ROCK YOUR AGE with Ashton Applewhite | LAYC29

Isabel: 00:00:52

Well, welcome back.

Isabel: 00:00:53

My friends in the Lift As You Climb community.

Isabel: 00:00:56

It's another stellar occasion to celebrate together, because I

Isabel: 00:01:02

have the extreme pleasure to be interviewing, to talking and meeting

Isabel: 00:01:07

her, virtually, for the first time...

Isabel: 00:01:10

Ashton Applewhite.

Isabel: 00:01:12

Ashton has been a very, very big part of my evolution, even

Isabel: 00:01:16

though she wasn't aware of it.

Isabel: 00:01:19

In the 10 years that I have been struggling to figure

Isabel: 00:01:23

out who the hell am I.

Isabel: 00:01:25

And the evolutionary journey that's taken me to be an author,

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and to create an online program and now to be a podcaster...

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She was often in my ears and in my eyes and in my thoughts.

Isabel: 00:01:40

So today I'd like to say, welcome to Ashton Applewhite.

Isabel: 00:01:45

If you don't already know who she is, she is the author of This Chair Rocks...

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A manifesto against age-ism.

Isabel: 00:01:56

And this is a one sassy piece of literature.

Isabel: 00:02:01

It is irreverent.

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It's true...

Isabel: 00:02:03

It's filled with all kinds of facts and inspirations...

Isabel: 00:02:07

and slam on the brakes, because you're going to give yourself a little check.

Isabel: 00:02:11

I believe you will.

Isabel: 00:02:13

I did about, wait a minute.

Isabel: 00:02:16

Why did I believe that?

Isabel: 00:02:19

Why have I been accepting that that was the truth in my life.

Isabel: 00:02:24

I have never been the right age.

Isabel: 00:02:27

According to the script provided by society in my life.

Isabel: 00:02:31

Now, I was a mom at 16.

Isabel: 00:02:33

I couldn't legally vote, drink or drive, but I was having to be self-sufficient

Isabel: 00:02:39

and financially independent.

Isabel: 00:02:42

All my life I seem to either be ahead of the c urve, or behind it.

Isabel: 00:02:47

So I'm really, really glad now that I can just say to hell with that, I'm making

Isabel: 00:02:51

up my own rules about what it feels to be me at this age and what I want to do.

Isabel: 00:02:58

Ashton.

Isabel: 00:02:59

I would love if you would set the scene for us a little bit about how the hell

Isabel: 00:03:06

you came to this place of writing this...

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Manifesto, or Womanifesto, as I would like to say...

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and why the work continues.

Isabel: 00:03:16

It's not done yet.

Isabel: 00:03:17

Right?

Ashton: 00:03:18

Those are two questions.

Ashton: 00:03:20

So how about I tackle the first one?...

Ashton: 00:03:22

In the middle, of which, I will forget the second part...

Ashton: 00:03:24

So you can remind me.

Isabel: 00:03:25

All right.

Ashton: 00:03:27

There wasn't some blinding moment of awareness for me, because I

Ashton: 00:03:32

am not terribly self-aware and I tend to sort of muddle my way into things.

Ashton: 00:03:37

And then only looking back, does it occur to me that, to have some grasp

Ashton: 00:03:42

of the process I just went through.

Ashton: 00:03:44

But I started writing and thinking about aging in my mid 50's which was 15

Ashton: 00:03:50

years ago now, because I was afraid of getting old and being sort of a nerdy.

Ashton: 00:03:56

I'm not an academic, I'm not a researcher, but I am thinky.

Ashton: 00:04:00

And my way into things is to, look stuff up..

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look and see what, the science says, what the popular press says.

Ashton: 00:04:07

And in a matter of months, if not weeks, I came across the data points

Ashton: 00:04:15

that I started my Ted Talk out with...

Ashton: 00:04:18

a decade later...

Ashton: 00:04:19

That older people have better mental health than the young or middle-aged.

Ashton: 00:04:24

The minuscule percentage of Americans over 65 in nursing homes.

Ashton: 00:04:28

It was 4 and a half at that point...

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It's down to 2.

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The fact that dementia rates are diminishing and on and on and on.

Ashton: 00:04:36

And I did the same thing as you Isabel, I just smacked my forehead,

Ashton: 00:04:39

thought why don't we know this stuff?

Ashton: 00:04:44

And I became obsessed with that.

