Probably the shortest title ever written on this website, earlier I was locked in discussion about old people, and what sort of prejudice they face. In a world where racism and sexism are long identified issues, the issue of ageism has come to the fore in recent times. How bad is it?
In the previous paragraph, I deliberately used the word 'old' and not elderly, as the world 'old' is seldom used politely. It is quite rare for the word 'old' to be used sensitively, for instance 'old dear', but regularly compounded with an insult. Here are a just a few examples of the lovely phrases associated with the word 'old':-
Old git
Old codger
Old bastard
I could go on, but you get the picture.
Still, it is good to see that ageism is not institutionalised in this country - unless you ignore the fact that unemployed over-50s find it incredibly difficult to find work (link). Despite the BBC Panorama episode investigating this problem, let us not take too many lessons from the corporation since the BBC has recently suffered the indignity of having its ageist practices shamefully exposed when former Countryfile presenter Miriam O'Reilly won her employment tribunal against the corporation.
Maybe when I will migrate when I reach the big 5-0. At the very least I wont have to suffer any jibes.
