Everyday Ageism - we're after your thoughts on Mumsnet getting behind a campaign on this

[JustineMumsnet]

Hi all,
Following on from this thread, and now that the decorations have come down (hurry, it's tonight, or possibly even last night - depending who you listen too), we'd like to ask you about whether you feel Mumsnet should get behind Gransnet's Everyday Ageism campaign.

Everyday Ageism is an awareness-raising campaign that aims to identify and challenge ageism; empower people to deal with it; and challenge brands if they fall into the ageism trap. They're planning plenty of media work to gather support, and are asking GNers for their experiences - but if MN's going to get on board it might be nice for MNers to chip in with some ideas too.

So please let us know whether you'd support MN getting on board with the GN campaign, and if so whether you have any genius ideas for campaign actions (preferably things that can be done online: we don't have the budget for poster campaigns or TV commercials ).

Many thanks.

@DrankSangriaInThePark

The casual ageism on MN is abhorrent, and all prevailing. There is hardly a day goes by that some poor slightly over-middle-aged woman dares to look at a baby on a bus, or heaven forbid, in a supermarket, and gets all manner of abuse thrown at her, both from the RL MNer crowing to the mob on here, and as a response from the same mob when she does.

It has increased exponentially over the last few years as well.

I have lost count of the times I have reported comments, and threads for being full of the "I'd have told the old caaaaah to fuck off" classy stuff, only to receive an email back saying "blah blah blah, do continue to waste time report anything you see blah blah yadda yadda".

I reached the conclusion that for MNHQ, sexy fertile, Bobbi Brown wearing, bugaboo pushing, GHD using yobs are more advertising revenue, and more likely to bring you another Penis Beaker hilarious story, so I don't bother now.

But to suggest backing a campaign proposing to do exactly that which HQ has never bothered to on their own patch is risible at best, and hypocritical at worst.

We actually get very few reports of ageism on the boards - when last checked we'd had on a couple in the last six months or so - and, as you may know, we don't pre-moderate but respond to reported posts. So if you have a problem with ageism on Mumsnet you need to report it. We will always take a look and will always remove nasty ageist stuff.

Is that data completely reliable Justine? Or is it possible that ageism reports are not actually being recorded as ageism? Maybe because the person reporting doesn't flag it as ageism or because the person receiving the report doesn't log it as ageism?

We know that under-reporting is often a problem where issues are only just starting to be taken seriously. For example, a few years ago many banks were reporting high levels of customer satisfaction because they had low levels of complaints. However, it later transpired that what they actually had was poor reporting practices and unreliable records. These days with the FCA cracking down they just can't get away with it any more.

i don't want to conflate someone calling me an old hag with the n word and i don't want to conflate mn with the banking industry.

i've got that horrible 'while rome burned' feeling going on.

HoneyDragon I see your point, but language reinforces the societal and institutional attitudes that support the kinds of neglect to which you refer. Objecting to the language is important in challenging those attitudes.

DrankSangria My personal experience is that MNHQ's response to reporting of ageist posts has improved considerably in recent months.

@MovingOnUpMovingOnOut

Is that data completely reliable Justine? Or is it possible that ageism reports are not actually being recorded as ageism? Maybe because the person reporting doesn't flag it as ageism or because the person receiving the report doesn't log it as ageism?

We know that under-reporting is often a problem where issues are only just starting to be taken seriously. For example, a few years ago many banks were reporting high levels of customer satisfaction because they had low levels of complaints. However, it later transpired that what they actually had was poor reporting practices and unreliable records. These days with the FCA cracking down they just can't get away with it any more.

Let me check.

MovingOnUp makes a good point. I think probably all of the reports I have made were for comments that were sexist as well as ageist, perhaps even more sexist than ageist in some cases. Perhaps they were logged under sexism.

But the under-reporting itself is a good indication of ageist attitudes. As DrankSangria said, ageist attitudes and language are all over MN. People readily report other offensive comments, so I'm not surprised that ageism reports are a low percentage.

maybe because we all suffer from ageism we don't see it as being targeted against a minority ergo it isn't an 'ism' in the same way as others? mind you maybe that's how sexism falls under the radar so effectively (though that is more to do with keeping privilege which ageism isn't really when real power tends to lie in the hands of older people anyway - with which i've just fuddled myself).

I think you may have missed my point with my reference to the inaccurate recording keeping practices of the banking industry and the possible implications for a record keeping system that measures out puts instead of analysing inputs TheHoneyBadger.

I was not suggesting anything beyond how is a system is managed will influence the information you can gain from it.

It seems Justine has got the measure of what I was saying so I hope most people realised what I was getting at if I wasn't completely clear.

I reported a thread recently. I had commented myself on the thread, but asked MNHQ to also comment.

The reply I had was that it was a useful thread, with lots of useful debate (I wasn't saying that it wasn't useful) and that as I'd made my point, that there was no need for MNHQ to add their comment.

I was a bit about that, and I wish I'd argued the point, but I have to confess I let it go.

Now I know you're serious, I won't do that again!

Privilege does come into it, especially in elder abuse.

HoneyDragon I disagree with your notion that power lies with older people. It very much depends on how you define older. The very old are among the most powerless classes of people in society and among the most vulnerable. A common setting of elder abuse is a vulnerable old person living with younger family members. Those family members have the privilege of youth (which is also relative, I concede).

