Mashell Chapeyama

Zimbabwe

Sociology

These three, ageism, racism and sexism, (all in the –ism class) have one thing in common. The common thing among them is that they are forms of discrimination. What differs is the basis of discrimination. Discrimination of any form is not a good thing. This is so because discrimination brings pain and sorrow to the discriminated ones. In itself discrimination has its own forms of sanctions from those perpetrating the stereotyping act. As related to racism the base of discrimination is race or color of the skin, sexism is based on whether one is female or male. In short these three forms of racism are different based on the basis of discrimination.
Ageism is a form of discrimination that is based on the age of the person or group of people. In normal case a group of people with one or similar age range can be discriminated. The young people who are under five years can be discriminated against. The millennials can be discriminated based on their chronological years. However, generally, ageism refers to the old people of a certain age. In my reading I came across what is termed positive ageism, which seems to describe good things done to the old people. In my country all old people above 65 years do not pay medical costs in government hospital. This is positive ageism. However in most cases ageism is discrimination where there are some negative sanctions. Old people may be considered to be useless, senseless and old fashioned, for example. Why this type of ageism is bad is because some people tend not to take care of these old people, some do not listen to what they say. However some old people have got a lot to assist the younger generation. Another example I came across is that as a form of segregation the old people are targeted, for example by criminals. They become easy targets because they seem helpless. In some hospital some medical personnel may not take the health of older people seriously. They tend to believe that the old people’s sickness can not come to an end. This is segregation or stereotyping. The old people are said to have poor mental span and attention. Hence some people do not want to associate with them. Thus the old people usually end up socially isolated and withdrawn.
It should be clearly stated however that ageism is a queer form of discrimination, which is different from other forms of segregation. In some forms of segregation people who segregate the others will not in any way come to be members of such groups. For example white people who discriminate against black people can not at any time become blacks themselves. Women who hate men can not themselves become men. However with ageism, the young people who hate or discriminate the old people will one day become old and join that group. That is the queer form of discrimination called ageism. In that sense it is diametrically different from the other two forms of discrimination that is racism and sexism.
If the old people are disadvantaged they can not become a minority. A minority are a group of people with different characteristics. This is usually based on race, ethnicity or religious beliefs. Old age cuts across all classes of people, across all races and ethnic groups. In most societies the old people may be a large number of people. Minority are a people who disadvantaged and disempowered in certain particular ways. A minority has certain aspects that make them very different from others.

Reference
Http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/christinaodone/100140298/ageism
http://www.eric.ed.gov http://forums.usanetwork.com http://sexualitystudies.net/files/lecture.pdf