Ageism Quotes

There's racism and sexism and ageism and all sorts of idiocies. But bad news is not news. We've had bad news as a species for a long time. We've had slavery and human sacrifice and the holocaust and brutalities of such measure. ~ Maya Angelou

What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people's attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, "Give me a break!" ~ Yoko Ono

Didn't Lionel Richie just make a country album? No one is giving him a hard time ... and God bless him - I love Lionel and should be able to do what he wants to do, like Madonna should, too. Both are having success and I applaud them. If you don't like it, don't buy it. The ageism criticism is getting old. ~ Guy Oseary

Discrimination on the basis of age is as unacceptable as discrimination on the basis of any other aspect of ourselves that we cannot change. ~ Ashton Applewhite

It's getting better but men still earn more and there are more jobs for them. Ageism is a big thing. Parts for women disappear as you get older. ~ Julie Walters

The story of humanity can be written as the struggle to acknowledge all human beings as human beings. ~ J.S.B. Morse

Getting fired is not shameful. It just means you need to find a better fit. ~ John Tarnoff

Many thanks for your good wishes. The fact is, however, that I have not been ill except a two days attack of indigestion and subsequent fatigue, from which I am quite recovered. It is less easy to recover from a serious attack of indignation. ~ Harriet Boyd Hawes

Prejudice against womenis many, many times intensified against older women. You are viewed not as an intellect but as a body ... Astonishingly, even women's liberation has paid extraordinarily little attention to the older woman and to the fact that her job is limited because she is [older]. They say that women shouldn't be sex objects, but you damned well better be a sex object if you want to get ahead in television. ~ Elinor Guggenheimer

Have a problem with ageism, overt and especially covert. My feeling about a person's age is that it's a serving suggestion. It's up to you what you do with it: take it as offered, modify it, or ignore it altogether. ~ Elizabeth Berg

Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there's this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I'm in the middle ground - I think women in their thirties are taken seriously. ~ Alanis Morissette

Not only does society suffer from racism and sexism but it also suffers from ageism. Once you reach a certain age you're not allowed to be adventurous, you're not allowed to be sexual. I mean, is there a rule? Are you supposed to just die? ~ Madonna Ciccone

We've made so many advances in other areas - civil rights, gay rights - but ageism is still an area that's taboo and not talked about and dealt with. ~ Madonna Ciccone

Fear of dying is human. Fear of aging is cultural. ~ Ashton Applewhite

We'd incorporated Asia into our bones - its colours and laughter, its smells, its rhythms, its tolerance and patience, its compassion, its lack of ageism. ~ Jane Wilson-Howarth

Women not only bear the brunt of the equation of beauty with youth, we perpetuate it - every time we dye our hair to cover the gray or lie about our age, not to mention have plastic surgery to cover the signs of aging. ~ Ashton Applewhite

Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism. ~ Claude Pepper

Ageism is the only self-correcting prejudice, isn't it? ~ Rebecca Makkai

Some people say they have 20 years experience, when in reality, they have 1 year's experience repeated 20 times. (Stephen M R Covey to Richie Norton when Norton asked if he was too young to train older executives for Covey.) ~ Richie Norton

So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: "Is this person in between me and what I want to do?" If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you're in charge, don't hire the people who were jerky to you. ~ Tina Fey

The beautiful thing is that ageism just doesn't exist on 'EastEnders.' The show saved me. ~ Barbara Windsor

Success is not about age, it's about action. ~ Richie Norton

The job you seek isn't out there in some job description, it's already inside you, aching to get out. ~ John Tarnoff

As she drove the familiar route to the school, she considered her magnificent new age. Forty. She could still feel "forty" the way it felt when she was fifteen. Such a colorless age. Marooned in the middle of your life. Nothing would matter all that much when you were forty. You wouldn't have real feelings when you were forty, because you'd be safely cushioned by your frumpy forty-ness.
Forty-year-old woman found dead. Oh dear.
Twenty-year-old woman found dead. Tragedy! Sadness! Find that murderer! ~ Liane Moriarty

In order to create your future, you have to reconcile your past. ~ John Tarnoff

Is New Ageism inherently fascist? Of course not, though I'm happy to pronounce its babble about chakras and cosmic energy errant quackery. ~ Timothy Noah

The crafting of the face is a billion-dollar industry because there's actually only one truly acceptable face to create: that of "the girl." The girl's face is always dewy, unblemished, and unwrinkled, her eyes bright, her forehead uncreased. "Womanly" hips and ass might be theoretically fetishized, but they're desirable only when the rest of the body remains that of the girl. ~ Anne Helen Petersen

Ageism is the racism of the gay world. We really believe that age-and all of our fears that it carries-will "rub off" on us, the way that racists once believed blackness would. ~ Perry Brass

I am concerned about ageism and the loss of beauty - the perception that as you grow older, you 'lose your looks,' which I think is diabolical. ~ Erin O'Connor

It's just something that I like, and I also don't buy into the ageism theory. ~ Joan Collins

The reproductive abilities of women and other female animals are controlled and exploited by those in power (usually men) and both are devalued as they age and wear out - when they no longer reproduce. Cows, hens, and women are routinely treated as if they were objects to be manipulated in order to satisfy the desires of powerful men, without regard to female's wishes or feelings. ~ Lisa Kemmerer

Never judge a woman by her age. ~ A.J. Darkholme

We don't ask when people age out of singing, or eating ice cream; why would we stop making love? ~ Ashton Applewhite

Avoid internalizing society's sexism, racism, ageism - pick an ism, any ism. ~ Paul Krassner

Nowhere is ageism more sexist, and vicious, than in the domain of sexuality. ~ Ashton Applewhite

There is no ageism or 'youthism' when it comes to freedom of speech. We are all citizens. ~ Jacques Parizeau