Ashton: 00:04:47

Why is our vision of late life so much grimmer than the reality all around us?

Ashton: 00:04:54

I am not a positive aging Pollyanna.

Ashton: 00:04:59

There are lots of legitimate things to worry about...

Ashton: 00:05:03

About getting older and moving through life...

Ashton: 00:05:05

But we never hear the other side of the story...

Ashton: 00:05:08

our fears are way out of proportion to reality...

Ashton: 00:05:12

Those fears are bad for us individually and collectively.

Isabel: 00:05:17

Thank you.

Isabel: 00:05:17

I was particularly surprised at the statistic, that now it's only 2%?

Ashton: 00:05:24

I've even heard 1%...

Isabel: 00:05:26

Really?

Ashton: 00:05:27

When I managed to run the numbers, I'm not all that good at

Ashton: 00:05:29

math, but, I finally just went back and extrapolated from the data from

Ashton: 00:05:34

the US Census Department, et cetera...

Ashton: 00:05:35

and there was more data after COVID...

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and I got 2%.

Ashton: 00:05:39

That is again, of the population of Americans, over 65, in nursing homes.

Ashton: 00:05:45

Not all senior living, but nursing homes.

Isabel: 00:05:49

Right..

Isabel: 00:05:50

Which is completely opposite to the expectation I have.

Isabel: 00:05:53

fact, one of my talking points is...

Isabel: 00:05:57

My life set me up...

Isabel: 00:05:59

I was prepared by the script in North America as an adult to reach an age

Isabel: 00:06:05

of obsolescence, and then that I would just simply fall off a cliff.

Isabel: 00:06:10

I wouldn't have any impact.

Isabel: 00:06:11

I wouldn't have any relevance anymore...

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And when I got closer to that cliff...

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I went...

Isabel: 00:06:17

I am not going!

Isabel: 00:06:20

There's something wrong with this...

Isabel: 00:06:22

There must be a different story.

Isabel: 00:06:24

Thank you because you're telling the story about why we were set up to

Isabel: 00:06:30

expect to conform in certain ways that are not beneficial for society.

Ashton: 00:06:37

Especially women.

Isabel: 00:06:39

Especially women.

Isabel: 00:06:41

You're right.

Isabel: 00:06:43

I am not my mother or my grandmother.

Isabel: 00:06:47

I just don't fit into that profile.

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And why should I?

Isabel: 00:06:50

Because that's not the point for me...

Isabel: 00:06:52

I'm lifting and climbing.

Isabel: 00:06:54

I know that my self, yourself, our peers...

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have so much, that we can contribute and the impact that

Isabel: 00:07:03

we can have yet for decades and decades, if we continue to do so.

Ashton: 00:07:09

We're lucky.

Isabel: 00:07:10

We are, and that is true...

Isabel: 00:07:13

I feel extremely fortunate that I am quite healthy, physically.

Isabel: 00:07:19

I have no, major limitations around my physical abilities, other than

Isabel: 00:07:24

the fact that I don't get off the couch often enough to be as supple

Isabel: 00:07:30

as I say, I would like to be.

Isabel: 00:07:32

But my brain works and my heart works, and my ambition works.

Isabel: 00:07:38

And like you, I have a curious brain.

Isabel: 00:07:41

And so I want to keep on learning

Ashton: 00:07:43

Curiosity helps.

Isabel: 00:07:45

Curiosity definitely helps.

Isabel: 00:07:48

And I think perhaps that's one of the ways we can really shatter

Isabel: 00:07:52

this ageism is being curious and asking questions about why...

Isabel: 00:07:59

Why were we told that?

Isabel: 00:08:00

Why were we set up to expect that?

Isabel: 00:08:02

And why don't we present a different side of what is possible?

Ashton: 00:08:07

There's a scholar named Amos Wilson, who says...

Ashton: 00:08:09

If you want to understand any problem in America...

Ashton: 00:08:12

Don't look at who suffers from it, look at who profits from it.

Isabel: 00:08:16

Yup.

Ashton: 00:08:17

Who profits from our fears?

Ashton: 00:08:19

Who profits, when we're squabbling about who looks younger or whether

Ashton: 00:08:22

everything is old people's fault or everything is young people's fault?

Isabel: 00:08:25

Episode two ago on the podcast was the, We Fix You Industries and

Isabel: 00:08:34

how I am now examining how, subversive they are in their marketing to me

Isabel: 00:08:43

to convince me that I'm not enough.

