Zeitgeist podcast about ageism

“ ‘A stigma is attached to the older body’, says philosopher Martha Nussbaum, ‘and it has real negative effects.’ Other stigmatised groups (LBTGQ+, women, black civil rights movements,…) have each formed affirmative movements that tend to transform stigma into something that can be embraced. There is an urgent need for a Grey Revolution. Ageism is even more complicated, for the social stigma against old also implies self-hatred. According to De Beauvoir, indifference and the negative image of old age stem from the idea that the older person is different from the ordinary man or woman, and therefore not human. Not of the same kind. Strange…” (Klara website, our translation)

Greet Van Thienen’s radio-interview with Katrien De Graeve and Alfons Van Steenwegen (in Dutch) took place on 6 May 2021.

(Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash)