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What is the potential for combating and reducing these biases?
While devaluation with age is true for women and men, there is clearly a difference. - Garner, 1999
The double standard of aging" is a phrase heard so frequently that it seems a truism. The social worth of women has been linked more closely with their physical appearance compared to the situation for men, and these social valuations decline more markedly with age for women than they do for men (e.g., Hurd, 2000). Looking "old" is viewed more harshly for women across diverse cultures and also, apparently, for people of different sexual orientations, extending beyond heterosexual bias (Harris, 1994). As encapsulated by Garner (1999), "women lose their social value simply by growing old. Men are more likely to be evaluated and rewarded for what they do" (p. 4).
This article looks into biased constructions of gender and aging, reflected in the mass media, embedded in social policies, and evidenced in differential treatment of older women and men in healthcare encounters. The main question is how we as individual women and men perceive ourselves as we grow older. Do we "buy into" cultural stereotypes of gender and aging, or do we resist such stereotypes? In addition to the potential for resistance at the level of individuals, what is the potential for reducing ageism in society more broadly? The aim is to explore these questions, recognizing that specific forms and relative virulence of ageism extend beyond gender to also encompass ethnicity, social class, sexuality, and other forms of social differentiation and inequality.
MEDIA PORTRAYALS
The role of mass media as cause or consequence of cultural values has long been contested. At minimum, the media reflect dominant values in a society: Whether, and how, older women and men are portrayed represents one measure of how ageism and sexism are embedded in the social fabric (e.g., Holbrook, 1987). Older adults of both sexes are underrepresented in U.S. popular films and television programs relative to younger age groups, and older women are even less likely to appear on screen than older men (Bazzini and McIntosh, 1997; Sanders, 2002). When older characters are portrayed, women are more frequently depicted in negative stereotypes and shown as less successful compared to older...