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This guest post is by Mica Wilson, a marketing and communications professional living in New Rochelle, NY, who has over 30 years of experience in corporate and non-profit organizations. Mica loves to travel around the world gaining perspective on other people’s cultures and struggles, especially those of women and girls. She is currently developing a cross-generational podcast that provides advice and insights for professional women. Please send any questions or comments to Mica at DameTalk4 [at] gmail [dot] com.

On any given day I may experience various forms of prejudice, or “isms”. I am Black, a woman, and looking for a job at 55. I have been inspired to share my personal story after reading Who me, ageist?” A guide to starting a consciousness-raising group around age bias: by Ashton Applewhite. I hope that what I share will motivate those in “power” to join the ageism movement. I define “power”, as those who can make decisions about who they hire, the stories that get told to us through the media, and the policies that are put in place to protect vulnerable and marginalized people. I call out those in power because they have the ability to accelerate change.

Ageism is a unifier because it affects everyone. You face it as a
young person when your thoughts and opinions are dismissed because you are “too
young” to know anything. Or you may be considered “too old” to add value in the
workplace or contribute to society. No matter your sex, race, religion, or
sexual identity, you will face ageism. History has shown us there is strength
in numbers. The civil rights movement would not have advanced in the same way
without the support of non-Black people, and the women’s rights movement was a
beneficiary. The ageism movement deserves the same momentum and support.

I must confess, I struggle with focusing on ageism because racism
and sexism play such a dominant role in my everyday life. I’m affected by not
just my personal experiences, but also by close friend’s experiences, and what
I see on TV and read in the news every single day. The stories are rarely
positive about people like me. Black man killed by police, Black man arrested
then tied to a rope and forced to walk down the street with policemen on
horses, Black women make 63 cents to every dollar white men make, there has
never been a woman president, NYC has never had a woman mayor, and it goes on
and on and on. Every day several stories in the news make me question my value
and worth in America. So, when I apply for that job and get no response is it
because of my skills, race, sex, or age? It doesn’t help that marketing and
communications is considered a “young person’s game”. Whatever the answer is I
have to continue living, working, and finding happiness like any other
American.

As you get older, your network can make or break you in the job
market. To be considered for an opportunity, at minimum you need to know
someone who can send your resume directly to HR or a hiring manager. It’s
nirvana if you know someone at a senior level who can make the hiring decision
or influence it. In this scenario, who gets hurt the most? You got it, Black
women. Our network generally does not include enough senior level men or women
to help us get that job. When we do know someone, they aren’t always willing to
put themselves out there for us. Of course, there are exceptions to that rule.
In almost every job I’ve gotten, African-American women and men made sure I was
considered for the position. Interestingly enough, they were all in my age
group, which I believe speaks to how my support network was limited… Black
women and men my age.

It’s important to me that anyone I interact with feels respected and heard. Therefore, when I am around younger people, I make sure our communication is a two-way street. I impart my wisdom to help them avoid some of the minefields I’ve been through. But I also learn from them, whether tech tips, new music, or their perspective on what’s happening in the world today. This allows me to not get stuck in my pre-conceived notions. I’m not a fan of today’s hip-hop, but my nieces introduced me to Lizzo. Yes, while there is some profanity in her music that I prefer not to hear, she is about empowering young women. Her recent call to action was for people to drop the ageism sh**t for the 2020 election. Her lyrics have a powerful message, she speaks out against ageism, she gets it. I have respect for her and I’m now a fan.

I will continue to do my part in the ageism movement. That means where I have influence, I will make sure you are heard and valued no matter how old you happen to be. To that end, I’ve started a podcast where four generations of women including a Millennial and a Gen Z have a seat at the table. Here is my ask to Millennials and Gen Z: join the ageism movement and make sure by the time you reach 50 you have done your part to raise the consciousness of those around you at work and home.  My request to those who are in a decision-making position or participate in the hiring process: ensure that your pool of candidates contains at least one person over 50. If you’re in marketing and communications and the candidate happens to be an African-American woman named Mica Wilson…you just hit the jackpot.

Treating a patient slowed by Parkinson’s, geriatrician Louise
Aronson 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 to
mention this expert. But she lives across the country and I’ll bet there’s
quite a waiting list, so I’ll have to settle for her as an ally—and what an important
ally she is.   

Elderhood, Aronson’s
urgent, eloquent new book, catapults her to the front line of those calling for
culture change around aging in general and healthcare in particular. It’s an
expertly argued takedown of a system that:

• makes it far easier for people to see doctors than get the social services that would improve their lives;
• punishes doctors, instead of rewarding them, for tackling the complex needs of older people in a humane, holistic fashion. Many burn out, including Aronson herself, a painful process she chronicles in the book.
• prioritizes the high-tech over the human, those in midlife over the young and the old, and curing over caring;
• typically treats the chronic conditions that accumulate over time without taking quality of life into consideration, making more years of debility more likely;
• makes a good death harder to achieve by forcing many people to go on longer than they would like. The list goes on.

Innovations are underway, but most medical schools have yet to question the profession’s entrenched bias and assumptions. Olders are either undertreated (deprived of treatment that would probably help them) or overtreated (with drugs and regimens that don’t take age into account). Both approaches, Aronson bluntly observes, “are forms of ageism.” So is the omission of older people from clinical trials, which Aronson calls “ridiculous,” likening age limits in osteoporosis studies to “ studying menopause in thirty-year-old women.” So is the lack of interest in why men live less long. Again, the list goes on.

Why don’t clinicians spend more time studying the people and
complex conditions that require the most medical attention—and healthcare
dollars? Because, Aronson explains “social forces and cultural rationales
determine what doctors study and value.” Left behind are not only the non-young
but the non-male, non-white, and non-“able-bodied,” and as she comments tartly,
“When people are defined by what they are not, we are in trouble.” Medical
advances have very different consequences in a world of much longer lives, yet most
institutions ignore those consequences. The result is vast waste and immense
suffering.

What we need, Aronson argues, isn’t better medical science and
technology, but a profound shift in the underlying culture around age and aging:

Biology matters, but it’s only one part of a far more complex equation that includes attitude, behaviors, relationships, and culture. That’s a terrifying thought in a culture where ageism is more common than sexism or racism, and most people of all ages see old age through a window rendered dark and dirty by negative stereotypes. But there’s hope—beliefs have frequently changed through history, and for individuals, they can change at any age. And when beliefs about elderhood change, the culture and experience of old age, in life and in medicine, will change too.

For Aronson’s blueprint for the necessary innovative, structural changes to our healthcare system, read her book. (Read it also for the moving portraits and splendid prose; Aronson is also a gifted writer.) For the necessary shift in our attitudes and beliefs about aging, read mine—and look in the mirror. The culture change that both of us demand requires a grassroots social movement, like the women’s movement, to raise awareness of ageism and make it as unacceptable as any other form of prejudice. That change begins in each of us, as we confront our own internalized age bias, begin to unlearn it, and take that shift out into the world. For starters, if your or your parents’ doctor says, “What do you expect at your age?” call them on it—and find a new doctor.