We Will Be Different! Ageism and the Temporal Construction of Old Age

Abstract

Ageism has been described as different from other forms of discrimination and paradoxical in the sense that "nonold" people discriminate against their "future selves." The argument of this article is that nonold people may uphold ideas about older people as "the other" by constructing their own future selves as "essentially different" from that of older people of the present. Using examples from care work, this article shows how nonold care providers use temporal categorizations to justify treatment that they would/will not accept for themselves. Based on a review of literature, it is argued that a temporal construction of old age and older people as existing in the past, the present, and the future has been a prominent feature of the construction of old age and older people for many decades. A cohort of "new old" has repeatedly been described as active and self-conscious, in comparison to the passive, frail, and grateful older people of the past. Although these contrasts have been used to improve images of older people, they have also served to obstruct attempts to form identities as "older people" and made it possible for nonold people to justify ageist arrangements.