One of the reasons that language is so important is that words that devalue elders reinforce the notion that they are "other" and lesser. These notions play heavily in elder abuse scenarios.

Are HoneyDragon and TheHoneyBadger the same poster?

Oops. Sorry about that. I meant to reply to HoneyBadger. Might be an indication that I spend too much time on MN.

I think if we are to take Everyday Sexism as an example to follow then it is the everyday, small stuff we should be considering as well as the more obvious. If I have understood correctly the purpose of the project was to draw attention to the insidious acts and tiny events that as a whole are so very damaging but individually aren't worthy of a campaign.

So if MN were to follow that model all the ageist examples on this thread would be included and gradually attitudes to things that at the moment many people would consider to be normal would start to become socially acceptable to fewer people.

Agree

Nope still scaley, thanks.

Ok so we've had a good look and we had in fact around 30 reports mentioning 'ageist' or 'ageism' in 2014.

To put that in context we receive around 1000 (!) reports each week.

As has been said though, some other ageist posts might have been reported for other reasons, in which case they wouldn't necessarily show up in this tally.

Our hunch is that lots of MNers either don't recognise ageism or don't think that casual ageism matters overmuch. I suppose this discussion is partly to ascertain whether that's the case and what, if anything, folks want us to do about it.

I like what IonaMumsnet did on this thread when I reported (others may have too). I think it makes more of a point for MNHQ to specifically mention ageism rather than just delete with no mention of the specific reason.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2269463-To-think-this-lady-at-the-cash-point-was-rude#51570974

Complain about ageism, campaign against it, pass laws to prevent it and you might cause a few people to quit with the outward signs of their prejudice. However, just as sexism is alive and well in hearts and minds (shades of Kirsty Wark's excellent programme 'Blurred Lines'), so will ageism remain.

Well, we're old aren't we? We all think the same don't we? We all vote UKIP don't we? How disgusting are we to think we can have sex lives and new relationships? 'Tis all our fault that young people have it so hard with finding accommodation, paying for education etc isn't it? How dare we have pensions and how dare we retire in our 60s?

Yeah, there are older people who are difficult and who make the lives of others difficult (e.g. interfering ILS etc), who have the temerity to smile at babies and who thought the fuss about the penis beaker was infantile (now there's a bit of ageism for you).

And as for the 30 something smug marrieds - don't get me started!

Tongue firmly in cheek.

Justine - I think there are some key things here:

a) many, many MNetters say that they never bother reporting things - from a general 'can't be bothered' perspective

b) many MNetters say that because of the response from MNHQ they won't bother reporting again

You may not like to hear this, but it is said very, very often on threads.

c) some MNetters don't like to report threads - somehow they feel it's inappropriate/they don't dare/it's not their place, etc

Whilst that might seem 'wussy', it's a view that many MNetters seem to hold - not just about ageism, but about reporting in general.

d) (the most sad) many simply don't see the issue. It's apparent on the Feminist boards that many women simply don't realise sexism/misogyny. It's even more apparent that many, many MNetters don't realise that their posts are horribly ageist. A quick squiz around the S&B threads reveals that. All those 'am I too old at 25 to wear xxx?', etc

So taking all of these together, I can quite see why there aren't that many reports to you.

@BIWI

Justine - I think there are some key things here:

a) many, many MNetters say that they never bother reporting things - from a general 'can't be bothered' perspective

b) many MNetters say that because of the response from MNHQ they won't bother reporting again

You may not like to hear this, but it is said very, very often on threads.

c) some MNetters don't like to report threads - somehow they feel it's inappropriate/they don't dare/it's not their place, etc

Whilst that might seem 'wussy', it's a view that many MNetters seem to hold - not just about ageism, but about reporting in general.

d) (the most sad) many simply don't see the issue. It's apparent on the Feminist boards that many women simply don't realise sexism/misogyny. It's even more apparent that many, many MNetters don't realise that their posts are horribly ageist. A quick squiz around the S&B threads reveals that. All those 'am I too old at 25 to wear xxx?', etc

So taking all of these together, I can quite see why there aren't that many reports to you.

a) Yes that's probably true
b) Yes I've seen this complaint too - in my opinion it tends to be said a lot by the same folks about things where we simply have a different view on what should be deleted and what shouldn't, and to be frank we're never going to reach agreement on what should be allowed unless there's a sea change in what users want.
c) Yes probably true, but it's the only way to change the tone of the boards I'm afraid.
d) Yes, I think you're right about that.

I am sad that as soon as you start to discuss this issue, people jump in to say that old people are rich and powerful, the subtext being that it's ok to be ageist.

Yes, some old people are rich and powerful, some young people are too. Old people are not one homogenous bunch of greedy takers who have ruined the life chances of their dc and dgc. They are just people like the rest of the population.

Maybe we do need a specific campaign for different age groups in order to avoid inter generational conflict on these boards.

Sad, as I said.

Agreed, Dressingdown some people's hatred of older people is apparent on some threads on MN. Very sad.

Goodness, I wish I was rich and powerful

Sorry.

I had never heard the expression "job-hogging" until a recent thread on MN. According to many, those of us who are in our 60s and having the temerity to continue to work after retirement age should just toddle off to wherever and let younger people have our jobs. The fact that many of us may need to work or that we are good at what we do (our decades of experience should count for something I think) doesn't seem to matter much.