This Chair Rocks

An empowering manifesto, examining and disassembling age discrimination with wit and energy, calling for us to embrace and celebrate ageing. In our youth-obsessed culture, we're bombarded by media images and messages about the despair and decline of our later years. Beauty and pharmaceuti- cal companies work overtime to convince people to purchase products that will retain their youthful appearance and vital- ity. Wrinkles are embarrassing. