On this month’s workshop, we talked about age-based discrimination and age hierarchy with Birsen Atakan from Nonviolent Education and Research Association.
Young, old, middle-aged … x, y, z generations… whom those definitions describe? Do those notions have objective definitions or are those composed of a social fiction?
Expressions we frequently use in daily life like “I wasn’t born yesterday; his head is in the clouds; on the brink of the grave ”draw a picture in our minds. In this picture prejudices and beliefs on age support and reproduce discrimination, just as it is in racism and sexism. Prejudice-based anticipations turn into an obstacle for the relationship and communication between generations.
Age discrimination sometimes shows up as “old men’s power” or occurs as it is seen as a burden in the society and exclusion of elderly. We encounter with the “young-old” distinction in companies, NGOs, hospitals, metros, streets while looking for a job, getting married, taking legal actions and more. This month, we discussed those practices from our lives and talked about the non-violent methods of the struggle with ageism and age discrimination.