"I have two degrees and a PhD, and the bank thinks I can't even do a 'bizum'."

BarcelonaIt's the final dress fitting, and Maria Àngels Gómez emerges from the fitting room with a look of satisfaction on her face, of being able to wear the style she likes and no other. The dress is long, lilac, and has a pointed bodice that ends in a low neckline. "You look very pretty, elegant," one of the salespeople tells her as she looks at herself again and again in the mirror with a smile on her face. It's precisely the idea she had for her 50th wedding anniversary celebration, "something cheerful and elegant," she describes. Finding this dress has cost her a "big upset" and is yet another example of the ageist prejudices embedded in society.

Her first option for finding the garment was a department store in Barcelona, ​​but there she ran into a saleswoman who wrinkled her nose at her when she told her she wanted a festive dress and "something extreme" for such a special occasion. "She told me where I was going, I wouldn't find anything there that I wanted for my age," explains Gómez.

Incredulous, sad, and angry, she left and went to Punto y Aparte in Sant Boi de Llobregat, where she says they immediately "understood" what she wanted. "If they have the stereotype that we have to dress like grandmothers because we're older... They have to know that grandmothers are different now," she laughs, still with the dressmaker's needles on her dress. "If we can't look good because we're older anymore, what's left for us?" asks Gómez, who just turned 73 and is the active general secretary of the UGT (Union of Retired Women and Pensioners).

Invisible discrimination

The episode of prejudice regarding Gómez's party dress may seem like an anecdote, but it is yet another example of ageism, discrimination based on age that particularly affects older people, and more so women, because they also bear the brunt of sexism. The UN points out that ageism is, after racism and sexism, the third cause of discrimination, and emphasizes that half of the population holds ageist attitudes. However, it is considered "silent discrimination" precisely because it is embedded in all areas, from public administration to healthcare. going through the labor market or social relationships.

It goes so unnoticed that television and the media, but also families and businesses, reproduce subtle messages and the image that associates the elderly person as someone weak, vulnerable, who needs help to move and even to think or make decisions. "My daughters say they do it for my own good, but I feel like I'm living as dictated, that I've lost autonomy even to eat what I want," says Augusto Molinero, who lives alone at 94 years old and doesn't have a credit card because, through carelessness, it was stolen or he lost it. "Now my children keep my card, and it's not that I think they're stealing from me, because they take care of me and I lack nothing, but they do make me feel like a child," he exclaims, sitting on a bench with a book in his hand.

In a way, Molinero has accepted the guardianship imposed by his children, who often become parents to their parents even when they retain mobility and cognitive ability. It is the joja pointed out by Glòria Fité, psychologist at theEAVA, the pioneering unit for addressing old age that the Anoia Regional Council launched ten years ago: "I'll tell my son" or "I'll let my daughter do it" are some expressions of self-ageism, believing that one has reached that age where one must let go of the orders.

Infantilization

Matilde Vera recalls with distaste how friends and neighbors spoke to her centenarian mother "as if she were a child," even though she was always clear-headed and a highly cultured woman. "It was a humiliation," she complained shortly after attending the event in Barcelona for the Day of the Elderly, on October 1st, dedicated specifically to the fight against ageism. Infantilization is one of the forms of discrimination against these older people, and it is expressed by addressing older people by name even if they are strangers, calling them "grandpa/grandma" without knowing whether they have oral hygiene, or speaking using diminutives ("la pastilleta, un trocito").

Vera has also been looked down upon by her appearance. In a banking institution (one of the most ageist sectors along with healthcare), she has more than once encountered people who assumed she was ignorant, for example, about technology. She has been a special education teacher, has also completed a university degree in psychology and has earned a doctorate, a resume that for many people doesn't fit the profile of an older person. "At the bank, they look at me as if I didn't even know how to update my account or do a... bizum "Just because they see me as older," she says. Vera's generation, which is in its seventies, is the first to have worked in fully computerized jobs. Furthermore, many don't fit the cliché of not knowing how to work a mobile phone, and some are active on social media.

Retirements' boom

They are the so-called boomers, who 20 or 15 years before retirement had to "adapt" to the use of technology, which, as Vera says, already required an "effort" that is now ignored. For this reason, Vera calls for "more empathy" from older generations to banish offensive treatment. This happened to the couple formed by Ángela Ruiz and Jaume Pous, who decided to stop going to the doctor's office alone because they noticed that the doctor on duty "didn't explain things." At the age of 80, they began to go accompanied by a son: "Now the doctor doesn't even look at us, as if we weren't there, and everything is said to her son," they lament.

From the experience of the EAVA, Fité explains that they reach them Complaints about the intervention of children and relatives in the financial decisions of the elderly and also pressures them to go to nursing homes. "The mistake is that they are not allowed to take risks, as adults do. In full possession of their mental faculties, they may be slower, but the vast majority have the capacity to make decisions," he points out. In this sense, he points out that for a healthy old age, not only health and money must be claimed, but above all "self-government."

Said and done, Josep Abelló decided after the pandemic to "do something" to improve the situation of the elderly and with an intergenerational group they created SeniorLab Reus, a kind of think tank place that discusses and debates issues such as unwanted loneliness, the quality of care or housing. "The idea is to provide solutions so that someone else with the capacity can implement the changes." For him, who was mayor of Reus from 1985 to 1999, ageism "is a horrible consequence of not addressing longevity," especially now that life expectancy is increasing.

The frontier of old age

Sociologically, the threshold for old age is 65, but in the workplace, 45 is considered a dangerous age, and in the healthcare sector, 70 is usually the limit for entering prevention plans, but organ transplants are performed on patients around 80 years old. So? The population over 65 will increase at a rapid pace in the next decade: from 1.565 billion individuals in 2024 (19.5% of the population) to 1.948 billion in 2034 (22.8%). And as for those over 80, they will experience an increase of 29.3%. The demographic change is accompanied by people with better living conditions, more education, and also fewer children than previous generations. "Old age is changing, now the hippies of 68", says Fité, who points out that in this age group "they already move differently and demand different activities" than those offered by public entities and administrations.

This change is accompanied by the need for references, says Lourdes Charles, co-founder of We are Seniors, an association born out of lockdown that aims to influence active and healthy aging. This psychologist explains that they detected that institutions perpetuate ageism by presenting older people "as objects of protection and not as active subjects." For example, with social policies or by organizing courses "for older people" in computer science, dance, or gymnastics without considering levels or categories. "It will be computer science for beginners, nothing to do with age," she points out, indicating that it is necessary to direct all efforts toward "re-signifying" aging, moving "from a passive and dependent vision to an active, positive, and inspiring one."

Health Consequences

Ageism can lead to social isolation or poorer physical and mental health, because people stop seeing doctors or put pressure on themselves to recover prematurely. It also has the consequence of excluding older people from their rights, barring them from certain areas, or underestimating them. One piece of advice from experts on aging is to know how to cope with the natural process of aging, not to be afraid to blow out the candles. "We have to see it as a collective success," says Charles, because humanity has never lived so many years and with such a high quality of life. But we need to change the way we view the elderly: abandon welfare, promote intergenerational activities and spaces, and "build a new narrative about aging" based on autonomy.

The experts say there is a lack of "references" and also an "aspiration" to reach old age. Maria Àngels Gómez says she feels fine and doesn't understand why her friends, when she explains that she's wearing a bikini to the beach, respond with an incredulous "still?"