#Ageism

[treetreeetreeee]

oh ouch! another harsh reality!

weird anti ideology finally leaking out into the mainstream

[apricotmayonaise]

"the fact that i'm at risk of seeing a 14 year old's opinion at any time of day is a human rights violation!"

i don't know man, i think the real human rights violation is the fact that teenagers are taxed from their jobs yet unable to vote (taxation without representation), the fact that we're allowed to be assaulted under the guise of 'discipline', the fact that we get paid less than adults at the same job for the same amount of hours, we're allowed to have our bathroom access limited at school, not allowed to leave So Many Situations, have faced mistreatment and oppression historically for hundreds of years, the literal existence of troubled teen camps, etc etc etc i could go on

but yeah ok sure the high schooler who disagrees with you about ship discourse is the oppressor

[inquisitivetree]

Young people can have back pain. Young people can have joint pain. Young people can require a cane to get around. Young people can have memory problems. Young people can get migraines. Young people can lose their eyesight. Young people can lose their hearing. Young people can lose their teeth and require dentures. Young people can have neurological disorders. Young people can go through menopause. Young people can have heart attacks. Young people can have strokes. Young people can go through all kinds of things you think only happens to older people and they don’t deserve to be invalidated or bullied just because you have never heard of it.

[hyperlexichypatia]

As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.

I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”

I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .

And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.

Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.

Codependency What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.

Compulsory Heterosexuality What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making. What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.

Emotional Labor What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc. https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/ What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).

Battered Wife Syndrome What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.

What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.

I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.

What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”

Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”

[sodomit]

Ways in which ageists talk about the youth similar to how misogynists talk about women:

- it's impossible for an adult and a "minor" to just be friends, since they have nothing in common, so there's something else going on;

- all "minors" in a public space need to be accompanied by an adult responsible for their behavior and safety;

- mixed age spaces are no fun because adults can't make sex jokes or honestly express themselves without being called out;

- a "minor" talking to an adult is a liability because they're always one wrong move away from making a sexual abuse accusation;

- "minors" ruin all fandoms they join because they police adults;

- "minors" are inherently less capable of understanding complex topics and can't be reasoned with;

- adults should take full responsibility for how "minors" in their life dress, talk, or engage with media.

If you think it makes more sense than its misogynist counterpart, think again, because misogynists think their views are founded in objective biology too.

[magnetothemagnificent]

The world is so hostile to tweens.....

Like we joke about how our schools growing up would ban the latest toy trends, but that reality genuinely horrific when you think about it. Like maybe 1% of the bans were based on safety, but the rest cited reasoning like

-"kids were bartering for collectibles" (kids learning about economics and product value)

-"kids were wearing them and the colors were too flashy" (kids experimenting with self expression and fashion)

-"kids were playing with them during lunch and recess instead of using our rusted safety hazard playground" (kids utilizing their free time to do what helps *them* unwind).

Play areas specifically geared towards children and especially towards teens are constantly being shut down. "Oh kids today are always on their phones!" Maybe because

-there are barely any arcades left and even less arcades that aren't adult-oriented,

-public pools and gyms are underfunded and shut down,

-"no loitering" laws prevent kids and teens from just hanging out,

-movie theatres only play the latest films and ticket prices are only rising,

-parks and playgrounds are either neglected or replaced with gear only directed at toddlers and unsuitable for anyone older

-genuine children's and young teen media is being phased out in favour of media directed only at very small children or older teens and adults.

-suburbs and even cities are becoming more and more hostile to pedestrians, it's just not safe for kids to walk to or ride their bikes to their friends' houses or other play destinations

Children's agency is hardly ever respected. Kids between the ages of 9-13 are either treated as babies or as full-grown adults, with no in-between. When they ask to be given more independence, they are either scoffed at or given more responsibilities than are reasonable for a child their age.

This is even evident in the fashion scene.

Clothing stores and brands like Justice and Gap are either closing or rebranding to either exclusively adult clothing or young children's clothes, with no middle ground for tweens. Tweens have to choose between clothes designed for adults that are too large and/or too mature for their age and bodies, or more clothes they feel are far too childish. For tween girls especially it's either a frilly pinafore dress with pigtails or a woman's size dress with cleavage. No wonder tween girls these days dress like they're older, it's because their other option is little girl clothes and they don't want to feel childish.