Ashton: 00:08:46

Satisfaction doesn't sell...

Ashton: 00:08:48

No one makes any money off it.

Isabel: 00:08:49

That's why the six o'clock news is gory and bloody.

Isabel: 00:08:54

Okay.

Isabel: 00:08:54

I did ask you two questions.

Isabel: 00:08:58

the, other question was, what is the work yet to be done?

Isabel: 00:09:02

how do we advance this enlightenment?

Ashton: 00:09:06

What we need to change the role of older people in society.

Ashton: 00:09:11

Primarily...

Ashton: 00:09:12

Although I want to say, that ageism is any judgment about a person or a

Ashton: 00:09:18

group of people on the basis of age...

Ashton: 00:09:20

And younger people do experience a lot of it.

Ashton: 00:09:22

Quips like...

Ashton: 00:09:23

Kids today...

Ashton: 00:09:24

To reduce it to the minimum.

Ashton: 00:09:26

That's an ageist judgment as well.

Ashton: 00:09:28

But we do live in a youth obsessed society, and older

Ashton: 00:09:31

people do bear the brunt of that.

Ashton: 00:09:33

We need a grassroots movement like the women's movement.

Ashton: 00:09:38

Think what that did to revolutionize the voice and visibility

Ashton: 00:09:42

of women around the world.

Ashton: 00:09:44

And we need an anti-ageism movement on the same scale.

Ashton: 00:09:49

I would never presume to tell anyone, what to join.

Ashton: 00:09:54

One very good piece of advice I got when writing my book

Ashton: 00:09:57

was don't use the word should.

Ashton: 00:09:59

The world would be intolerable if it were full of activists, but all change

Ashton: 00:10:06

starts within as the saying goes.

Ashton: 00:10:08

So the first hardest, most unpleasant, most necessary task is

Ashton: 00:10:12

for each of us to look at our own attitudes towards age and aging.

Ashton: 00:10:18

Because each of us is biased.

Ashton: 00:10:20

We grow up or Raj by, messages, starting with children's books and Disney movies...

Ashton: 00:10:25

About how awful it is to get old, how tragic it is to

Ashton: 00:10:28

encounter any form of disability.

Ashton: 00:10:31

And that becomes part of our identity.

Ashton: 00:10:33

Unless we do really hard work to question where these beliefs come

Ashton: 00:10:36

from and what purpose they serve.

Ashton: 00:10:40

Even if that's all you do and I'm putting giant air quotes around the ALL,

Ashton: 00:10:44

because it is the hardest task of all...

Ashton: 00:10:46

Is to look at your own attitudes towards aging and compare them with the reality...

Ashton: 00:10:52

Whether that means simply opening your eyes and looking at the

Ashton: 00:10:55

older people around you or...

Ashton: 00:10:58

Reading my book, or going to...

Ashton: 00:11:01

There's a website that I co-founded, called the Old School Anti Age-ism

Ashton: 00:11:06

Clearing House, oldschool.info is the URL, everything is free except the books.

Ashton: 00:11:12

The more you know about aging, the less fear it holds.

Ashton: 00:11:17

And I'm not making that up.

Ashton: 00:11:19

I used to quote a study from AARP and the University of Southern

Ashton: 00:11:23

California, that I know it by heart.

Ashton: 00:11:26

Less fear about aging is associated with more knowledge of the aging process.

Ashton: 00:11:31

So educate yourself...

Ashton: 00:11:32

Partly because our fears are so out of proportion, but also, because these

Ashton: 00:11:38

facts they're not hard to find, but they are not at the top of the culture.

Ashton: 00:11:41

But noodle around...

Ashton: 00:11:43

and you will learn.

Ashton: 00:11:45

As you said, at the beginning of this, how many of your

Ashton: 00:11:48

conceptions are not fact based.

Ashton: 00:11:52

That is, along with getting off the couch...

Ashton: 00:11:55

Which is not my forte either...

Ashton: 00:11:57

That is very good for your health.

Ashton: 00:12:00

There are all sorts of studies that show that attitudes towards aging

Ashton: 00:12:05

affect the way our minds and bodies function at the cellular level.

Ashton: 00:12:10

So do it.

Ashton: 00:12:11

You don't have to want to be an activist, you don't have to want to go to the

Ashton: 00:12:15

barricades, but do it for your own health.

