Author and activist Ashton Applewhite has been recognized by the New York Times, National Public Radio and the American Society on Aging as an expert on ageism. She blogs at This Chair Rocks, speaks widely, and is the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, “a book we have been waiting for… that blows up myths seven to a page like fireworks” (Los Angeles Review of Books). In 2016, Next Avenue, a website that’s part of the PBS system, named Applewhite its Influencer of the Year, for sparking a revolution against ageism.
Age Justice Requires Disability Justice—and Vice Versa February 5, 2021 - A terrific special section of the New York Times [in July 2020] was devoted to the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. There is no mention of age or ageism. It would be convenient to…
Discrimination Is Intersectional. Activism Can Be Too January 9, 2021 - … What 2020 brought home for me was that being anti-ageist means supporting every movement for equal rights. It’s a big ask, but we cannot dismantle ageism without dismantling ableism, and racism, and sexism and all the rest, because these systems reinforce…
Age Justice Requires Disability Justice—and Vice Versa December 22, 2020 - A terrific special section of the New York Times [in July] was devoted to the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act. There is no mention of age or ageism. It would be convenient to attribute…
Breonna Taylor Did Not Get to Grow Old November 4, 2020 - Breonna Taylor, a Black EMT, was murdered in her bed at 26 years old. Michael Brown was 18. Tamir Rice was 12. Why am I writing about these young victims of police brutality in a [blog] about ageism? Because systemic…
We’re All Old People in Training, Whether We Know It Yet or Not, Part 2 September 16, 2020 - In a world increasingly segregated by race and class as well as by age, reaching over those divisions to acknowledge the one path we’ll all travel is a radical act.- We’re All Old People in Training, Whether We Know It Yet or Not, Part 1 September 11, 2020 - What’s the best answer to “How old are you?” Tell your questioner the truth—and then ask why it matters.
The Pandemic Isn’t Making Ageism Worse. It’s Exposing It—and That’s a Good Thing July 14, 2020 - Media coverage of anything aging-related has long been characterized by alarmist hand-wringing. Coverage of the pandemic is no exception, given that some three-quarters of COVID-19-related deaths worldwide are of people over age 65, many occurring in nursing homes, where the…
There’s No Excuse for Ageism, Part 2 May 21, 2020 - Another rationale for gerontophobia (fear of aging and aversion to old people) is that olders are closer to death, and, well, who wants to go there? - There’s No Excuse for Ageism, Part 1 May 7, 2020 - When the last parent died in 2017, I visualized their canoes heading over an immense waterfall. My partner’s and my canoes fell next in line. Gulp. Yet this scenario sure beats the alternative: outliving the younger people we love. Is…
In a Pandemic, Ageism Can Be Lethal April 2, 2020 - According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), older people and people with underlying health conditions are about twice as likely to “develop serious outcomes” from the COVID-19 coronavirus—get really sick and possibly die—as younger and otherwise healthier people. …
We Can Do Something about Ageism—Here’s the Evidence January 10, 2020 - We’ve known for a while that ageism—negative beliefs and stereotypes about aging—makes us vulnerable to disease and decline, and also that the opposite is true. People with fact- rather than fear-based attitudes towards aging walk faster, heal quicker, live longer…
Health Care Is Failing Older People December 13, 2019 - Treating patients slowed by Parkinson’s, geriatrician Louise Aronson, MD, sings a chorus of “Happy Birthday” in her head to make sure they have enough time to respond. I’d love a doctor this humane as I head into old age, not…
Rowing North Against Ageism, Sexism and Misogyny October 29, 2019 - Mary Pipher is a psychologist who specializes in women—adolescents in her first bestseller, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls (1994), and now those entering old age in Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing As We Age.
Five Things I Learned on My Book Tour September 25, 2019 - Five weeks, 11 cities, 14 book talks, 9 media appearances, 21 regular talks. Phew. I got so tired, it felt as though gravity was messing with me, or as if I’d been inexpertly inflated. It was also exhilarating: a nationwide…
Not ‘Old Enough to Die,’ Old Enough to Choose Wisely August 27, 2019 - Author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich has long been one of my heroes, and I imagine an affinity in our fondness for myth-busting. In her new book, she describes herself as an “amateur sociologist,” and I thought, “Aha, me too!” 
What Will It Take to End Ageism? Part 2 June 24, 2019 - A consumer revolution requires a social revolution. We know that as time grows shorter, a sense of purpose becomes an ever-higher priority for olders. As Coughlin observes, “Culture helps determine what older people find meaningful. And that raises a question: can . . . new, socially permissible routes to meaning open up?”
What Will It Take to End Ageism? Part 1 June 10, 2019 - Most Americans aren’t optimistic about getting older and think the source of the problem is aging itself. So do most policy wonks: they frame population aging as a set of choices about how to care for an avalanche of “frail…
Shared Stigma, Separate Silos, Part 2 April 3, 2019 - In my last post, I wrote about the regrettable tendency to act as though older people and people with disabilities form two separate groups. When groups within companies don’t share information or knowledge, it’s called a “silo mentality.” It reduces efficiency…
Shared Stigma, Separate Silos, Part 1 February 18, 2019 - People with disabilities come in all ages, and almost all of us encounter some change in physical or mental capacity as we grow old. Yet, as I wrote in an earlier blog, “We act as though old people never become disabled and…
Less Ageism = Less Dementia. It’s That Clear November 13, 2018 - What affliction do Americans fear most? Alzheimer’s disease. I’m one of them, but facts comfort me. Abundant new data shows that our fears are way out of proportion to the threat—and that those fears themselves put us at risk.