And then when tweens go to school, the books they want to read aren't available because they cover "mature" topics (read: oh no two people kissed and they weren't straight or oh no menstruation was mentioned or oh no a religion other than Christianity is depicted), so kids are left with books for way below their reading level. No wonder kids today are struggling with literacy, it's because they can't exercise and expand their reading skills with age-appropriate books. Readers need to be challenged with new words and concepts in order to grow in their skills, only letting tween read Dr. Seuss and nursery rhymes doesn't let them learn.

Discussions about substance use, reproduction, and sexuality aren't taught at an age-appropriate level in school or even by children's parents, so they either grow up ignorant and more vulnerable to abuse, or they seek out information elsewhere that is delivered in a less-than-age-appropriate manner. It shouldn't be a coin-toss between "I didn't know what sex was until I was 18 and in college" or "my first exposure to sex as a tween was through porn" or "I didn't know what sex was so I didn't know I was being sexually abused as a kid."

Tweenhood is already such a volatile and confusing time for kids, their bodies are changing and they're transitioning from elementary to middle to high school. It's hard enough for them in this stage, but it's made worse by how society devalues and fails them.

We talk about the disappearance of teenagehood, and maybe that's gonna happen in the future, but the erasure of tweenhood is happing in real time, and it's having and going to have major consequences for next generation's adults.

[crazycatsiren]

"Anti-aging"? Nah bro, I'm pro-aging. Aging is a privilege, a blessing.

[lemon-tart-221]

Just want to thank Good Omens and Our Flag Means Death for providing middle aged representation. The majority of the actors are over 40 and portray characters who are fierce, vulnerable, silly, passionate, complex, and sexy as hell. In a Hollywood world that worships youthful bodies and faces and thinks 25 is old, thank you for featuring a more mature cast. It’s refreshing.

[akajustmerry]

please watch @theabigailthorn's latest philosophy tube for free therapy <3

[librarycards]

this obsession with physically birthing one’s “own” biological children, to the extent that other forms of kinship are understood as anything from pathetic to outright objectionable, is really fucking creepy. beyond the bizarre fixation on offspring not as other people to care for, but physical extensions of oneself and one’s supposed “genetic identity”, there is a sinister, bioessentialist current to this obsession which marks all non- and post-biological forms of family making as deviant - a deviation from “good” and “natural” kinship.

Suffused with ethnocentrism, nationalism, and cisheteropatriarchal privilege, this model of what it means to be close to one another cheapens deliberate, autonomous care, and turns to a “family” model that casts children as debtors and parents/~elders~ as lords, whose genetic proximity imbues them with the ability to preside over “their” children even after they reach adulthood via coercion (guilt, shame) and force.

[severeprincesheep]

This attitude also extends to women being discriminated against and fired when they go through menopause, seeing as men don't have that problem so women should just suck it up and not expect any help in dealing with this sex-specific need.

Carol Vorderman 'absolutely disgusted' by ministers' attitude to menopause

The TV personality Carol Vorderman has said she is 'disgusted' at the behaviour of government equalities ministers, whom she accused of ignoring the needs of menopausal women.

Vorderman said she had been blocked by the minister for women Maria Caulfield on Twitter after saying that Caulfield 'couldn’t be bothered to turn up' for questions by a select committee examining the menopause. She also accused Kemi Badenoch of being 'patronising' and 'insulting' during a discussion about whether the menopause should be a protected characteristic, in which the minister had compared the request to others made by carers, single people or those who had ginger hair or were short.

Acknowledging how shitty periods can be and how women might have separate needs from men because of their biology is transphobic and ‘cringe’

[agnarid]

"Teens need to know how to be safe online" and "Teens shouldn't be banned from online spaces because they're the only places some of them feel safe" can and should co-exist by the way.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

a big part of Killing The Cop In Your Head that even a lot of ostensibly progressive adults absolutely do not want to do is controlling the urge to judge children at every opportunity. like oh are some kids hanging out skateboarding in the No Skateboarding Zone at the park? it becomes your business if one runs over your foot. otherwise shut the fuck up. and not just outwardly, you need to tell the critical voice in your head "actually this harmless moment of someone else's everyday life has nothing to do with me and no one has asked for my opinion"

[queerism1969]

[the-itzy-bitzy-spider]

I've had that experience in the US too. Kicked out of the ER for "anxiety" when I couldn't breathe from asthma. Told my asthma was "stupid woman hormones." Told my pain after major surgery was constipation and I was refused treatment for anything else. They wouldn't even let me have PT after surgery with noted complications. Ignored over and over and over. I hate seeking medical attention anymore. I'll just be gaslit and lied to and ignored. And I damn sure don't go into any medical office without having done hours and hours of reading until I have basically done my own differential diagnosis because I no longer expect anyone to take the time or make the effort.

