October 31, 2019 • 47 mins
Getting older should be something to celebrate. Instead, our youth-obsessed culture tells us we need to get rid of our wrinkles, dye our gray hair, and shave years off of our LinkedIn profiles, or risk becoming irrelevant—or worse, invisible. But why do we treat the very normal process of aging like it’s something to be ashamed of? On this episode of Next Question, Katie talks to an amazing group of women who refuse to apologize for acting (and looking) their age: Lyn Slater, a.k.a. the Accidental Icon; supermodel JoAni Johnson; anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite; and legendary advertising executive Cindy Gallop. Katie and her guests discuss the roots of our implicit biases against older people (especially older women), the social and economic costs of ageism, and why you should never say “thank you” when someone says you look good for your age.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I
Heart Radio and Katie Kuric Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric,
and welcome to Next Question, where we try to understand
the complicated world we're living in and the crazy things
that are happening by asking questions and by listening to
people who really know what they're talking about. At times,
it may lead to some pretty uncomfortable conversations, but stick
(00:24):
with me, everyone, let's all learn together. You look great
for your age. That's a compliment, right, or is it
for your age? You're look really good for your age. Yeah,
I'd say that that's a compliment. Um, it implies that
at your age you should look terrible. Do you think
(00:46):
ageism is one of the last acceptable isms in society
that it's okay to criticize older people. I feel like
when you get to a certain point in your life,
you're kind of becoming or are invisible, and so I
don't think it's acceptable. Okay, great, thank you so much.
In today's youth obsessed culture, aging seems to be viewed
(01:07):
as a negative, something to be feared, not revered, and
the messages were inundated with every day only reinforce that.
A new study by the a RP found only fift
of images in the media show people over the age
of fifty, and when they do appear, they're often at home,
sitting around with a partner or nurse instead of out
(01:29):
in the world exercising or working, and you never see
them using technology. Then there's the anti aging industrial complex.
Aging skin is dry. It can be embarrassing and make
you look older than you really are. Now you can
do something about it. Visibly plump skin in just one week,
bounce back and reduces wrinkles for younger looking skin. It's
(01:52):
the ultimate beauty victory. Nobody has any idea how old
you are. Why is aging portrayed as something to avoid?
It all costs a source of shame and embarrassment, especially
for women. My next question is ag ism the last
socially acceptable is um. I'm sixty two and I'm happy
(02:13):
to be the age I am most of the time.
I'm out there, loud and proud doing my thing. But
all too often people become marginalized or ignored as they age.
Maybe that's starting to change though, After all, there are
almost fifty million people sixty or over in the US
and there is active as ever, today prejudice against any
(02:35):
group is not considered a good look. But does that
extend to older people? I think that unconsciously, although I
had no agenda when I started my doing, Accidental Icon
was really kind of giving the finger to this notion
that I have to be invisible. Now, lens Later is
(02:57):
the headline making fashion influencer own on social media as
the Accidental Icon. She was catapulted into fame five years
ago when she was mistaken as a fashion industry insider
outside an exhibit in New York City. Now in her
mid sixties, she has nearly seven hundred thousand followers on Instagram,
(03:18):
as well as a modeling contract. So let's talk about
how this happened. Because, first and foremost, I understand a
college professor at Foredom, Is that right? Yes? Although I
just retired after twenty years of teaching last semester. So
now you're embarking on this whole new career, right, a
(03:39):
whole new career, but really trying to think about how
to incorporate my teaching and my commitment to social welfare
into this new career. What did you teach it? Foredom?
Social welfare? AH, soci our law, the whole idea of
agism and how society treats older people. It's right in
(04:01):
your wheelhouse. Actually, do you think ag ism is the
last socially acceptable is um in America? I actually do,
and I actually discovered because on my Instagram, my largest
following is actually eighteen to forty and the biggest bar
(04:24):
five to thirty five. Of course, being an academic, I
asked a lot of questions whenever I met twenty five
year old who followed me, I would say why? And
so it turns out I've now determined the ages and
begins at When you are twenty five, you don't say, oh,
I'm gonna be twenty six my next birthday. You say,
(04:47):
oh my god, I'm gonna be thirty. I'm getting old,
And then all of the stereotypes about what that means
enter into your head. And then the next thing are
all social expectations for women. And I haven't done this,
and I haven't done that, and I haven't done that. Lenn,
how old are you now? I'm sixty six? When people
(05:09):
ask you that, do you ever wonder if you should
lie about your age? Or how have you ever lied
about your Never? Why? Well? I think a long time ago,
I decided that in order for me to have power
in the world, that I had to understand and own
any limitation that I would ever have in my life.
(05:33):
And my response to limitations has been to respond to
them in a creative way. And so I think that
I get more angry than scared about these things. The
visual representation that you give to people, I think also
is incredibly empowering, just as women are empowered by seeing
(05:56):
images of other powerful women. The whole notion of if
you can't see it, you can't be it. Seeing you
a woman of a certain age quote unquote, who is
often marginalized or diminished or made invisible not seen, is like, hell, yeah,
she's out there, she's living her life, she looks fantastic,
(06:21):
she's cool, she's stylish, and you know what, God damn it.
So am I that's the response. But I want to
also make this point because I think it's really important.
There's a whole bunch of young women that feel marginalized
because they don't reach this perfection that fashion kind of
puts out there, and so a lot of them are
(06:44):
also inspired because I think, basically, I'm just very comfortable
with who I am, and your messages you do you
basically yeah, And when young people say, oh, I'm gonna
be just like you when I get older, I always
right back to them and I say, be me. Now,
just start loving yourself and putting yourself out there if
(07:08):
you believe ag ism or fear of aging starts at
which is insane to me looking at that number as
a sixty two year old woman. How do we flip
the script? How do we say, hey, you can lead
a long, productive, visible life for many, many, many many years.
(07:28):
It's not all downhill from here. You, as important as
your presence is on social media, you alone cannot change
the narrative. So what other things need to happen when well?
I think the first thing is women my age, our
age still have a lot of internalized ages m because
of cultural conditioning, yes, and that they project onto other women.
(07:53):
And so I think it's very interesting to me that
again early on, the people that really promoted me, the
people that made me very public, the people that hire me,
the people that pay me, are all young. It's not
women my age. For me, I've always been inspired by
(08:14):
young people. And maybe that's because I'm the oldest of
six children. That started it. I'm a professor, and even
in my practice as a social worker, I worked with
young people and they always push you to keep relevant,
to keep moving. I think that in every situation, if
you look hard enough, there's a little note of power,
(08:38):
which is what I've found in social media. You know,
social media can be used to have negative effects for women,
and social media can have very positive effects. And so
I always asked myself when I'm going to post, what
are women going to see or think or how am
I going to make them feel when I put it's
(09:00):
this picture? And so I'm very aware that I have
a responsibility about this, but I also feel that this
is not a project for older people. That we need
to engage all ages into disrupting the story of aging,
(09:21):
and we really better do it soon, because by there's
going to be way more people over the age of
sixty then there is under the age of five. And
so I think it's not just a social justice issue,
but now it's a mental and physical health issue. And
(09:43):
I think in terms of getting the message out, what
I've learned from being a professor is you can't lecture
people and you can't the victim either. You can't exactly,
so I never play the victim about it. Every single phone,
Oh I put out I have this expression on my
face like I have along hair. Look at me. In
(10:06):
my personal life, I'm actually kind of I'm more of
a Shire person, and so that this is like your
alter ego coming out, as it is my alter ego
always came out in the classroom too. I'm a very
performative person, and when people ask me what do I
think about age, I basically say, look at my photos.
(10:30):
I'm performing it. I don't need to talk about it.
I am showing a different way to think about aging.
I'm doing it visually instead of giving you a lecture
about oppression in this and that. And it's almost a
subconscious message in some ways, right under the guise of fashion,
(10:50):
you're really communicating an incredibly important message. People just may
not realize it. Right exactly. I was on a morning
as a guest not too long ago, and they posted
me talking and one of the comments was, wow, she
looks old. What would you have said to that person?
(11:10):
I am old, That's what I did say. Good for you.
I now think I should have said, well, i am older,
and I'm lucky I've gotten here right. I mean that's
the other side of the client. The other alternative is
you're not here anymore, right, And I think about that
because my husband died at forty two exactly, so every
(11:31):
year I'm able to be here is precious to me,
that's right. And I think there's so many advances now
in medicine and technology that we are going to live
a higher quality of life much longer. And so these
old stories of you're going to stop caring about what
(11:51):
you wear, you're gonna go play bingo, or even that
you're going to retire, right right. I have been last
with good health, and if this continues, I could do
this for another twenty years. My mother's ninety four. I
want those years to be exciting. I want to keep learning.
(12:14):
I think I have something to offer, and a lot
of people seem to think I do. I just want
to kiss you right now. I also had a chance
to talk to another headline grabbing fashionist of a certain age,
model Joannie Johnson, who's sixty seven and has walked the
(12:34):
runway for many top designers. She was even cast by
Rihanna to appear in a campaign for her new fenty
fashion line. She talked to me about representing women who
are not twenty two in an industry often fixated on youth.
I think that the opportunities have become more available to
(12:55):
women of a certain age. It's not just here in
the United States, but it's also happening in Europe and Asia.
Women of a certain age being taken more seriously. You know,
it's also about they are some of the top consumers,
so they do make a difference, and the responses that
the media is getting from those people of a certain
(13:17):
age saying finally, I see myself is also having an impact.
Len agrees that things are starting to change, and ironically
it's younger people who are paving the way. If you
look at who is asking older women to walk in
their shows, it's young designers. It is not the gucciese.
(13:40):
It is not the channels. It's Christian Sarriano had made
Musk Joanni has walked for a lot of independent designers.
I myself just had a fun time walking for Kate Spade.
But I think younger people are realizing the importance of
(14:00):
representation overall. But I think that is actually permeated through
the youth culture. The importance of diversity and inclusion and
they're happily including people who are older. That's that equation,
and I think that if I'm going to put on
my social welfare social justice had here is that one
(14:22):
of the things when you have privileged in a system,
which you know, we as white people have privilege in
this system, youth have privilege and fashion. And so when
you have privilege, if you want to do the right thing,
you become an ally and you use your privilege to
(14:43):
advance the cause of other people. And so that's what
I've felt young people have done for me in particular,
is they have been an ally in promoting older people
to be part of this diversement. You're so inspiring. What
would you tell women and even men, honestly, because I
(15:06):
think they're the victims of these attitudes as well, not
as much, right, but what would you tell them about
aging and about helping their outlook when it comes to
getting older. So my own experience, and I'm not gonna lie,
is that when I first started to age, I was
not happy about the impact. I actually came to this
(15:30):
realization it's inevitable. There's not anything you can do to
intervene in this process. And actually, if we want to
be honest, It's been happening since the day were born.
One of the things that I think was very helpful
to me was because I was always around young people,
(15:51):
I was able to remain relevant when it came to
things like technology, um popular culture. Yes, I was able
to use this new kind of culture for my benefit
because I didn't reject it. And I think that's a
habit that we sometimes have as older people, because we're
(16:13):
comfortable in our own zones. That's right, And so in
this new media, I can still address issues that are
really important to me. I can do it in a
way that I'm not like turning people off. It's very engaging.
And so you're going direct to consumer, as they say,
exactly exactly, disintermediator, Lynn, And for me, you're not an
(16:38):
accidental icon. You're just an icon. And what can I say?
I think you rock, Lynn, Thank you, thank you so much.
Coming up, anti agism warrior Ashton apple White debunked some
of the biggest myths about getting older. It doesn't make
sense to go through life pretending that something that is
happening to you every day is not going to happen
(16:59):
to you. That fear is bad for us that fear
keeps us from investing in our own care and our
own development across our lifespan, and no discrimination is good
for society. Ashton apple White is an activist, influencer, and writer.
(17:26):
She's also made Fortunes forty over forty list and is
the author of This Chair Rocks, a manifesto against ages.
UM let's talk about the U Curve of happiness. Where
did that come from? How did they discover it? And
is it legitimate? If you sound like my mother in
law who would never say she said that you curve,
(17:47):
I'm not buying it. Um google it. It is one
of the best substantiated data sets out there. There is
a whole emerging field of social science called happiness studies,
so one of them could give you a more scholarly
answer than I. But I can tell you that I
was plenty skeptical about it, and that it has been
(18:07):
borne out by dozens of studies in the US and
around the world. For those of you who may not
know what Ashton is talking about. In a nutshell, the
U curve of happiness shows that people are happiest at
the beginning and end of their lives, but less so
in the middle, which could explain why so many of
us have a midlife crisis. So if we're happier as
(18:31):
we age, and if we're living more independently as we age,
then why is there so much ages um? To put
it succinctly, if aging is framed as a problem, we
can be persuaded to buy things to fix it. People
make money off those things. No one makes money off satisfaction.
(18:51):
So we have a huge lesson here. In the body
acceptance movement, you know when once you learn that the
fact that your thighs rubbed together is not the worst
problem ever to affect mankind, you stop spending money and
time on self loathing. Agism is rooted in denial of
the fact that we're going to get older. I don't
think self loathing is too strong a term to use
(19:12):
about seeing these natural transitions as um as awful as
your own personal problem. And in the bigger sense, agism
is a prejudice. It's stereotyping and discrimination on the basis
of age. Agism is great for companies because they can
pitt supposedly expensive older workers against younger workers, who can
be exploited because they don't have families to support yet right,
(19:36):
We need to join forces old and young. Don't fall
for any old versus young rhetoric. Any time you make
a judgment that someone couldn't isn't possibly old enough to
know what they're doing or to tell you what to do,
that's agism too. So why is it still socially acceptable?
You know, it seems to me sexism is being addressed,
(19:58):
and racism is being addressed, certainly not solved, but at
least talked about. Forget there, and this is an ism
that nobody really really talks about, do they. I do,
and I will say in a way that I don't
think is delusional, that this really is changing. I mean
ten years ago when I started on this, I was
telling people what agism is and why it's a problem.
(20:19):
I just criss crossed the country on a book tour,
and people were coming to me and saying, how can
I be pro aging anti ageism in my work, in
my program, in my built environment. We are moving from
theory to practice. What has propelled that change? I'm not sure.
Perhaps it's the baby boom. I am dead center born
(20:40):
in ninety two, you know, finally acknowledging it's true that
we are aging differently than our parents did, and our
grandparents certainly. But guess what, I'm still going to get old.
There's also a lot of denial on the part of
baby Boom. We're different, We're exceptional. Sixty is the new thirty.
That kind of sixty is the new six. The it
(21:00):
is different from what sixty used to be. But every
time we aspire to be younger, we deny all the
richness that our years have brought us, all that the
aches and pains too. Again, it's double edged. I once
wrote a really cranky blog post. If aging is so awful,
how come no one actually wants to be any younger?
(21:22):
People's faces do just what yours just did. That there's
like this moment of wait that sounds great, Oh wait,
because you don't get to take your present day consciousness
back with you. Well, I'd still want to do it.
You'd erase the clock, you'd go back to being who
you are at seventeen or whatever. Age. Well, how about
thirty five? But you don't get anything that you've learned
(21:44):
or done or been since you were thirty five. You
have to read about forty have about forty You tell me, no,
I'm just going to have my children would still be alive,
and I'd look a hell of a lot better. Is
that wrong? There is no right or wrong. We each
have to do this in our own way. You know.
(22:05):
I have had women come up and say, look, I've
had botox, I have plastic surgery. Whatever. If I didn't
dye my hair, I would lose my job. I wish
I would thought that she was exaggerating. I'm sure she's
not no judgment around any of this, But the habit
of looking in the mirror and going what the hell happened,
which we all do, is deeply damaging because if you
(22:28):
think about all the things that did happen and how
fantastic they were, just as a thought experiment, why shouldn't
we look in the mirror and go cut what an
amazing life I've had, rather than g I wish I
could afford a facelift. That's swimming upstream against all these
societal messages. So how do you change society? Is it
one person at a time telling herself that she's more
(22:52):
than or can we collectively do anything about this? Both
and which, of course, you know, the consciousness raising is
the tool that catalyzed the women's movement, and it's sort
of an old fashioned word, but I think it's still powerful.
What happened is that women came together and compared notes
and realize that what they had been thinking of as
(23:13):
personal problems. You know, their children weren't blond enough, their
boops weren't big enough, their boss was patting them on
the butt, they couldn't even get a job. We're not
personal problems. They were widely shared political problems that required
collective action. And that is exactly what we need to
do with aging. It is the work of a lifetime.
It is a collective task. But that's why I think
(23:36):
if I have one ask, I have a lot of them.
But it would be for women to come together in
consciousness raising groups. Let's talk about the implicit bias we
all have and how agism really creeps into our conversation
in a way that we don't even realize. I wouldn't
even say it creeps in. It's they're sitting on the sofa.
(23:58):
One good sort of little litmus test for yourself is
to think about how you use the words old and young.
You know, I hear people say I don't feel old.
What they really mean is I don't feel invisible. I
don't feel useless, I don't feel incompetent. We can feel
those things at any age. Right, That's how I felt
at thirteen, for sure. Right. But or I feel young
(24:20):
means I feel energetic, I feel sexy, I feel you know, powerful.
You can feel those things at any age. So try
and step back from using old as placeholder for in
certain decrepit awful thing, and young as the positive thing,
because those are not attributes that are tied to our age.
Not for a minute, let are other examples a senior moment.
(24:43):
Senior moment is bad, of course, because any prophecy about
decline cognitive in particular is terrifying. It's not that our
fears of Alzheimer's are not, you know, legitimate. It's a
terrifying disease. But no one knows that rates of Alzheimer's
are declining fast, and that the odds of you or
(25:03):
I or anyone listening to this of getting Alzheimer's have
gotten lower and lower, and that people are being diagnosed
at later ages. What about the term for your age,
You have some definite views on that. You look great
for your age. Thank you. First of all, speaking of habits,
try and bite that thank you before it gets out
of your mouth. It's really hard not to feel complimented.
(25:26):
But when you accept that compliment, it's ages in the
most fundamental way, because it's reinforcing the idea that younger
is better. And that's really the heart of the beast. Right,
Younger is sometimes better, older sometimes better. Right, But this
idea that old is bad and young is good. You
can also only accept the compliment at the expense of
(25:50):
everyone else your age who doesn't look quite as good
as you. And that's not a recipe for social change
or solidarity, right, And the real question is why someone
you know bringing up age at all. I do have
the one good, snappy answer for you look good for
you was gonna say for twelve years, and I came
up with one. You say, non snarkily, you look good
(26:11):
for your age too, and just let it sit there
because the person meant it as a compliment. But then
they What you want to do is force. I know
force is a strong word, but if we don't, you know,
we don't, it takes a little jolt to get us
out of our group. Right, is to force that moment
of reflection, Gee, why didn't that feel like a compliment?
(26:32):
And the reason it didn't is because it's embarrassing to
be called out as older. Until we quit being embarrassed
about it, and I can tell that you're over it,
and doesn't it feel better. That's a great idea. I'm
going to try that. When it comes to language. My
pet peeve is when people used to say about my
(26:55):
mom or dad they're so cute. I really found it
offensive because they were exceptional people. My dad especially was brilliant,
my mom incredibly creative and clever and funny, and this
cute thing was so diminishing of everything about them. And
(27:16):
I feel like too often people infantilize older people, and
it's really bugs the ship out of me. I'm with you.
There's a fantastic researcher at Yale called Becca Levi who
coined a term for this elder speak, and it is
the honey, sweetie deery thing. It's delegitimizing of someone as
(27:37):
a whole person and someone who has a rich history.
I think my friends meant it as a compliment, but
I always bristled at it. A really good rule of
thumb is don't call someone something you wouldn't want to
be called yourself. If you wouldn't want to have someone
call you cute them. Think about whether you're using it
(27:59):
to someone else. Babies are cute, old people are not cute,
because you're absolutely right. Is condescending and it turns the
clock back on all their years and their richness and
infantalizes them. Becca Levy's research shows that even people with
advanced dementia react badly to being condescended to. Two elder speak.
It's not good for us. No one wants to be
(28:20):
condescended to at any age. How does this play out
in the workplace, Ashton? Because obviously aged discrimination for someone
in his or her job is a nightmare and devastating.
It is devastating. And you could argue a little bit
that it's really hard for men because the workplace is
often the first place white men encounter discrimination and a
(28:43):
huge part of their sense of identity. Women often have
sort of a larger circle of friends and other sources
of identity. But um, that's the only thing I'll say
in defense of white men. You don't hate white men,
do you know? But I'm not wasting any energy looking
out for them because they're doing really good job of
looking out for themselves. Women face the double whammy of
(29:04):
agism and sexism, and women of color face the triple
whammy of course of agism and sexism and racism. I
mean that is what intersectionality means, is that all these
oppressions compound and reinforce each other, add disability to the mix,
and people, you know, face huge obstacles to representation, let
alone you know, employment, Let alone employment for a decent wage,
(29:25):
let alone employment for a wage that other people get,
and so on. We are penalized. I know this is
news to you for our appearance. Economists have a charming
name for this, the attractiveness penalty. Women stop getting promoted
to managerial positions at thirty four in United States, right
because we might think about having children, and you all,
(29:48):
we all know that your uterus and your brain cannot
function at the same time. And of course, when you
don't get promoted early on, all these things compound. Women
make less, we save less, we're penalized time out of
the workforce, typically spent on unpaid caregiving. If we have pensions,
therefore less money. So women face this huge compounded disadvantage.
(30:11):
But it is the thing about being in your childbearing years,
is that really ageism? Or you're never the right. Oh,
I think it's agism and sexism. What does my reproductive
status have to do with the fact that I am
joining forces with a bunch of older women who might
or might not be post menopause. Men's reproductive status is
never called out. Let's talk about the World Health Organization
(30:33):
and the study that they're conducting. Now, I'm glad you
brought that up, because there is tons of fascinating research
that shows that attitudes towards aging affect how our minds
and bodies function at the cellular level. If you live
in this fear based zone where you only read the
bad news because that's most of what's accessible, you have
(30:53):
an unduly misinformed negative view of aging. If you, on
the other hand, have a more positive, fact based attitude,
people live longer an average of seven and a half years, longer,
walk faster, heal quicker even from severe disability. And the
latest study out of Yale I'm not picking you know,
obscure science here shows that people with more positive attitudes
(31:16):
towards aging are less likely to develop dementia even if
they have the gene that predisposes them to the disease.
So obviously this is a fantastic argument for a anti
agism campaign as a public health initiative. Up neet some
real talk from a woman who tells it to us straight.
We don't just spot to be younger people, they're spot
(31:38):
to be us because quite frankly, you know, at our age,
we don't give a ship. We'll have more on that
right after this. Cindy Gallup is one of the most
outspoken and influential women in the world of advertising, a
male dominated, youth obsessed industry if there ever was one.
(32:01):
I've always talked about and tried to do things to
help change, you know, the lack of diversity across gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability,
and age. And so this has just been one part
of what I feel very strong about. So what I
would like to like to drive change and advertising is
very interesting area because the target demographics right for many
(32:27):
of these companies and many of these products has forever
been eighteen to thirty four, right at least in my
business and television, or eighteen to fifty four if you
really want to stretch it. But after fifty four they
don't really care. And I'm curious, is that an outdated
and equated model in your view, absolute bloody lutely, and
(32:48):
it's part of a much bigger problem which Ashton has
quite rightly highlighted, which is a patriarchy. So at the
top of my industry, as at the top of your industry,
and everyone instay is a close loop of white guys
talking to white guys by the white guys. What that
means in advertising is that the primary purchase of everything
(33:08):
and the primary influence of everything is female. You know,
that's that's the majority audience of advertising. Of consumer goods
are bought by when But but the advertising industry is
dominated by men. So we are constantly being sold to
ourselves through the male gaze. And equally, my industry is
extraordinarily agrees. Tina Brown and I were talking recently and
(33:32):
we were saying, why is this obsession still so prominent,
Because we were saying that women, when their children get
older and they're out of the house, they have more
disposable income, they have more freedom to travel, to spend it,
to do things, and yet they're still kind of invisible.
(33:54):
The thing about that is everything we're talking about. The
solution is enormously simple. If you want to sell a
ton of product to older people in a way that
will make older people go, oh my god, let me
get my wallet out and give you all my money.
Have older people make the ads and actually have older
people create the ads, approve the ads, produce the ads,
(34:17):
and direct the ads. If you had older people in
the industry operating at every point along the way, we
would see much better advertising and for normally aspirational depictions
of ourselves. Because the enormous irony is I bang on
a lot about the Evian Water campaign, which for many
years has run the tagline live young and assumes that's
(34:38):
what we all want to do. I created the hashtag
live Older because we are the ones living the aspirational lifestyle.
We have our own sense of values, we have our
own personal tastes. We dress the way we want, we
live the way we want. If we're lucky, we have
money that means we can travel, we have more freedom.
These are all things that younger people are aspire to,
(34:59):
but we do not see our lifestyle represented as aspirational
that way in advertising or anywhere in public culture. To
play devil's advocate, though, isn't brand loyalty established kind of
early on? For example, I decided I like Colgate toothpaste
when I was twenty five, and I still buy Colgate toothpaste.
So is there a reason that demographic is targeted other
(35:22):
than they just don't like old people and the it's
the patriarchy making the decisions. It's a knee jerk, unthinking
reaction for every brand that goes our target a millennials,
you know. And if I was having this conversation with
a credit director in my industry who said that, his
team said to him and actually, you know, I won't
(35:42):
identify him, but the brand was a very mass market,
very common household product, and his team said to him,
so we're going to target this millennials. He went why why?
There was no reason for this politic product to be
targeted to young people more than any other set of
the population. So no, it really is. It's a knee
jerk reaction, and it's a very wrong headed assumption also
(36:07):
that if you target your advertising at young people, they
will drive the attitudes behave of older people because we
all are spart to be like them, and that is
absolutely not the case. Ashton and Sandy both think when
it comes to your age, you should own it baby.
They say, for women in general, if you can't see it,
you can't be it. Well, the same for women once
(36:28):
they become older, right and am I allowed yous? Are
it older now very neurotic? No? No, absolutely, But but
but you know, I have this thing, you know, I
live here in Manhattan, and I walk the streets of
Manhattan and I actively look at the older people in
the streets. I look at the older women that I
passed by, and I know every single one of those
(36:49):
older women I see on the streets of Manhattan has
had an extraordinary life, you know, And she's had an
extraordinary life because I have some idea as a woman
of what she's been through. What people just smiths rocketing
through the streets of New York as a little old lady.
There is a truly extraordinary saga of strength and desperation
and difficulties and achievement and fit. There's an amazing story
(37:14):
behind that person. And we are taught as a society
to look at older women and despise them, to just
instantly dismiss them despises too strongle I mean, no, I'm
using that word in a patriarchal sense, because that is
what a lot of men do consciously and unconsciously as well.
I regard myself that I say this regularly, as you know,
a proudly visible member of the most invisible segment of
(37:36):
our society, which is older women. And so I want
to role model in my life, you know, I want
to completely counter the way society thinks an older one
should look like, be like, talk like, dress like, work like,
and date like. And I want all of us to
do that. We can all take actions every single day
to change this. Okay, sign me up like what and
(37:57):
up there is what is going to drive the change.
It's not going to come from consumer culture. It's not
going to come from advertising, it's not going to come
from tech. All those fields have an enormous critical role
to play. But people's attitudes and incremental change is what
drives culture change, and that's what is going to change
the role of So change happens from the bottom up,
(38:18):
not the top down microactions. So here's the most important one.
I coined the hashtag say your age. Okay, and I
ask every woman, and by the way, I asked men too.
But but we are talking about women here because ages
that affects us much more to say say her age,
Because because I've I've been shouting my age from the
(38:38):
rooftops for like like, for I'm fifty nine. And the
thing is that, my philosopher here is the opposite of
what people normally say to count ages, and which is, oh,
age is just a number. No, it's not. Your age
is a very special number, because your age is the
sum total of you. I give an interview um last
year to a German newspaper and the editor on the
phone call said to me at the anda, now, Cindy,
(39:01):
you know I have to apologize in it that you know,
I'm so sorry about what I now have to ask you.
But you know it is a requirement that we ask everybody.
And I'm thinking, oh my god, I mean, what deeply
personal thing is you know? And he went, you know,
so I'm so sorry how old you? And I just
I had hysterics. I burst out laughing and I said,
I'm fifty ages, as you know, and I couldn't care less.
(39:21):
And so, you know, say your age count anybody goes,
oh ho ho, I won't ask how old you are
by telling them, and then very importantly take that valuation
of you, as in your age into the workplace. And
I recommend to women take it into job interviews, So
do not do that thing, or you know, shedding a
(39:43):
few years on LinkedIn from your resume, own your entire
career to date and say say your age. I am
fifty nine and I am incredibly value because I have
fifty nine years worth off. You know what that age
means is I can do this. I have expertise in this.
I know some cosmetic companies have stopped using the term
age defining, and that's seen as some sign of progress.
(40:07):
Do you think it is? And what else do you
think needs to be done individually and collectively? Um? Everything? Now?
I know Allure magazine was the first to ban the
term anti aging from its pages, which was great. The
next sentence in the announcement linked to an adver retin
a I noticed that also, But you know, we'll take it.
Culture change is slow and it's incremental. But you know,
(40:30):
aging is not just something annoying all people do or parents.
It is a process that we embark upon the day
we're born. Aging is living. There's a great um British
writer named and Cartfood told Brian Lair on NPR, you
can no more be anti aging than anti breathing. So
I think thinking about how we just think about the
(40:51):
term aging as a substitute for you know bad thing.
Everyone is aging, not just parents and celebrities. It is terrible.
When you see the internet features, you won't believe what
they look like. Now. I think a very fundamental concept
here is the idea of age shame. Why on earth
should waking up a day older be a source of
(41:13):
shame when it is something every person does. When we
scrub our resumes for early accomplishments, we reinforce age shame
when we die our hair just to cover the gray,
and millions and millions of people do. I totally understand
and respect why no judgment, But these behaviors are not
good for us because they're rooted in shame about something
(41:35):
that shouldn't be shameful, and they give a pass to
the discrimination that makes those behaviors necessary. If women worked right,
and how much money that would add to the economy,
I think nobody really talks about how if people older
people were gainfully employed, how much that would add to
the persistent myth that older people are drag on the economy.
(41:57):
There's no truth to it. You're making a point I
make all the time, because you know, when when I
talk about championing diversity as a whole and ages them
within that as one dimension of it, I make the
point that I am not doing this because it's the
right thing to do. I'm doing this because I'm a
hard head of pragmatic businesswoman. And oh my god, the
impact on the American economy when we eradicate agism in
(42:21):
the workplace, honestly, precisely your point. The extraordinary pool of talent,
the resources, the point I made earlier, the time and
cost efficiency of skills and expertise that have been honed
over decades, brought to bear on the workplace and the
workload in any industry would turbo charge every single business
(42:42):
towards a far more lucrative future, and it would power
the American economy into a whole new era. Absent bloody
lutely so, older workers make very good economic and business absolutely,
and I mean there was a Wild Street Journal piece
about Europe making use of older workers, but it paired it.
The headline was often at the spence of younger workers.
That is a myth. It is called the fallacy of
(43:04):
the lump of labor. It is another way that we
are pitted against each other. In this case old versus young,
when it's position is scarcity, it makes people nervous and
they read the story right, but it is false. It
is alarmist. Same with this, you know metaphor for population
aging of the gray tsunami. The baby boom is the
(43:24):
best studied demographic phenomenon in history. It's not some title
wave that's sneaking up the Hudson when we weren't looking.
You don't think they're going to cost a lot of
money as they age? They you mean we yeah, yeah,
that's why that one I think. I think, first of all,
spending on older people is often portrayed as an expense.
(43:47):
It is an investment. This talk about older people, you know,
sucking more out of the system. The system was developed
to enable people with disabilities or who have retired to
remain self sufficient. That's what the system was designed for. Yes,
there will be costs, but there are also opportunities. Society
of longer lives is going to require massive investment in
(44:08):
infrastructure and in healthcare. Those are real costs, and so
embrace us in the workforce and we will make you
the ton of money that thaw outweighs those costs, right,
and you know, address agism in healthcare so that so
that older people receive better care and and receive the
care that we need. We are facing um an enormously
(44:29):
troubled time on the planet. Leaders and and politicians and
corporate leaders are already exploiting deep divisions of race and
class and gender. We cannot afford to add age to
the mix. That's what ages M does, pits old against young.
It is imperative that we overturn this narrative that to
ages to fail, that older and younger people don't have
(44:52):
anything in common. I think it's enormously important to stackles
agism because the impact on the American economy of embracing
and leveraging the enormous potential in the older workforce would
dramatically power us to a very different financial scenario, which
(45:13):
would give everybody young and older like many more opportunities,
better ways of living and better ways of aging, and
ultimately just make all of us a great deal happier.
Just spending some time with Lynn, Joannie Ashton, and Cindy
made me realize that even I have misconceptions about this
(45:33):
particular demographic, then I'm a part of Maybe agism will
stop being the last socially acceptable is um if we
stop shaming people because of it, just as our culture
has become less tolerant of body shaming. After all, aging
crosses all racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines, and it will
(45:54):
happen to all of us one day if we're lucky.
Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and until we meet again,
make sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm at Katie
Curik and sign up for my daily newsletter is called
(46:16):
wake Up Call, and you can do that by going
to Katie Currek dot com. Next Question with Katie Couric
is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curreic Media.
The executive producers are Katie Kuric, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas,
and Tyler Klang. Our show producers are Bethan Mcalouso and
Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Associate producers
(46:40):
are Emily Pinto and Derrek Clemens. Editing by Dylan Fagan,
Derrek Clements, and Lowell Berlante. Our researcher is Barbara Keene.
For more information on today's episode, go to Katie Currek
dot com and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at
Katie currec. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit
(47:03):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Next Question with Katie Kuric is a production of I
Heart Radio and Katie Kuric Media. Hi everyone, I'm Katie Kuric,
and welcome to Next Question, where we try to understand
the complicated world we're living in and the crazy things
that are happening by asking questions and by listening to
people who really know what they're talking about. At times,
it may lead to some pretty uncomfortable conversations, but stick
(00:24):
with me, everyone, let's all learn together. You look great
for your age. That's a compliment, right, or is it
for your age? You're look really good for your age. Yeah,
I'd say that that's a compliment. Um, it implies that
at your age you should look terrible. Do you think
(00:46):
ageism is one of the last acceptable isms in society
that it's okay to criticize older people. I feel like
when you get to a certain point in your life,
you're kind of becoming or are invisible, and so I
don't think it's acceptable. Okay, great, thank you so much.
In today's youth obsessed culture, aging seems to be viewed
(01:07):
as a negative, something to be feared, not revered, and
the messages were inundated with every day only reinforce that.
A new study by the a RP found only fift
of images in the media show people over the age
of fifty, and when they do appear, they're often at home,
sitting around with a partner or nurse instead of out
(01:29):
in the world exercising or working, and you never see
them using technology. Then there's the anti aging industrial complex.
Aging skin is dry. It can be embarrassing and make
you look older than you really are. Now you can
do something about it. Visibly plump skin in just one week,
bounce back and reduces wrinkles for younger looking skin. It's
(01:52):
the ultimate beauty victory. Nobody has any idea how old
you are. Why is aging portrayed as something to avoid?
It all costs a source of shame and embarrassment, especially
for women. My next question is ag ism the last
socially acceptable is um. I'm sixty two and I'm happy
(02:13):
to be the age I am most of the time.
I'm out there, loud and proud doing my thing. But
all too often people become marginalized or ignored as they age.
Maybe that's starting to change though, After all, there are
almost fifty million people sixty or over in the US
and there is active as ever, today prejudice against any
(02:35):
group is not considered a good look. But does that
extend to older people? I think that unconsciously, although I
had no agenda when I started my doing, Accidental Icon
was really kind of giving the finger to this notion
that I have to be invisible. Now, lens Later is
(02:57):
the headline making fashion influencer own on social media as
the Accidental Icon. She was catapulted into fame five years
ago when she was mistaken as a fashion industry insider
outside an exhibit in New York City. Now in her
mid sixties, she has nearly seven hundred thousand followers on Instagram,
(03:18):
as well as a modeling contract. So let's talk about
how this happened. Because, first and foremost, I understand a
college professor at Foredom, Is that right? Yes? Although I
just retired after twenty years of teaching last semester. So
now you're embarking on this whole new career, right, a
(03:39):
whole new career, but really trying to think about how
to incorporate my teaching and my commitment to social welfare
into this new career. What did you teach it? Foredom?
Social welfare? AH, soci our law, the whole idea of
agism and how society treats older people. It's right in
(04:01):
your wheelhouse. Actually, do you think ag ism is the
last socially acceptable is um in America? I actually do,
and I actually discovered because on my Instagram, my largest
following is actually eighteen to forty and the biggest bar
(04:24):
five to thirty five. Of course, being an academic, I
asked a lot of questions whenever I met twenty five
year old who followed me, I would say why? And
so it turns out I've now determined the ages and
begins at When you are twenty five, you don't say, oh,
I'm gonna be twenty six my next birthday. You say,
(04:47):
oh my god, I'm gonna be thirty. I'm getting old,
And then all of the stereotypes about what that means
enter into your head. And then the next thing are
all social expectations for women. And I haven't done this,
and I haven't done that, and I haven't done that. Lenn,
how old are you now? I'm sixty six? When people
(05:09):
ask you that, do you ever wonder if you should
lie about your age? Or how have you ever lied
about your Never? Why? Well? I think a long time ago,
I decided that in order for me to have power
in the world, that I had to understand and own
any limitation that I would ever have in my life.
(05:33):
And my response to limitations has been to respond to
them in a creative way. And so I think that
I get more angry than scared about these things. The
visual representation that you give to people, I think also
is incredibly empowering, just as women are empowered by seeing
(05:56):
images of other powerful women. The whole notion of if
you can't see it, you can't be it. Seeing you
a woman of a certain age quote unquote, who is
often marginalized or diminished or made invisible not seen, is like, hell, yeah,
she's out there, she's living her life, she looks fantastic,
(06:21):
she's cool, she's stylish, and you know what, God damn it.
So am I that's the response. But I want to
also make this point because I think it's really important.
There's a whole bunch of young women that feel marginalized
because they don't reach this perfection that fashion kind of
puts out there, and so a lot of them are
(06:44):
also inspired because I think, basically, I'm just very comfortable
with who I am, and your messages you do you
basically yeah, And when young people say, oh, I'm gonna
be just like you when I get older, I always
right back to them and I say, be me. Now,
just start loving yourself and putting yourself out there if
(07:08):
you believe ag ism or fear of aging starts at
which is insane to me looking at that number as
a sixty two year old woman. How do we flip
the script? How do we say, hey, you can lead
a long, productive, visible life for many, many, many many years.
(07:28):
It's not all downhill from here. You, as important as
your presence is on social media, you alone cannot change
the narrative. So what other things need to happen when well?
I think the first thing is women my age, our
age still have a lot of internalized ages m because
of cultural conditioning, yes, and that they project onto other women.
(07:53):
And so I think it's very interesting to me that
again early on, the people that really promoted me, the
people that made me very public, the people that hire me,
the people that pay me, are all young. It's not
women my age. For me, I've always been inspired by
(08:14):
young people. And maybe that's because I'm the oldest of
six children. That started it. I'm a professor, and even
in my practice as a social worker, I worked with
young people and they always push you to keep relevant,
to keep moving. I think that in every situation, if
you look hard enough, there's a little note of power,
(08:38):
which is what I've found in social media. You know,
social media can be used to have negative effects for women,
and social media can have very positive effects. And so
I always asked myself when I'm going to post, what
are women going to see or think or how am
I going to make them feel when I put it's
(09:00):
this picture? And so I'm very aware that I have
a responsibility about this, but I also feel that this
is not a project for older people. That we need
to engage all ages into disrupting the story of aging,
(09:21):
and we really better do it soon, because by there's
going to be way more people over the age of
sixty then there is under the age of five. And
so I think it's not just a social justice issue,
but now it's a mental and physical health issue. And
(09:43):
I think in terms of getting the message out, what
I've learned from being a professor is you can't lecture
people and you can't the victim either. You can't exactly,
so I never play the victim about it. Every single phone,
Oh I put out I have this expression on my
face like I have along hair. Look at me. In
(10:06):
my personal life, I'm actually kind of I'm more of
a Shire person, and so that this is like your
alter ego coming out, as it is my alter ego
always came out in the classroom too. I'm a very
performative person, and when people ask me what do I
think about age, I basically say, look at my photos.
(10:30):
I'm performing it. I don't need to talk about it.
I am showing a different way to think about aging.
I'm doing it visually instead of giving you a lecture
about oppression in this and that. And it's almost a
subconscious message in some ways, right under the guise of fashion,
(10:50):
you're really communicating an incredibly important message. People just may
not realize it. Right exactly. I was on a morning
as a guest not too long ago, and they posted
me talking and one of the comments was, wow, she
looks old. What would you have said to that person?
(11:10):
I am old, That's what I did say. Good for you.
I now think I should have said, well, i am older,
and I'm lucky I've gotten here right. I mean that's
the other side of the client. The other alternative is
you're not here anymore, right, And I think about that
because my husband died at forty two exactly, so every
(11:31):
year I'm able to be here is precious to me,
that's right. And I think there's so many advances now
in medicine and technology that we are going to live
a higher quality of life much longer. And so these
old stories of you're going to stop caring about what
(11:51):
you wear, you're gonna go play bingo, or even that
you're going to retire, right right. I have been last
with good health, and if this continues, I could do
this for another twenty years. My mother's ninety four. I
want those years to be exciting. I want to keep learning.
(12:14):
I think I have something to offer, and a lot
of people seem to think I do. I just want
to kiss you right now. I also had a chance
to talk to another headline grabbing fashionist of a certain age,
model Joannie Johnson, who's sixty seven and has walked the
(12:34):
runway for many top designers. She was even cast by
Rihanna to appear in a campaign for her new fenty
fashion line. She talked to me about representing women who
are not twenty two in an industry often fixated on youth.