Ashton: 00:12:19

A movement needs a million voices.

Ashton: 00:12:21

You are advancing the movement by starting a podcast.

Ashton: 00:12:24

Someone else could advance the movement just by not buying

Ashton: 00:12:28

horrible birthday cards, that say disgusting things about older people.

Ashton: 00:12:33

Someone else could do it by speaking out, when someone calls them

Ashton: 00:12:37

sweetie, or deary, or young lady...

Ashton: 00:12:39

Just say...

Ashton: 00:12:40

What do you mean by that?

Ashton: 00:12:41

Right?...

Ashton: 00:12:41

And let that uncomfortable silence sit there, because ageism

Ashton: 00:12:46

still goes largely unremarked.

Ashton: 00:12:48

And it's going to take all of us little actions and big actions by

Ashton: 00:12:52

all of us to change the culture.

Isabel: 00:12:54

I'm confident that we will.

Isabel: 00:12:58

Because there are so many of us.

Isabel: 00:13:00

And when I say us, I'm very close to the same age as you,

Isabel: 00:13:04

and the baby boomer generation.

Isabel: 00:13:07

There are so many of us...

Isabel: 00:13:08

That if we start waking us all up to how we think about ourselves...

Isabel: 00:13:14

and then, that begins to trickle down through all of the people around us...

Isabel: 00:13:19

Our families...

Isabel: 00:13:20

How our grandchildren even interact with us.

Isabel: 00:13:24

It's not dear ol' Granny...

Isabel: 00:13:26

My grandchildren don't consider me the...

Isabel: 00:13:29

Mrs.

Isabel: 00:13:29

Walton, with the rocking chair.

Isabel: 00:13:32

They're like...

Isabel: 00:13:33

What is she going to do next?

Ashton: 00:13:36

But I have to say it's also okay to sit in the rocking chair.

Ashton: 00:13:39

I think it's...

Ashton: 00:13:40

It's very easy...

Ashton: 00:13:42

and I don't mean to jump on you Isabel...

Ashton: 00:13:44

but a lot of people drink the first slug of the Kool-Aid go...

Ashton: 00:13:48

Oh, it's going to be better than I thought.

Ashton: 00:13:50

I'm not going to fall apart and, get wrinkles.

Ashton: 00:13:53

And it's not all gonna go to hell.

Ashton: 00:13:55

But we can't stop the clock.

Ashton: 00:13:57

We shouldn't aspire to stop the clock.

Ashton: 00:13:59

We live in such a materially oriented...

Ashton: 00:14:03

Competitive hyper capitalist society.

Ashton: 00:14:07

That it's easy for the pendulum to swing the other way and think..

Ashton: 00:14:09

Oh, I'm going to do aging right!

Ashton: 00:14:11

I'm going to exercise.

Ashton: 00:14:13

I'm going to eat kale.

Ashton: 00:14:15

I'm going to work hard to look and move like a younger version of myself.

Ashton: 00:14:20

And that's another trap.

Isabel: 00:14:23

I don't feel challenged by you, in fact, I feel inspired by you,

Isabel: 00:14:29

and I'm glad that you're clarifying that because it isn't for me about

Isabel: 00:14:35

being a younger version of myself.

Isabel: 00:14:38

Because I don't want to give away any of me.

Ashton: 00:14:42

There you go.

Isabel: 00:14:43

I've worked really hard to become this me today.

Isabel: 00:14:47

How I do the next one third of my first century...

Isabel: 00:14:53

Should be my way, my style.

Isabel: 00:14:57

It's my turn.

Isabel: 00:14:59

To...

Isabel: 00:15:00

I don't have to conform to anybody else's idea of what it should be.

Isabel: 00:15:04

I should choose it to be my way.

Isabel: 00:15:06

And that's what I like to encourage others that when I talk to them about it is...

Isabel: 00:15:10

You get to write the script.

Isabel: 00:15:12

You get to write the script based on who you have evolved

Isabel: 00:15:16

to be what your strengths are...

Isabel: 00:15:19

What your life experience is...

Isabel: 00:15:21

What your tacit knowledge, accumulated knowledge is...

Isabel: 00:15:25

So exciting to me that we can continue to learn until the day the lights go out.

Ashton: 00:15:30

And I like to point out that no matter how scared they

Ashton: 00:15:33

are, I've never found anyone who actually wants to be younger.

Ashton: 00:15:39

For me...

Ashton: 00:15:40

I think about like becoming a teenager.

Ashton: 00:15:42

No, thank you.

Ashton: 00:15:42

I would rather roll naked over coals 'till eternity...

Ashton: 00:15:47

But, in the more abstract sense, we know...

Ashton: 00:15:50

That our years are what make us, us.

Ashton: 00:15:52

No one actually wants to return, to wipe the slate clean and start again.

Isabel: 00:15:58

Oh, gosh...

Isabel: 00:15:59

hell NO!

Isabel: 00:16:01

To go through that agony, the growing pains of life, over and over again...

Isabel: 00:16:07

That would be hell.

Isabel: 00:16:08

But to be able to build on the platform of...

Isabel: 00:16:11

Okay...

Isabel: 00:16:12

I know this now, and that I can continue to add to that...

Isabel: 00:16:17

Is to me, the definite advantage that we have, over who we might've

Isabel: 00:16:24

been when we were 25 or 45.

Isabel: 00:16:27

Right?

Isabel: 00:16:28

I love the fact that you put it out there for us all to really talk about that.

Isabel: 00:16:33

There's a lot of stuff that we know how to do so much better

Isabel: 00:16:36

and so much more confidently and intimately and sexually and...

Isabel: 00:16:41

relationship Lee, all the Lees.

Isabel: 00:16:44

Now because of the experience that we've had in our lives.

Isabel: 00:16:49

I love the fact that you opened it up out there.

Isabel: 00:16:53

Just because we have silver hair doesn't mean we don't

Isabel: 00:16:56

have sex, for goodness sakes!

Isabel: 00:16:59

Right?

Ashton: 00:17:00

I'm getting it!

Isabel: 00:17:04

Well, mine has just been ultra lightened to cover that.

Isabel: 00:17:08

But I personally like this...

Isabel: 00:17:11

it's fun for me at this time of my life to play with the style about

Isabel: 00:17:15

who I feel like I am right now.

Isabel: 00:17:18

Not because I'm trying to be a version of somebody on Instagram...

Isabel: 00:17:22

Uh-Uh But who I look at in the mirror and go...

Isabel: 00:17:27

I like you!

Ashton: 00:17:28

It's good for you.

Ashton: 00:17:30

It's hard work because culture fills us with messages that we're...

Ashton: 00:17:34

Not enough...

Ashton: 00:17:35

That we don't conform to the image norm.

Isabel: 00:17:39

For the last 10 years, I have been through a lot of knot holes.

Isabel: 00:17:44

I did the early retirement...

Isabel: 00:17:47

Sold my 8 figure business.

Isabel: 00:17:50

And I thought...

Isabel: 00:17:51

Boy, I was on top of the world, until I woke up one morning and went...

Isabel: 00:17:58

Who Am I?...

Isabel: 00:18:00

And who is this body...

Isabel: 00:18:02

and what's going on around here?

Isabel: 00:18:06

It took me a long time to get to the stage of going...

Isabel: 00:18:10

I am who I exactly are intended to be.

Isabel: 00:18:15

And there's a lot of baggage that I'm not bringing forward with me.

Isabel: 00:18:20

That has been sold to me over the decades of, well, this is what...

Isabel: 00:18:26

When you're 65 years old, you put that sweater on your shoulders, do

Isabel: 00:18:31

that little flip with the sleeves, and get in the golf cart and ride around.

Ashton: 00:18:37

Women are never the right age and sexualized very young and then

Ashton: 00:18:42

ushered over the hill two decades later.

Ashton: 00:18:45

I want to bring up the fact that consciousness raising, is the tool

Ashton: 00:18:50

that catalyzed the women's movement.

Ashton: 00:18:53

What happened was that women came together in a safe space...

Ashton: 00:18:57

Before we knew to call them safe space.

Ashton: 00:18:59

I think the phrase was...

Ashton: 00:19:00

What's said in the room, stays in the room.

Ashton: 00:19:02

Women only.

Ashton: 00:19:04

And compared notes and realize that what they had been thinking of as personal

Ashton: 00:19:09

problems or failings or obstacles were actually widely shared issues.

Ashton: 00:19:15

Not getting hired, getting harassed, not having enough, voice in their

Ashton: 00:19:19

marriage or in their professional lives.

Ashton: 00:19:22

And these were issues that we could and needed to come

Ashton: 00:19:26

together and do something about.

Ashton: 00:19:27

And that's very empowering, and with my colleagues at Old School...

Ashton: 00:19:34

We, I, created a while ago...

Ashton: 00:19:35

In the beginning, before Old School even existed...

Ashton: 00:19:38

A guide to starting a consciousness raising group around age bias, called...

Ashton: 00:19:42

Who Me Ageist.

Ashton: 00:19:44

And you'll probably put the links out with your podcast, but again, It's

Ashton: 00:19:48

oldschool.Info, search consciousness....

Ashton: 00:19:51

You'll find it.

Ashton: 00:19:52

We are about to launch in September, a guide called Ageist Sexist, Who Me?

Ashton: 00:19:59

Which is a guide to the intersection of ageism and sexism.

Ashton: 00:20:05

What it looks like between our ears, in the world, and how we

Ashton: 00:20:10

can become more aware of it, and understand the forces at work here.

Ashton: 00:20:15

So if you are feeling ambitious...

Ashton: 00:20:18

Bring some friends together and talk about this stuff.

Ashton: 00:20:22

Ideally women of all ages.

Ashton: 00:20:25

Because age segregation does us no favors.

Ashton: 00:20:29

I think it's easy for us older women to forget how hard it is to

Ashton: 00:20:32

be young, and to be ungenerous.

Ashton: 00:20:35

Younger women who are friends with powerful, older women...

Ashton: 00:20:39

Who are comfortable in our own skins...

Ashton: 00:20:42

Get a very wonderful lesson in how their fears of getting

Ashton: 00:20:47

older are out of proportion, and friendships form across age groups.

Ashton: 00:20:52

And that's only good.

Isabel: 00:20:54

This is exactly what the experience was for me in writing

Isabel: 00:20:58

my book, publishing my book, and sharing my story with the world...

Isabel: 00:21:03

The most common response was...

Isabel: 00:21:05

Oh my goddess, I thought it was just me.

Ashton: 00:21:09

Exactly.

Isabel: 00:21:11

And we were all living in these little silos thinking...

Isabel: 00:21:16

Everything that's wrong...

Isabel: 00:21:17

It's just me.

Isabel: 00:21:19

Everybody else has got it figured out.

Isabel: 00:21:22

They are better at this...

Isabel: 00:21:23

They've got more under control, et cetera, et cetera.

Isabel: 00:21:27

So defeating the imposter syndrome or at least slaying it for awhile.

Isabel: 00:21:33

Yeah.

Isabel: 00:21:34

It comes back that's the imposter syndrome, the Grim Reaper in disguise.

Isabel: 00:21:39

Having these conversations in safe places, and environments with commonality...

Isabel: 00:21:44

Is exactly the recipe.

Isabel: 00:21:47

Right?

Ashton: 00:21:48

The recipe is different for each of us, but those are fundamentals of it.

Ashton: 00:21:51

Absolutely.

Ashton: 00:21:53

I mean, our solutions are different, but the fundamentals are shared.

Isabel: 00:21:56

But in those conversations...

Isabel: 00:21:59

Different solutions come out and they can inspire ideas for each of us.

Isabel: 00:22:05

I love when you get a room of women together, and you start talking

Isabel: 00:22:09

about these common issues...

Isabel: 00:22:11

Usually, there's a reluctance at the beginning to admit.

Isabel: 00:22:16

Yeah, me too...

Isabel: 00:22:18

Like...

Isabel: 00:22:18

Who wants to say I pee when I laugh?

Isabel: 00:22:21

Right?

Isabel: 00:22:22

But once they get talking about it, and then it becomes more and

Isabel: 00:22:27

more where they are connected...

Isabel: 00:22:30

By their experience and by their doubts.

Isabel: 00:22:34

By the...

Isabel: 00:22:35

Wait a minute...

Isabel: 00:22:36

Couldn't we do this a better way?

Isabel: 00:22:39

I love that!

Isabel: 00:22:41

I expected the readers of my book to be women, more like me in their late

Isabel: 00:22:47

fifties, early sixties, seventies...

Isabel: 00:22:50

But in fact, my granddaughters read the book and said, This is what we need.

Isabel: 00:22:56

We need to be able to talk with other women, and find safe spaces

Isabel: 00:23:02

to inspire and lift each other, and change the isms that should be changed.

Isabel: 00:23:11

So thank you for that.

