Ageism Goes Both Ways
’ve been seeing a lot of whining on these here internets about ageism, which surprises me, because it’s mostly young people doing the whining. When I first heard the term “ageism” maybe ten years ago, it was used to describe a phenomenon in the workplace that favors younger employees against older employees. And this logical (though decidedly not fair) – when a company has to lay people off, it’s going to gut the employees with seniority who get paid more, and keep younger employees who are capable of doing the same job for less money.
But does it make sense to apply this term to young people? I was going through my aggregates this morning and found this post on Feministe, and I found myself getting kind of angry, to be honest. Not because of how Amelia had been treated, but because of the sense of entitlement I read in her words. I was really ready to write a big fat blog post about how she’s totally wrong… until I realized that the reason I thought she was overreacting is because she’s 21 years old. Not that I have a lot of years on her (a whopping four!), but I was in a completely different life stage when I was 21. 21 seems like it was a long ass time ago, even though it really wasn’t. But a couple of years of facing the real world OMG responsibility, student loans, paying rent, maintaining a car, and engaging in other grownup activities makes 21-year-old Hepfat seem like a much younger person. What I wouldn’t give to have the same problems I had when I was 21!
@1 year agoSara Ramirez is a Big Fat Fatty McFatterson
An interesting discussion is happening over at Bitch Media. Tasha Fierce posted an introduction to an upcoming series on fat acceptance called Size Matters in which she called Sara Ramirez (pictured left) of Grey’s Anatomy FAT!
