Ageist shadows

I am reading “This Chair Rocks: a manifesto against ageism” by Ashton Applewhite
She was just the keynote speaker at an Ageing conference in Toronto that I was unfortunately unable to attend. I will be sharing the points she makes that resonate with me for a series of my next blog comments as for me, she has hit the proverbial nail!!!
Negative messages about ageing cast a shadow across the entire life course, stunting our prospects, economy and civic life. She says that unless social oppression (in this case ageism) is ‘called out’, we can’t see it as oppression. Perpetuating it doesn’t require conscious prejudice or deliberate discrimination. This lesser life is “just the way it is”, and the way it probably always will be. 
For me, negative visual images play a significant role in maintaining our society’s resistance to getting old. We continue to compare our looks to how we used to appear. Just as our life evolves and becomes richer in so many ways, so too our looks….
Can we look in the mirror and see beyond the imposed shadows that obscure the real beauty?