Isabel: 00:23:13

You have also another platform, Yo is this Ageist?.

Ashton: 00:23:22

I was talking about it...

Ashton: 00:23:23

This was many years ago with a friend and we were having some drinks together

Ashton: 00:23:27

and she ended up, texting me and emailing me in the morning and saying...

Ashton: 00:23:32

Got home and was all a little drunk.

Ashton: 00:23:35

And so I set up the site for you, because I probably never have

Ashton: 00:23:39

gotten it together to do myself.

Ashton: 00:23:41

It is a blog called Yo Is This Ageist, modeled on a wonderful preexisting

Ashton: 00:23:46

site called, Yo Is This Racist?, with permission, and it is a Q and A format.

Ashton: 00:23:52

So people send in photographs...

Ashton: 00:23:55

Someone this morning sent me a cartoon.

Ashton: 00:23:58

they might write, describe an incident that happened.

Ashton: 00:24:01

They might send a link to an article or an advertisement, and I pass judgment.

Ashton: 00:24:06

I hope wittily, and I hope accurately, although...

Ashton: 00:24:10

It's always subjective of course, to whether the thing in fact is ageist.

Ashton: 00:24:16

because, ageism is a new concept to a lot of people.

Ashton: 00:24:19

The minute you say, well...

Ashton: 00:24:21

Age is to age-ism, as racist is to racism.

Ashton: 00:24:24

People get it, but it is not something we talk about as much.

Ashton: 00:24:28

So we need help recognizing it when we come across it.

Ashton: 00:24:32

I mean, very basic litmus test is that if a similar comment, or cartoon or

Ashton: 00:24:38

whatever, on that basis of what you look like, who you sleep with, what ethnicity

Ashton: 00:24:44

you are, if it wouldn't pass muster...

Ashton: 00:24:47

Then a similar comment on the basis of age, is no more acceptable.

Isabel: 00:24:52

I saw the cartoon today with the grandma pants.

Ashton: 00:24:56

Yeah.

Isabel: 00:24:58

Oh, no, you know, there we go.

Isabel: 00:25:00

There we go.

Isabel: 00:25:01

Every woman over 60 is wearing sensible shoes and baggy pants,

Isabel: 00:25:07

and she's carrying a tissue in her bra, and mints in her pocket.

Isabel: 00:25:12

And yes...

Isabel: 00:25:14

Although my grandmother did carry Peppermints all the time.

Isabel: 00:25:18

She called them the pill.

Isabel: 00:25:20

When I was sad, she'd say here honey, have a pill.

Isabel: 00:25:24

Okay.

Isabel: 00:25:25

Yes.

Isabel: 00:25:26

And I feel I said something very ageist.

Isabel: 00:25:31

When I said...

Isabel: 00:25:32

I don't want to be the person with the sweater on my

Isabel: 00:25:35

shoulders and the golf cart...

Isabel: 00:25:37

Because, damn...

Isabel: 00:25:40

There's some really great golfers out there.

Isabel: 00:25:43

And that doesn't mean that every woman who golfs, when she retires,

Isabel: 00:25:49

doesn't do a million other things.

Ashton: 00:25:52

I have to watch myself for...

Ashton: 00:25:54

I mean...

Ashton: 00:25:54

I'm learning to be less judgmental in general.

Ashton: 00:25:58

But it is hard for me because I love to work.

Ashton: 00:26:02

And I'm lucky that I have managed find work that is fulfilling to me.

Ashton: 00:26:08

But to me, the idea of being...

Ashton: 00:26:11

Which changes everything.

Ashton: 00:26:12

Right?

Ashton: 00:26:12

If I had a job, I didn't like, or if I got laid off and couldn't

Ashton: 00:26:15

find a new job, I wouldn't have any choice about it, but I do.

Ashton: 00:26:19

And the thought of living a life entirely of leisure, is hard for me to imagine.

Ashton: 00:26:26

And I have to watch myself, first thinking gee, you know, what's wrong with you?

Ashton: 00:26:31

But you know, if you are lucky enough to have the choice and

Ashton: 00:26:35

have enough money to not have to work, and that is fulfilling...

Ashton: 00:26:38

power to ya!

Isabel: 00:26:40

Absolutely.

Isabel: 00:26:42

Whatever it is that works for you and that you have consciously, and I

Isabel: 00:26:51

like the emphasis on being conscious, that you raised consciously chosen...

