Just who’s writing, thinking and talking about the encore movement? Encore.org’s recurring feature showcases some of the behind-the-scenes players that deserve a turn in the spotlight.
If you want to answer the Encore 15Qs – or if there’s someone you’d like us to interview — please be in touch.
Anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite, author of “This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism,” shared her thoughts with encore readers – as well as the readers of the New York Times, where her op-ed on ageism in the workplace climbed the Top Ten list within a day of publication. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
You’re at a party; an interesting stranger asks about your work. How would you describe what do you do?
First, I ask them if they know what ageism is. Then I surprise them with a few data points, like the percentage of Americans over 65 in nursing homes (4 percent) or the fact that people are happiest at the beginning and the ends of their lives (Google “U-curve of happiness”). Then, I explain that an ageist culture drowns out all but the negative about late life—or even just aging past youth—in order to sell us “cures” or “fixes” for what is actually an inevitable, lifelong, powerful process. Aspiring to “stay young” is a punishing and impossible goal. It’s high time to make ageism as unacceptable as sexism, racism, and homophobia.
Why do you do it?
Like so many people, an ex-model I know is panicked about aging — and she’s [just] heading into her 30s. The idea that two-thirds of our life is decline isn’t just misguided, it’s grotesque. To go through life filled with needless dread damages our health, our sense of self and our prospects. It’s bad for the world we live in too, because, like all “isms”, ageism operates by pitting us against each other. That’s why we need to examine our own attitudes towards age and aging and join forces against the discrimination that marginalizes and silences us all.
When I was 7, I wanted to be a boy. (I got over it.) Then an archaeologist. (Too much sifting.) Then an architect. (Too much school.) I never set out to be a writer, but I like the thinking part. And I suppose I inherited my mother’s activist genes.
I came to New York and got a job in publishing because I loved reading and figured I’d get paid to do it. I was sort of right.
I’m inspired by people who act according to their principles even when it jeopardizes their safety and freedom, from Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi to ordinary people who speak truth to power.
A million things: the shape of flowers, that sex with people in furry animal costumes is a thing, that so few Americans have passports, that the water that comes out of our faucets is ancient. I work part-time at the American Museum of Natural History [in New York City] and the way the planet works knocks my socks off all the damn time.
Loyal, funny, cranky.
If I’d gotten a fourth word to describe myself, it would be dogged. A British friend described me “beavering away” on this project, and that’s pretty much my M.O.
My book is dedicated to Dr. Robert Butler, whom I had the good fortune to meet a few years before his death in 2010. With a few gentle nudges, he opened my eyes to the enormous role that luck and socioeconomic status play in who gets to age “well”—or age at all.
I am the sum of countless formative events (which is why aging, AKA living, enriches us): heartbreak, becoming fluent in another language, traveling with no return date, becoming a mother and stepmother, falling in love, writing a book . . .
“Comparisons are odious.” That’s something my maternal grandmother used to say.
I was a clue on Jeopardy. I’m putting that on my tombstone. If I have a tombstone, which is unlikely.
My Macbook Air. Also, my little garden.
I could no more narrow this list down to three items than figure out what to be when I grew up.
How did you celebrate your most recent birthday?
Quiet dinner with friends. I happened to be in London. My rule is that on your birthday you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.
Published: September 6, 2016