of it’?”, Suppose, she suggests, we could step off “the treadmill of age denial and begin to see how ageism segregates and diminishes our prospects”? She lives in Connecticut with her husband and her exuberant rescue dog, … Hollywood is speaking out after protestors managed to breach the Capitol on Wednesday. By 2066, 26% of the total population will be aged 65 years and over. Underlying all the hand-wringing is ageism: discrimination that sidelines and silences older people.”, Applewhite’s journey from her personal experience of ageing to the political stage seems to have hit the crest of a wave: the reception of her book has been more than enthusiastic. “It is a natural, powerful, lifelong process that unites us all.”, But back to the matinee: “I stood at the top of that escalator,” Applewhite, now 66, says, “and I thought, wouldn’t it be amazing to have the year of letting our hair go grey, so the world can see how many of us there are and how beautiful we are and how diverse we are?”, Applewhite, who is based in New York, inherited her mother’s no-grey-hair gene. Here’s what I’ve been reading lately: Sexism at scale: Taking a look at the largest trade show, The insidious sexism of CES Read post, In May 2017, Megan Red Shirt-Shaw became one of the first Native Americans to give a convocation speech at Harvard University, speaking on behalf of her fellow students in the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Ashton Applewhite and Her Manifesto Against Ageism June 13, 2019 — By Julie Pfitzinger — Next Ave Imagine being in the crowd at a bullfight; the feeling of being terrified for the matador in the ring, worried about what you might see and turning away in fear because you don’t want to experience what’s going to happen next. That’s what women the world over do, you might think: dye grey hair to hide their age. Author Ashton Applewhite is one of these women, having sued for divorce after enduring an unfulfilling ten-year marriage. But what Applewhite did was different: she dyed her hair grey. Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well by Ashton Applewhite and a great selection of related books, art and collectibles available now at AbeBooks.com. So how come so many of us unthinkingly assume that depression, diapers, and dementia lie ahead? Perhaps not surprisingly, given the venue, the speech garnered much attention for its passionate defense Read post, I received as a gift The Moth Presents All These Wonders: True Stories About Facing the Unknown from a friend after a hospital stay during which the doctors couldn’t yet diagnose me, so I was living in medical uncertainty. As she writes: "Aging is a natural, lifelong, powerful process that unites us all. 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