Essay Series 4.5: Ageism affects older adults’ health and well-being.

Older adults form the only group facing discrimination that we will all join if we live long enough. This type of discrimination is called ageism. Ageism is bias directed against people due to their age. It can happen to anyone. However, older adults are the primary victims.²⁹⁷

Society assumes that older adults are a homogenous group with feeble minds, frail bodies, and a lack of concern for younger generations. Older people can internalize their own ageist assumptions and act in ways that support these stereotypes. Internalized ageism can lead older people to do tasks less well than they are capable of doing. And people who have internalized ageism can experience worse health, shorter life, and poorer thinking skills.²⁹⁸

Despite the derogatory stereotypes about older women, the myths about aging have received less attention than they deserve within the mainstream women’s movements.

Aging and the Sexes

Society judges older women more harshly than older men in some ways. Older women are considered less appropriate romantic partners than older men, and people consider women to be less interested in sex. Another stereotype is that men age better than women.²⁹⁹

Two views of older women exist. One is that they are failing in health, body, and mind. Another is that they have a dynamic and youthful life. Media and advertisements focus on anti-aging for women and create a sense of shame if a woman looks old. Creating shame around aging is another way of keeping older women in their place.^300,301

Ageism and Health

Negative assumptions about older adults show up in many aspects of their lives, including health care. Stereotypes about older adults as patients are that they are frustrating, not interesting, and less rewarding than other age groups.³⁰² This age group uses the health care system more as they grow older, and health care professionals have little training related to caring for older people.³⁰³

Ageism in health care can show itself when older adults and health care professionals ignore medical symptoms, attribute symptoms to old age, or treat old age as if it is a disease.

Older people can be at risk for over- and under-treatment due to their own or their medical professionals’ discrimination.³⁰⁴ Some of the factors that affect treatment follow.

1. If another person is with the older patient at the doctor’s office, much of the time the extra person answers on behalf of the older adult, which can undermine the older person’s choices over their own health care.

1. Older adults may be less likely to seek health care if they consider their symptoms to be related to aging.

1. Single disease clinical guidelines are problematic when an older adult has multiple chronic conditions, and most older adults do.³⁰⁵

Menopause

Menopause occurs when women have not had a menstrual cycle for one year, generally when a woman is age 45-55. Perimenopause is the time before menopause when a woman’s hormones begin to fluctuate, and her periods can become irregular and ovulation less frequent.

Medical professionals have long treated menopause as a disease. During the 1800s, doctors said that menopause caused illness and disruption in women’s bodies. Almost every disease of a woman’s old age was thought to be a result of menopause.^306,307

Among the stereotypes were that old women are ugly, bossy, jealous of younger women, useless, have dementia, and are a burden. Doctors used to advise women in menopause to avoid having sex, reading novels, attending parties, and dancing, along with other things considered to be exciting.^308,309

Mental illness was also supposed to be a hallmark of menopause. Freud’s work was popular in the 1920s, and one of the things he said is that after women go through menopause, their personalities become sadistic, quarrelsome, overbearing, and stingy. In addition, mental health practitioners believed that menopausal women either ceased being sexual or were overcome with sexual desire. Bad sex could cause the former, and liberation from fear of pregnancy the latter.³¹⁰

Ageism and the Women’s Movement

Ageism intersects with other forms of discrimination, including sexism. For example, older women face double discrimination due to their age and their sex. Ageism also intersects with racism. People who face multiple forms of discrimination are more vulnerable to a wide range of problems than others.³¹¹

Even the women’s movements have had little to say about ageism’s impact on older women and their circumstances. In the many books I have read about women’s rights and feminism over the past few years, little focus or concern has arisen about older women. Rather, the modern women’s movement has focused on reproductive health care and employment issues. This is an oversight given the aging of the population.

The women’s movement needs to bring all women forward, including older women. This idea is called Lifespan Feminism.³¹² Three women did this starting in the late 1940s.

Ethel Percy Andrus was an educator and the first woman high school principal in California. She recognized that retired teachers, most of whom were women, had little financial security or access to health insurance. So, she started the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) in 1947. She found a health insurance company willing to cover retired teachers by 1956. The organization expanded its membership to all retirees and became AARP in 1958. AARP is now the largest advocacy organization for older adults in the United States.³¹³

Maggie Kuhn was forced to retire from the Presbyterian Church when she reached age 65. In reaction, she decided to start the Gray Panthers in 1970. This group was intergenerational and fought for nuclear disarmament, funding for student loans, and against age discrimination and mandatory retirement. The Gray Panthers focused on younger and older adults taking action together.³¹⁴

Tish Sommers was an organizer for the National Organization for Women (NOW), who was a displaced homemaker in her 50s when she started a national task force that turned into the Older Women’s League (OWL). OWL’s work began in 1980 and focused on advocacy related to the economic and health care needs of displaced homemakers. These were midlife and older women who had been financially dependent on their husbands and then were alone with low incomes because of a divorce or death of their spouse.³¹⁵ OWL disbanded as a national organization in 2017.

Reflections

Becoming old is an accomplishment because you have lived a long life, and most older women contribute to their families and communities in many ways. In fact, as a woman in her late 60s, I’ve never been happier. I’ve raised my children, accomplished good professional work, and now can be helpful as a grandmother and with my research projects. In addition, I have great circles of friends of similar age, and many of us feel the same way.

There are a few drawbacks to being an older woman. One is that you tend to disappear sexually and romantically. Or, at least that has been my experience starting in my mid-60s. However, I acknowledge my real age to anyone and see myself as more beautiful and healthier than ever.

Do I fear getting old and frail? Sure, but I live my life in the moment and enjoy it immensely. I’m lucky in three major ways that many older adults aren’t. I don’t yet have a debilitating condition and I don’t have a sick or frail spouse. And while some of my friends have started dying, my closest friends are still with me. As I enter my 70s, my losses will accumulate over time. Hopefully, the resilience I have gained as a result of a relatively long life will continue.

How has aging affected you or your loved ones?