Raising Awareness

I attended a major conference in Toronto this week (August 7-10) hosted by the International Federation on Ageing (IFA) with significant representation from the World Health Organization (WHO) department on Ageing and the Life Course. There were about 1300 delegates representing over 70 countries gathered to share learnings about each others work in this very important area.
Combating Ageism was one of the four main pillars of the conference; affirming the depth and the breadth of this potentially universal prejudice. It is often as subtle as being embarrassed both to ask and respond that you are a 'senior' or to automatically lie about your age. While I was in Toronto:
A younger man offered me  seat in a crowded bus (did  I look that old?!). The  transit ticket dispenser person asked if I was a senior in hushed tones (I can only assume to protect me from public humiliation). I have a heightened awareness to these seemingly innocent ageist actions and yet I have not developed an array of polite challenges to them...
Ashton Applewhite ("This Chair Rocks") has a blog called "Yo, is this ageist?" that I urge you to check out.

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