Isabel: 00:26:58

This is the legacy that I want to live.

Isabel: 00:27:01

Right now!

Isabel: 00:27:03

That doesn't mean we can't change it whenever we are so inspired to do

Isabel: 00:27:07

so, not to just accept what somebody else tells you, but you choose,

Isabel: 00:27:12

of your own, what you want to do.

Isabel: 00:27:14

And if that's to be the best grandmother in the world or the best bridge

Isabel: 00:27:18

player in the world, or to become an astronaut or whatever you want.

Isabel: 00:27:24

And we're so privileged in our society to have these opportunities.

Isabel: 00:27:29

And I don't think that any of us should be denied that opportunity to do what

Isabel: 00:27:36

we want to do and capable of doing.

Isabel: 00:27:39

So thank you for leading that charge.

Isabel: 00:27:42

I'm looking forward to following in your trajectory, learning more, getting...

Ashton: 00:27:48

You're following in mine...

Ashton: 00:27:49

You're making your own.

Isabel: 00:27:51

Well, I, you know, there's a little, like, there's a little

Isabel: 00:27:53

star dust that you sprinkled out there and I'm, I'm, I'm in the,

Isabel: 00:27:57

I'm in the wake, so that's great.

Isabel: 00:27:59

All right.

Isabel: 00:27:59

Anything else that you would like to add today?

Ashton: 00:28:04

No.

Ashton: 00:28:05

I hope that people are inspired to question the mainstream narrative,

Ashton: 00:28:10

and think who's interest it serves.

Ashton: 00:28:13

I mean, women are, leading the movement against age-ism on surprisingly.

Ashton: 00:28:17

Uh, we certainly have the most at stake and I think we're braver.

Ashton: 00:28:21

So, you know, find whatever way in appeals and works for you.

Isabel: 00:28:27

Why do you feel that women are leading the charge?

Ashton: 00:28:31

Because we face the intersection of ageism and sexism.

Ashton: 00:28:36

And if we're women of color, add racism to it, if we have a

Ashton: 00:28:40

disability and ableism to it, right.

Ashton: 00:28:43

Susan Sontag called it the double standard of aging...

Ashton: 00:28:47

That aging enhances man, up to a point, and diminishes women.

Ashton: 00:28:52

We live in a patriarchy, which means that men have more power

Ashton: 00:28:55

and like holding onto it.

Ashton: 00:28:57

So if it furthers the interests of men in power...

Ashton: 00:29:02

In which, women do not have as much voice and autonomy, and lose it very, very fast.

Ashton: 00:29:09

After, some point in midlife, that doesn't serve us well.

Isabel: 00:29:16

No...

Isabel: 00:29:17

Doing our best, doing well, enables us to do good for others.

Isabel: 00:29:22

So let's be out in front on that.

Isabel: 00:29:24

I of course am going to include in the show notes, your bio and your

Isabel: 00:29:30

platforms and where everybody can follow and do their part to change

Isabel: 00:29:35

all of this in a positive way.

Isabel: 00:29:38

But before I bid you adieu, I like to ask my guests to share

Isabel: 00:29:44

something about themselves that we probably can't find on Google.

Ashton: 00:29:49

I tried to come up with a clever answer to this, but failed.

Ashton: 00:29:53

I don't like to cook.

Ashton: 00:29:54

I like to garden.

Ashton: 00:29:55

I have a very dark sense of humor.

Isabel: 00:29:58

Mmm...

Isabel: 00:29:59

I think that might come through on Google.

Isabel: 00:30:01

Well, thank you.

Isabel: 00:30:03

We'll imagine you in your garden, growing vegetables and giving them...

Ashton: 00:30:08

I wish I had room for vegetables.

Ashton: 00:30:09

I live in Brooklyn, so it is small and shady garden, but I make the most of

Ashton: 00:30:14

it, and it gives me great pleasure.

Isabel: 00:30:16

Well, I'm glad you are growing good things everywhere.

Isabel: 00:30:20

Thank you very much, Ashton.

Isabel: 00:30:23

I am very grateful.

Isabel: 00:30:25

You have done so much lifting and climbing in your life.

Isabel: 00:30:30

You're an incredibly wonderful role model for everyone.

Ashton: 00:30:34

Thank you and keep up your own important work.

Isabel: 00:30:37

Thank you.

Isabel: 00:30:38

Talk to you soon.

Isabel: 00:30:39

All right,