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