"Joy Spence, 21, said she visited emergency departments at two hospitals in St. John's over the course of nearly two weeks this May.

What began as weakness and abdominal pain on her right side quickly deteriorated into blacking out from the agony in her torso.

But no matter how dire her symptoms got, doctors kept sending her home.

"They would just tell me, 'Your bloodwork's normal, there's nothing we can do.' They would send me home, then same thing again," she said. "I would go back again. They would get me to do the bloodwork, say everything's normal."

Ultrasound and CT scans apparently turned up nothing, but Spence, in such severe pain, says she had no option but to keep returning to the hospital, where she says she was eventually left screaming in a waiting room, ignored by hospital staff.

"If somebody doesn't help me, I'm going to die," she recalls wailing, watching doctors and nurses pass her by.

At one point, she was dismissed outright by a walk-in clinic nurse, she adds.

"Somebody said to me, 'I don't know what you expect me to do,'" she said. "'You're a healthy 21-year-old young female.'"

One night, she says, her boyfriend had to help her into an ambulance. Spence was in so much pain she couldn't stay conscious and stand on her own.

"I remember the man in the ambulance telling me … how often he sees other young women going into the hospital and seeing them be misdiagnosed and not taken seriously," she said, speaking through tears.

"He said that he would do his best to … get things going for me."

Spence says she went to an ER at the Health Sciences Centre or St. Clare's Mercy Hospital about 10 times over a 12-day period, beginning on May 21. She also visited her family doctor, who could do little except tell her to speak directly to the surgeon at Health Sciences Centre, she said.

Each time she saw a doctor, she says, she was sent home and told to dance around her living room or do yoga to cure what physicians believed was anxiety or sluggish bowels.

"I had so many laxatives," Spence recalls. "I would tell them … nothing's even coming out anymore. It's not just this, I don't think. But no, they were dead set on the constipation and only constipation. Like, it can only be that."

...

Spence says doctors only began to take her seriously once she began vomiting in a Health Sciences Centre hallway. The contents of her stomach were green and black.

An older doctor walking past her happened to notice, stopping in his tracks. Spence says he immediately identified the issue as appendicitis.

At that doctor's urging, Spence was finally wheeled into an operating room, where she says her burst appendix — now gangrenous — was removed.

"I think when I walked into the room and they seen a 21-year-old young girl, they immediately dismissed me and thought that there couldn't be anything wrong with me," Spence said.

"I was not on their minds and not on their radar. And if they didn't have that preconceived idea of me, those thoughts wouldn't have been formed and maybe I would have gotten the proper care that I should have."

...

Spence is still struggling to recover from her ordeal. Physically, she's now fine: her appendix was removed and her stitches have healed.

But she's lost an alarming amount of weight, she says, wakes up gasping in the middle of the night and can't stop herself from crying whenever she remembers the hospital.

"I've been losing a lot of hair," she said. "Mentally, it's just been a struggle."

Spence only received an apology from the health authority after CBC News requested comment and confirmed that Spence had done an interview — a move she says felt hollow and frustrating, since the manager who called her didn't give her an explanation about why she was repeatedly ignored while waiting to be admitted.

The ripple effect from her illness, and how she says she was treated when seeking care, has uprooted her life. She's taken a year off her studies in Memorial University's social work program and has lost her job. She's looking for trauma therapy, but now doesn't have the money to pay for it, she says.

"I think as young women we're always told what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to think, and not to trust our instincts," she said.

"But most of the time … the gut instinct is right. I knew I was sick. I knew what was happening wasn't right, and I could have died if I didn't keep going back to the hospital.

"If I had listened to those doctors and went back home — what could have really happened?""

[youth-rights]

When everyone seems to have a damaged, unhappy "inner child," it is time to examine and change the treatment of children on a massive scale.