I think that the opportunities have become more available to
(12:55):
women of a certain age. It's not just here in
the United States, but it's also happening in Europe and Asia.
Women of a certain age being taken more seriously. You know,
it's also about they are some of the top consumers,
so they do make a difference, and the responses that
the media is getting from those people of a certain
(13:17):
age saying finally, I see myself is also having an impact.
Len agrees that things are starting to change, and ironically
it's younger people who are paving the way. If you
look at who is asking older women to walk in
their shows, it's young designers. It is not the gucciese.
(13:40):
It is not the channels. It's Christian Sarriano had made
Musk Joanni has walked for a lot of independent designers.
I myself just had a fun time walking for Kate Spade.
But I think younger people are realizing the importance of
(14:00):
representation overall. But I think that is actually permeated through
the youth culture. The importance of diversity and inclusion and
they're happily including people who are older. That's that equation,
and I think that if I'm going to put on
my social welfare social justice had here is that one
(14:22):
of the things when you have privileged in a system,
which you know, we as white people have privilege in
this system, youth have privilege and fashion. And so when
you have privilege, if you want to do the right thing,
you become an ally and you use your privilege to
(14:43):
advance the cause of other people. And so that's what
I've felt young people have done for me in particular,
is they have been an ally in promoting older people
to be part of this diversement. You're so inspiring. What
would you tell women and even men, honestly, because I
(15:06):
think they're the victims of these attitudes as well, not
as much, right, but what would you tell them about
aging and about helping their outlook when it comes to
getting older. So my own experience, and I'm not gonna lie,
is that when I first started to age, I was
not happy about the impact. I actually came to this
(15:30):
realization it's inevitable. There's not anything you can do to
intervene in this process. And actually, if we want to
be honest, It's been happening since the day were born.
One of the things that I think was very helpful
to me was because I was always around young people,
(15:51):
I was able to remain relevant when it came to
things like technology, um popular culture. Yes, I was able
to use this new kind of culture for my benefit
because I didn't reject it. And I think that's a
habit that we sometimes have as older people, because we're
(16:13):
comfortable in our own zones. That's right, And so in
this new media, I can still address issues that are
really important to me. I can do it in a
way that I'm not like turning people off. It's very engaging.
And so you're going direct to consumer, as they say,
exactly exactly, disintermediator, Lynn, And for me, you're not an
(16:38):
accidental icon. You're just an icon. And what can I say?
I think you rock, Lynn, Thank you, thank you so much.
Coming up, anti agism warrior Ashton apple White debunked some
of the biggest myths about getting older. It doesn't make
sense to go through life pretending that something that is
happening to you every day is not going to happen
(16:59):
to you. That fear is bad for us that fear
keeps us from investing in our own care and our
own development across our lifespan, and no discrimination is good
for society. Ashton apple White is an activist, influencer, and writer.
(17:26):
She's also made Fortunes forty over forty list and is
the author of This Chair Rocks, a manifesto against ages.
UM let's talk about the U Curve of happiness. Where
did that come from? How did they discover it? And
is it legitimate? If you sound like my mother in
law who would never say she said that you curve,
(17:47):
I'm not buying it. Um google it. It is one
of the best substantiated data sets out there. There is
a whole emerging field of social science called happiness studies,
so one of them could give you a more scholarly
answer than I. But I can tell you that I
was plenty skeptical about it, and that it has been
(18:07):
borne out by dozens of studies in the US and
around the world. For those of you who may not
know what Ashton is talking about. In a nutshell, the
U curve of happiness shows that people are happiest at
the beginning and end of their lives, but less so
in the middle, which could explain why so many of
us have a midlife crisis. So if we're happier as
(18:31):
we age, and if we're living more independently as we age,
then why is there so much ages um? To put
it succinctly, if aging is framed as a problem, we
can be persuaded to buy things to fix it. People
make money off those things. No one makes money off satisfaction.
(18:51):
So we have a huge lesson here. In the body
acceptance movement, you know when once you learn that the
fact that your thighs rubbed together is not the worst
problem ever to affect mankind, you stop spending money and
time on self loathing. Agism is rooted in denial of
the fact that we're going to get older. I don't
think self loathing is too strong a term to use
(19:12):
about seeing these natural transitions as um as awful as
your own personal problem. And in the bigger sense, agism
is a prejudice. It's stereotyping and discrimination on the basis
of age. Agism is great for companies because they can
pitt supposedly expensive older workers against younger workers, who can
be exploited because they don't have families to support yet right,
(19:36):
We need to join forces old and young. Don't fall
for any old versus young rhetoric. Any time you make
a judgment that someone couldn't isn't possibly old enough to
know what they're doing or to tell you what to do,
that's agism too. So why is it still socially acceptable?
You know, it seems to me sexism is being addressed,
(19:58):
and racism is being addressed, certainly not solved, but at
least talked about. Forget there, and this is an ism
that nobody really really talks about, do they. I do,
and I will say in a way that I don't
think is delusional, that this really is changing. I mean
ten years ago when I started on this, I was
telling people what agism is and why it's a problem.
(20:19):
I just criss crossed the country on a book tour,
and people were coming to me and saying, how can
I be pro aging anti ageism in my work, in
my program, in my built environment. We are moving from
theory to practice. What has propelled that change? I'm not sure.
Perhaps it's the baby boom. I am dead center born
(20:40):
in ninety two, you know, finally acknowledging it's true that
we are aging differently than our parents did, and our
grandparents certainly. But guess what, I'm still going to get old.
There's also a lot of denial on the part of
baby Boom. We're different, We're exceptional. Sixty is the new thirty.
That kind of sixty is the new six. The it
(21:00):
is different from what sixty used to be. But every
time we aspire to be younger, we deny all the
richness that our years have brought us, all that the
aches and pains too. Again, it's double edged. I once
wrote a really cranky blog post. If aging is so awful,
how come no one actually wants to be any younger?
(21:22):
People's faces do just what yours just did. That there's
like this moment of wait that sounds great, Oh wait,
because you don't get to take your present day consciousness
back with you. Well, I'd still want to do it.
You'd erase the clock, you'd go back to being who
you are at seventeen or whatever. Age. Well, how about
thirty five? But you don't get anything that you've learned
(21:44):
or done or been since you were thirty five. You
have to read about forty have about forty You tell me, no,
I'm just going to have my children would still be alive,
and I'd look a hell of a lot better. Is
that wrong? There is no right or wrong. We each
have to do this in our own way. You know.
(22:05):
I have had women come up and say, look, I've
had botox, I have plastic surgery. Whatever. If I didn't
dye my hair, I would lose my job. I wish
I would thought that she was exaggerating. I'm sure she's
not no judgment around any of this, But the habit
of looking in the mirror and going what the hell happened,
which we all do, is deeply damaging because if you
(22:28):
think about all the things that did happen and how
fantastic they were, just as a thought experiment, why shouldn't
we look in the mirror and go cut what an
amazing life I've had, rather than g I wish I
could afford a facelift. That's swimming upstream against all these
societal messages. So how do you change society? Is it
one person at a time telling herself that she's more
(22:52):
than or can we collectively do anything about this? Both
and which, of course, you know, the consciousness raising is
the tool that catalyzed the women's movement, and it's sort
of an old fashioned word, but I think it's still powerful.
What happened is that women came together and compared notes
and realize that what they had been thinking of as
(23:13):
personal problems. You know, their children weren't blond enough, their
boops weren't big enough, their boss was patting them on
the butt, they couldn't even get a job. We're not
personal problems. They were widely shared political problems that required
collective action. And that is exactly what we need to
do with aging. It is the work of a lifetime.
It is a collective task. But that's why I think
(23:36):
if I have one ask, I have a lot of them.
But it would be for women to come together in
consciousness raising groups. Let's talk about the implicit bias we
all have and how agism really creeps into our conversation
in a way that we don't even realize. I wouldn't
even say it creeps in. It's they're sitting on the sofa.
(23:58):
One good sort of little litmus test for yourself is
to think about how you use the words old and young.
You know, I hear people say I don't feel old.
What they really mean is I don't feel invisible. I
don't feel useless, I don't feel incompetent. We can feel
those things at any age. Right, That's how I felt
at thirteen, for sure. Right. But or I feel young
(24:20):
means I feel energetic, I feel sexy, I feel you know, powerful.
You can feel those things at any age. So try
and step back from using old as placeholder for in
certain decrepit awful thing, and young as the positive thing,
because those are not attributes that are tied to our age.
Not for a minute, let are other examples a senior moment.
(24:43):
Senior moment is bad, of course, because any prophecy about
decline cognitive in particular is terrifying. It's not that our
fears of Alzheimer's are not, you know, legitimate. It's a
terrifying disease. But no one knows that rates of Alzheimer's
are declining fast, and that the odds of you or
(25:03):
I or anyone listening to this of getting Alzheimer's have
gotten lower and lower, and that people are being diagnosed
at later ages. What about the term for your age,
You have some definite views on that. You look great
for your age. Thank you. First of all, speaking of habits,
try and bite that thank you before it gets out
of your mouth. It's really hard not to feel complimented.
(25:26):
But when you accept that compliment, it's ages in the
most fundamental way, because it's reinforcing the idea that younger
is better. And that's really the heart of the beast. Right,
Younger is sometimes better, older sometimes better. Right, But this
idea that old is bad and young is good. You
can also only accept the compliment at the expense of
(25:50):
everyone else your age who doesn't look quite as good
as you. And that's not a recipe for social change
or solidarity, right, And the real question is why someone
you know bringing up age at all. I do have
the one good, snappy answer for you look good for
you was gonna say for twelve years, and I came
up with one. You say, non snarkily, you look good
(26:11):
for your age too, and just let it sit there
because the person meant it as a compliment. But then
they What you want to do is force. I know
force is a strong word, but if we don't, you know,
we don't, it takes a little jolt to get us
out of our group. Right, is to force that moment
of reflection, Gee, why didn't that feel like a compliment?
(26:32):
And the reason it didn't is because it's embarrassing to
be called out as older. Until we quit being embarrassed
about it, and I can tell that you're over it,
and doesn't it feel better. That's a great idea. I'm
going to try that. When it comes to language. My
pet peeve is when people used to say about my
(26:55):
mom or dad they're so cute. I really found it
offensive because they were exceptional people. My dad especially was brilliant,
my mom incredibly creative and clever and funny, and this
cute thing was so diminishing of everything about them. And
(27:16):
I feel like too often people infantilize older people, and
it's really bugs the ship out of me. I'm with you.
There's a fantastic researcher at Yale called Becca Levi who
coined a term for this elder speak, and it is
the honey, sweetie deery thing. It's delegitimizing of someone as
(27:37):
a whole person and someone who has a rich history.
I think my friends meant it as a compliment, but
I always bristled at it. A really good rule of
thumb is don't call someone something you wouldn't want to
be called yourself. If you wouldn't want to have someone
call you cute them. Think about whether you're using it
(27:59):
to someone else. Babies are cute, old people are not cute,
because you're absolutely right. Is condescending and it turns the
clock back on all their years and their richness and
infantalizes them. Becca Levy's research shows that even people with
advanced dementia react badly to being condescended to. Two elder speak.
It's not good for us. No one wants to be
(28:20):
condescended to at any age. How does this play out
in the workplace, Ashton? Because obviously aged discrimination for someone
in his or her job is a nightmare and devastating.
It is devastating. And you could argue a little bit
that it's really hard for men because the workplace is
often the first place white men encounter discrimination and a
(28:43):
huge part of their sense of identity. Women often have
sort of a larger circle of friends and other sources
of identity. But um, that's the only thing I'll say
in defense of white men. You don't hate white men,
do you know? But I'm not wasting any energy looking
out for them because they're doing really good job of
looking out for themselves. Women face the double whammy of
(29:04):
agism and sexism, and women of color face the triple
whammy of course of agism and sexism and racism. I
mean that is what intersectionality means, is that all these
oppressions compound and reinforce each other, add disability to the mix,
and people, you know, face huge obstacles to representation, let
alone you know, employment, Let alone employment for a decent wage,
(29:25):
let alone employment for a wage that other people get,
and so on. We are penalized. I know this is
news to you for our appearance. Economists have a charming
name for this, the attractiveness penalty. Women stop getting promoted
to managerial positions at thirty four in United States, right
because we might think about having children, and you all,
(29:48):
we all know that your uterus and your brain cannot
function at the same time. And of course, when you
don't get promoted early on, all these things compound. Women
make less, we save less, we're penalized time out of
the workforce, typically spent on unpaid caregiving. If we have pensions,
therefore less money. So women face this huge compounded disadvantage.
(30:11):
But it is the thing about being in your childbearing years,
is that really ageism? Or you're never the right. Oh,
I think it's agism and sexism. What does my reproductive
status have to do with the fact that I am
joining forces with a bunch of older women who might
or might not be post menopause. Men's reproductive status is
never called out. Let's talk about the World Health Organization
(30:33):
and the study that they're conducting. Now, I'm glad you
brought that up, because there is tons of fascinating research
that shows that attitudes towards aging affect how our minds
and bodies function at the cellular level. If you live
in this fear based zone where you only read the
bad news because that's most of what's accessible, you have
(30:53):
an unduly misinformed negative view of aging. If you, on
the other hand, have a more positive, fact based attitude,
people live longer an average of seven and a half years, longer,
walk faster, heal quicker even from severe disability. And the
latest study out of Yale I'm not picking you know,
obscure science here shows that people with more positive attitudes
(31:16):
towards aging are less likely to develop dementia even if
they have the gene that predisposes them to the disease.
So obviously this is a fantastic argument for a anti
agism campaign as a public health initiative. Up neet some
real talk from a woman who tells it to us straight.
We don't just spot to be younger people, they're spot
(31:38):
to be us because quite frankly, you know, at our age,
we don't give a ship. We'll have more on that
right after this. Cindy Gallup is one of the most
outspoken and influential women in the world of advertising, a
male dominated, youth obsessed industry if there ever was one.
(32:01):
I've always talked about and tried to do things to
help change, you know, the lack of diversity across gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, disability,
and age. And so this has just been one part
of what I feel very strong about. So what I
would like to like to drive change and advertising is
very interesting area because the target demographics right for many
(32:27):
of these companies and many of these products has forever
been eighteen to thirty four, right at least in my
business and television, or eighteen to fifty four if you
really want to stretch it. But after fifty four they
don't really care. And I'm curious, is that an outdated
and equated model in your view, absolute bloody lutely, and
(32:48):
it's part of a much bigger problem which Ashton has
quite rightly highlighted, which is a patriarchy. So at the
top of my industry, as at the top of your industry,
and everyone instay is a close loop of white guys
talking to white guys by the white guys. What that
means in advertising is that the primary purchase of everything
(33:08):
and the primary influence of everything is female. You know,
that's that's the majority audience of advertising. Of consumer goods
are bought by when But but the advertising industry is
dominated by men. So we are constantly being sold to
ourselves through the male gaze. And equally, my industry is
extraordinarily agrees. Tina Brown and I were talking recently and
(33:32):
we were saying, why is this obsession still so prominent,
Because we were saying that women, when their children get
older and they're out of the house, they have more
disposable income, they have more freedom to travel, to spend it,
to do things, and yet they're still kind of invisible.
(33:54):
The thing about that is everything we're talking about. The
solution is enormously simple. If you want to sell a
ton of product to older people in a way that
will make older people go, oh my god, let me
get my wallet out and give you all my money.
Have older people make the ads and actually have older
people create the ads, approve the ads, produce the ads,
(34:17):
and direct the ads. If you had older people in
the industry operating at every point along the way, we
would see much better advertising and for normally aspirational depictions
of ourselves. Because the enormous irony is I bang on
a lot about the Evian Water campaign, which for many
years has run the tagline live young and assumes that's
(34:38):
what we all want to do. I created the hashtag
live Older because we are the ones living the aspirational lifestyle.
We have our own sense of values, we have our
own personal tastes. We dress the way we want, we
live the way we want. If we're lucky, we have
money that means we can travel, we have more freedom.
These are all things that younger people are aspire to,
(34:59):
but we do not see our lifestyle represented as aspirational
that way in advertising or anywhere in public culture. To
play devil's advocate, though, isn't brand loyalty established kind of
early on? For example, I decided I like Colgate toothpaste
when I was twenty five, and I still buy Colgate toothpaste.
So is there a reason that demographic is targeted other
(35:22):
than they just don't like old people and the it's
the patriarchy making the decisions. It's a knee jerk, unthinking
reaction for every brand that goes our target a millennials,
you know. And if I was having this conversation with
a credit director in my industry who said that, his
team said to him and actually, you know, I won't
(35:42):
identify him, but the brand was a very mass market,
very common household product, and his team said to him,
so we're going to target this millennials. He went why why?
