Ageism is a discrimination against a person because of their age. (Benokraitis, 2011:252) Five examples of ageism would be first off certain language in younger people is not acceptable I have learned this from personal experience about which words are allowed and which are not. Second example would be music, concerts sometimes do not allow people under a certain age to come simply because of words or a proactive dance move this is also something I have learned firsthand. Thirdly ageism can be when the adult child treats their parents like they are kids. (1), another would be some doctor visits that will only allow you to talk about one problem that you have and older people have more than one. (1) Final way would be the economy blaming that older people are slow out of date and are not helping the economy at all. (1)
The stereotypes of older people that believe people to believe these things are that they are slow, they can’t work, hard of hearing and there are a few jobs that will hire someone who is past their 70’s or 80’s. The stereotypical elderly man is back bent, cranky, uses a cane or in a wheel chair and talks about when he was younger. Elderly ladies we imagine talking about her grand kids, knitting and baking cookies an all-around sweet and gentle woman. We typically have a negative one towards the woman, there are many jokes about them not all which are true but the dumb blonde jokes, the snarky red heads and bad drivers jokers. My reaction to such is that people judge other people from what they have previously gathered or have seen in the media. Ageism is more acceptable in our society because not everyone recognizes it and it doesn’t happen often to my knowledge. People’s life chances (Benokraitis 2011:144) are directly affected by one’s race, sex/gender, and age. The society judges you by what you are and how you do things. If you dress like a boy and are a girl the society will judge you and make it hard on you therefor your life chances are...