Why is ageism accepted/tolerated on MN?

[IntermittentFarting]

I reported a post earlier today that the poster actually prefaced with "Sorry for an ageist post..."
wherein elderly people were moaned about for having the temerity to go shopping and stubbornly pissing everyone off with their very existence.
After a while I had an acknowledgement about my report, and saying that MN would take a look.

Well... it's still there.

Whether or not the post is ageist is not up for debate: the poster themselves even said it was, and intentionally posted an acknowledged ageist post.

Can you tell me why MN accepts ageism?

I mean, it happens on threads about children too. So much hatred against children because they are seen and heard in public life. It is like the only humans that matter are age 20-35 years old.

Some people are the 'Professionally Offended' aren't they? They should ask someone over 60 (ie: me) whether we feel offended instead.

It isn't ageist or any other 'ist' to describe someone as old, or retired, or disabled, or by their apparent heritage or faith. Not unless the reason for describing them as such is to denigrate, insult, discriminate or worse.

There's nothing wrong with saying "I was sitting next to a little old lady on the train". No more than if you said 'a tall man with a beard' or 'a short schoolboy'. Merely descriptive.

Im bloody glad they don’t tolerate sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia, but they seem far less likely to deal with instances of ageism.

They absolutely do tolerate it though, especially sexism/sexist language about men - mostly in AIBU and Relationships.

However, I agree with you OP about the horrendous ageism and I often report it.

There is a particular poster who seems to delight in starting ageist threads. Apparently older people should not shop at certain times and should only get to the bus stop 5 minutes before their bus pass becomes valid.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5048590-just-dont-get-this-waiting-for-the-bus?page=1

All of the above except you can discuss individual children or teenagers just don't try and define their whole generation by the behaviour of some of them.

'Snowflake Milennials' absolutely not.

How can you possibly know that? I have repeatedly said on this thread that all ageism is unacceptable.

Point taken about overlooked infractions. In theory they don't tolerate certain prejudices, but in fact... 😞

It’s literally un-policeable. If you deleted every comment that says ‘don’t worry about your kid giving their sausage roll a name, all 3 year olds are mad’ then there wouldn’t be much of a website left.

The difference to me between ageism and the other ‘isms’ is that the majority of the people making such comments will actually end up with the shoe on the other foot one day. You can’t go from male to female, or change your skin colour, and most people won’t end up disabled at some stage. However everyone has been a baby, everyone has been a toddler/small child and the majority will end up elderly one day.

I agree with PP that ageism proper - refusing to hire somebody because of their age, or refusing to serve them in a shop for instance - is rightly illegal, but general (non-threatening and not personal attacks) chat about an age group as a whole is not so offensive it needs blanket deletion in my view.

I think some of you will rue the day you called for anything you dislike to be banned.

I don't want mumsnet to get more heavy handed in its modding. A lot of people say twatty stuff so I just ignore it.

There's a lot of out and out hate speech about people with religious belief. Again I ignore. You aren't going to fix all the twats on the Internet but you can avoid giving them your attention

I'm 67. Getting on a bit, but fit as a fiddle and enjoying good health and a financially secure lifestyle. That's thanks to bloody hard work for many years and lots of blood sweat and tears.

I laugh out loud at some of the things said about "oldies" like me, although what exactly is an oldie anymore? They/me/we have full life experience behind us and have seen it all. That makes me so confident so I don't give a flying fuck about saying things to people that I would have been so scared to say a few years ago.

I told a young lad to pick up his rubbish that he threw on the ground. I was waiting for him to call me an old Biddy or something, but he picked it up and I smiled at him. Then on the bus a young scally refused to pay his fare and plonked himself on the seat. The driver refused to move until he got off or paid. Standoff on the no 15 bus. Pity there wasn't a swinging half door at the OK Corral as I got up from my seat and gave him an earful " hey you, get off the bloody bus or pay your fare, everyone here has to be somewhere and you're holding us all up, so get off NOW". He shuffled and squirmed but he got off. Clap from the audience. I took a bow.

Look, I don't care much about what people say about me or my age group or older, even if they don't say it, many are thinking it anyway. But honestly folks, the day a young fella stood up to give me his seat (lovely gesture and rare enough), was the day I realised I looked like one of "them". And life goes on and we all get older.

I've had several strangers say weird / horrible things to me completely unprovoked while im out with my young children. In fact it's happened lots of times. Every single time without fail it's been an old person. So I suppose if I were to start a thread about that you'd say I'm ageist too but I'm really not. It's just a fact that that's what happened to me.

OP, you started a thread about AGEISM. I pointed out that ageism is not simply someone holding a reprehensible view. Yes there is a lot of prejudice expressed about younger and older people but, as The UK is a country where freedom of speech is allowed, MN are absolutely right to allow views to be expressed. This is different from allowing -isms.
Ban people from expressing narrow minded bigoted views, and MN would be a very much less visited site.

I think some of you will rue the day you called for anything you dislike to be banned.

No one's doing that though. This thread is about ageism, which is against MN talk guidelines yet they generally overlook it.
I'm not suggesting MN become more heavy handed in their zapping generally, only that they follow their own blooming guidelines.

@bakewellbride no I wouldn't say that was ageist because it isn't. "Quite a few people have moaned at me and they were all older" is a statement of fact, not ageism; "I've noticed that older people are more likely to..." is also not ageism.

"Older people shouldn't be allowed to shop/can't do crosswords/are incapable of doing a good job/should be banned from..." IS ageism.

Do you agree that minors should be banned from nightclubs? Although there’s a practicality element there, is it inherently an ageist statement?

I love the way that so many posters are leaping in to defend ageism. Would you do the same about racism? (For example).

@blacksax

It isn't ageist or any other 'ist' to describe someone as old, or retired, or disabled, or by their apparent heritage or faith. Not unless the reason for describing them as such is to denigrate, insult, discriminate or worse.

I agree. Using descriptive words when they're relevant to the story, as opposed to using them to denigrate people, is fine.

But ...

There's nothing wrong with saying "I was sitting next to a little old lady on the train". No more than if you said 'a tall man with a beard' or 'a short schoolboy'. Merely descriptive.

It absolutely is wrong to do this if the rest of the post is then derogatory.

Phrases like 'little old lady' or 'this old man' are (often) loaded with insinuation about said person's behaviour. And it's this insidious ageism that is tolerated and allowed - and when called out leads to howls of derision by those who don't understand/see ageism. Posters need to ask themselves why they have used such phrases. What difference did it make to the unfolding story if the person was old?

Everyday ageism is like everyday sexism, I think. (And I agree with everyone here when they say it applies equally to younger as well as older people.)

Of course minors should be banned from nightclubs. That isn't ageism.
Ageism is unfair discrimination, stereotyping or bullying based on age; it is not acknowledging that children are not mature and can't do adult things, nor is it acknowledging that different ages of people may be different, due to maturity or background.

Those who seem to think ageism should be allowed to stand in the interests of "free speech" do you feel similarly about racism? Homophobia? Sexism? Should those be allowed to stand?

We're users of a chat forum, not an employees or recipients of a service, so we're not talking illegal discrimination but casual ageism, sexism etc. which are also damaging and perpetuate negative stereotypes that may ultimately have a knock on effect in those other spheres.
Is that really what you want on your chat site?

And look!

Everyday Ageism campaign on Gransnet

(the focus being on over 50s, so not about ageism towards younger people, but still ...)

And the objectives:
Our objectives

• Identify ageism
• Name and shame organisations and brands who practise ageism
• Challenge ageism
• Empower people to deal with ageism

So Mumsnet/MNHQ are aware of ageism. They just choose not to deal with it on Mumsnet, for some reason.

(Interestingly, that thread is now 10 years old.)

Wow @BIWI what a turnaround from MN!

Then again, I wonder if it's deliberate: MN is first and foremost a business, so if it thinks it's attracting users by allowing more fruity debate, then I guess the fruity debate is left alone.

Because they were saying the treatment is unnecessary if the person is older and that it would be better for them to be dead. That is ageist.

But it would be for them to decide wouldn’t it? When was the last time you visited a dementia patient in a nursing home?

It’s funny how so many posters are happy to speak about the younger generation and have negative stereotypes towards them. I’ve seen it time and time again on here and no one seems to care (other than us young people that are spoken about).

Dare I speak about anyone over the age of 35/40 though? Many people on here don’t actually care about ageism. They just don’t want any comments about their age group

Have you read any of the posts on this thread @ButterflyKu? Many of us have already said that comments about younger people are just as ageist as those about older people

@BIWI I read 1 page and a half, couldn’t concentrate after that. Regardless, it’s all good and well that people on this thread have said that but what about the rest of the posters using this site? I don’t even think MN could do anything about it if they tried tbh

Well one thing is for sure @ButterflyKu, if MNHQ don't do anything about it then everyone else can think and post what they like

I can't believe you'd jump into a discussion - and there were only just over 90 posts before yours - without bothering to read all the posts.