When deciding what to discuss about ageism, I found myself drawing a bit of a blank. I hadn’t really had any direct experience with ageism in the workplace, asides from some minor things now and then. I wasn’t old enough to be denied a job by someone looking for younger employees. I’m only 20.
But of course, there are many types of ageism, especially on certain websites online. Many websites restrict membership to people at least 13 or 18 years of age. Of course, there are usually legal reasons for this, and of course people lie about their age all the time, but these age barriers imprint certain subconscious assumptions on the abilities of those barred by them.
We start to feel that these kids aren’t worthy of accessing some of the same things we can. We start to think that they’re too foolish, naive, or immature to handle the same things we can as adults. Yet children are still people who still have thoughts and opinions, some of which can even be more eloquent than the ideas of some adults.
A twelve year old on Quora put it simply:
“I am 12. I am not a sheep. I have opinions. I do not live in a cave. I have knowledge. I didn’t live in a basement my whole life. I have stories. What makes these any less valuable than someone else’s just because they’re older?” -Omer Frank, on Should Quora ban people under 18 from answering questions on Quora?
So ageism is really not just a question of how one age group looks at another (regardless of context) but how all age groups appear to each other and how these sorts of relationships shape society and whether or not these interactions are beneficial or harmful to certain groups.