There was no reason for this politic product to be
targeted to young people more than any other set of
the population. So no, it really is. It's a knee
jerk reaction, and it's a very wrong headed assumption also
(36:07):
that if you target your advertising at young people, they
will drive the attitudes behave of older people because we
all are spart to be like them, and that is
absolutely not the case. Ashton and Sandy both think when
it comes to your age, you should own it baby.
They say, for women in general, if you can't see it,
you can't be it. Well, the same for women once
(36:28):
they become older, right and am I allowed yous? Are
it older now very neurotic? No? No, absolutely, But but
but you know, I have this thing, you know, I
live here in Manhattan, and I walk the streets of
Manhattan and I actively look at the older people in
the streets. I look at the older women that I
passed by, and I know every single one of those
(36:49):
older women I see on the streets of Manhattan has
had an extraordinary life, you know, And she's had an
extraordinary life because I have some idea as a woman
of what she's been through. What people just smiths rocketing
through the streets of New York as a little old lady.
There is a truly extraordinary saga of strength and desperation
and difficulties and achievement and fit. There's an amazing story
(37:14):
behind that person. And we are taught as a society
to look at older women and despise them, to just
instantly dismiss them despises too strongle I mean, no, I'm
using that word in a patriarchal sense, because that is
what a lot of men do consciously and unconsciously as well.
I regard myself that I say this regularly, as you know,
a proudly visible member of the most invisible segment of
(37:36):
our society, which is older women. And so I want
to role model in my life, you know, I want
to completely counter the way society thinks an older one
should look like, be like, talk like, dress like, work like,
and date like. And I want all of us to
do that. We can all take actions every single day
to change this. Okay, sign me up like what and
(37:57):
up there is what is going to drive the change.
It's not going to come from consumer culture. It's not
going to come from advertising, it's not going to come
from tech. All those fields have an enormous critical role
to play. But people's attitudes and incremental change is what
drives culture change, and that's what is going to change
the role of So change happens from the bottom up,
(38:18):
not the top down microactions. So here's the most important one.
I coined the hashtag say your age. Okay, and I
ask every woman, and by the way, I asked men too.
But but we are talking about women here because ages
that affects us much more to say say her age,
Because because I've I've been shouting my age from the
(38:38):
rooftops for like like, for I'm fifty nine. And the
thing is that, my philosopher here is the opposite of
what people normally say to count ages, and which is, oh,
age is just a number. No, it's not. Your age
is a very special number, because your age is the
sum total of you. I give an interview um last
year to a German newspaper and the editor on the
phone call said to me at the anda, now, Cindy,
(39:01):
you know I have to apologize in it that you know,
I'm so sorry about what I now have to ask you.
But you know it is a requirement that we ask everybody.
And I'm thinking, oh my god, I mean, what deeply
personal thing is you know? And he went, you know,
so I'm so sorry how old you? And I just
I had hysterics. I burst out laughing and I said,
I'm fifty ages, as you know, and I couldn't care less.
(39:21):
And so, you know, say your age count anybody goes,
oh ho ho, I won't ask how old you are
by telling them, and then very importantly take that valuation
of you, as in your age into the workplace. And
I recommend to women take it into job interviews, So
do not do that thing, or you know, shedding a
(39:43):
few years on LinkedIn from your resume, own your entire
career to date and say say your age. I am
fifty nine and I am incredibly value because I have
fifty nine years worth off. You know what that age
means is I can do this. I have expertise in this.
I know some cosmetic companies have stopped using the term
age defining, and that's seen as some sign of progress.
(40:07):
Do you think it is? And what else do you
think needs to be done individually and collectively? Um? Everything? Now?
I know Allure magazine was the first to ban the
term anti aging from its pages, which was great. The
next sentence in the announcement linked to an adver retin
a I noticed that also, But you know, we'll take it.
Culture change is slow and it's incremental. But you know,
(40:30):
aging is not just something annoying all people do or parents.
It is a process that we embark upon the day
we're born. Aging is living. There's a great um British
writer named and Cartfood told Brian Lair on NPR, you
can no more be anti aging than anti breathing. So
I think thinking about how we just think about the
(40:51):
term aging as a substitute for you know bad thing.
Everyone is aging, not just parents and celebrities. It is terrible.
When you see the internet features, you won't believe what
they look like. Now. I think a very fundamental concept
here is the idea of age shame. Why on earth
should waking up a day older be a source of
(41:13):
shame when it is something every person does. When we
scrub our resumes for early accomplishments, we reinforce age shame
when we die our hair just to cover the gray,
and millions and millions of people do. I totally understand
and respect why no judgment, But these behaviors are not
good for us because they're rooted in shame about something
(41:35):
that shouldn't be shameful, and they give a pass to
the discrimination that makes those behaviors necessary. If women worked right,
and how much money that would add to the economy,
I think nobody really talks about how if people older
people were gainfully employed, how much that would add to
the persistent myth that older people are drag on the economy.
(41:57):
There's no truth to it. You're making a point I
make all the time, because you know, when when I
talk about championing diversity as a whole and ages them
within that as one dimension of it, I make the
point that I am not doing this because it's the
right thing to do. I'm doing this because I'm a
hard head of pragmatic businesswoman. And oh my god, the
impact on the American economy when we eradicate agism in
(42:21):
the workplace, honestly, precisely your point. The extraordinary pool of talent,
the resources, the point I made earlier, the time and
cost efficiency of skills and expertise that have been honed
over decades, brought to bear on the workplace and the
workload in any industry would turbo charge every single business
(42:42):
towards a far more lucrative future, and it would power
the American economy into a whole new era. Absent bloody
lutely so, older workers make very good economic and business absolutely,
and I mean there was a Wild Street Journal piece
about Europe making use of older workers, but it paired it.
The headline was often at the spence of younger workers.
That is a myth. It is called the fallacy of
(43:04):
the lump of labor. It is another way that we
are pitted against each other. In this case old versus young,
when it's position is scarcity, it makes people nervous and
they read the story right, but it is false. It
is alarmist. Same with this, you know metaphor for population
aging of the gray tsunami. The baby boom is the
(43:24):
best studied demographic phenomenon in history. It's not some title
wave that's sneaking up the Hudson when we weren't looking.
You don't think they're going to cost a lot of
money as they age? They you mean we yeah, yeah,
that's why that one I think. I think, first of all,
spending on older people is often portrayed as an expense.
(43:47):
It is an investment. This talk about older people, you know,
sucking more out of the system. The system was developed
to enable people with disabilities or who have retired to
remain self sufficient. That's what the system was designed for. Yes,
there will be costs, but there are also opportunities. Society
of longer lives is going to require massive investment in
(44:08):
infrastructure and in healthcare. Those are real costs, and so
embrace us in the workforce and we will make you
the ton of money that thaw outweighs those costs, right,
and you know, address agism in healthcare so that so
that older people receive better care and and receive the
care that we need. We are facing um an enormously
(44:29):
troubled time on the planet. Leaders and and politicians and
corporate leaders are already exploiting deep divisions of race and
class and gender. We cannot afford to add age to
the mix. That's what ages M does, pits old against young.
It is imperative that we overturn this narrative that to
ages to fail, that older and younger people don't have
(44:52):
anything in common. I think it's enormously important to stackles
agism because the impact on the American economy of embracing
and leveraging the enormous potential in the older workforce would
dramatically power us to a very different financial scenario, which
(45:13):
would give everybody young and older like many more opportunities,
better ways of living and better ways of aging, and
ultimately just make all of us a great deal happier.
Just spending some time with Lynn, Joannie Ashton, and Cindy
made me realize that even I have misconceptions about this
(45:33):
particular demographic, then I'm a part of Maybe agism will
stop being the last socially acceptable is um if we
stop shaming people because of it, just as our culture
has become less tolerant of body shaming. After all, aging
crosses all racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines, and it will
(45:54):
happen to all of us one day if we're lucky.
Thanks so much for listening, everyone, and until we meet again,
make sure to follow me on Instagram. I'm at Katie
Curik and sign up for my daily newsletter is called
(46:16):
wake Up Call, and you can do that by going
to Katie Currek dot com. Next Question with Katie Couric
is a production of I Heart Radio and Katie Curreic Media.
The executive producers are Katie Kuric, Lauren Bright Pacheco, Julie Douglas,
and Tyler Klang. Our show producers are Bethan Mcalouso and
Courtney Litz. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. Associate producers
(46:40):
are Emily Pinto and Derrek Clemens. Editing by Dylan Fagan,
Derrek Clements, and Lowell Berlante. Our researcher is Barbara Keene.
For more information on today's episode, go to Katie Currek
dot com and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at
Katie currec. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit
(47:03):
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Host
Katie Couric
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