Title: What is Ageism? – The Radical Age Movement
Headings: 
What is Ageism?
Ageism
History
Age-based stereotypes: what are they?
The price we all pay for ageism
Ageism prevents us from developing an affirmative vision for a full human life and a vital multigenerational society.
How do we change it?

Content: How often have you seen someone speak to an elderly person as they would to a child? Or speak loudly assuming that all older adults have hearing impairments? Or assume that if a young adult loses forgets something, they are simply forgetful but label the same behavior in an older person as ‘senile’? A few stereotypes are superficially positive, such as the “cuddly and cute little old lady” stereotype. But these stereotypes also disempower older adults because they discourage people from treating them as capable adults with the usual human range of complex capacities, attitudes, and needs. The price we all pay for ageism
Ageism—which permeates our social practices, behaviors, polities, and attitudes—hurts all of us. From an individual perspective, these beliefs and assumptions can ‘get under our skin’ and create the very outcomes we fear. A study by Yale researcher Becca Levy and colleagues followed several hundred older adults for more than two decades. Researchers found that people who had internalized more negative attitudes towards aging were significantly more likely to suffer impairments and need nursing home care, and died on average 7-1/2 years earlier than people with more negative attitudes towards aging. From a societal perspective, ageism causes us to accept discriminatory practices as ‘natural’: