You’re about to hear from an anti-ageism voice most powerful, with a reach that’s truly global.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s many books and essays about ageing and ageism – especially in the middle years – are consulted and quoted by everyone with an interest in fighting age discrimination. She coined the term middle ageism – relevant to my The Big Middle – and has taught at Harvard, Radcliffe and Berkeley.

A resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis, in the university hub of Boston, Massachusetts, Margaret joined me from her home in nearby Newton.

Notes

You’ll hear Margaret Morganroth Gullette on the many reasons why ageism is worse now than ever, why the main threat to the ‘American dream’ is the collapse of the middle years, the “hegemonic” age-decline narrative overwhelming the milder one of progress, doctors’ hostility towards older people causing unfair undertreatment, why she’s hopeful a proper movement against ageism is forming around the 2020 US elections and why caregiving old men without support are – sometimes – shooting their debilitated, elderly wives and getting away with it.

Links

• Margaret’s profile Brandeis University
• Her latest book Ending Ageism: How Not to Shoot Old People
• Unwanted at Midlife: Not Old, but “Too Old” – Margaret’s essay for the LA Review of Books
• Her piece in The Atlantic – Losing the American Dream of Progress: Getting Fired at Midlife
• Ageism Ignores and Insults The Competence Of Adults – her commentary for WBUR radio Boston
• Margaret on Twitter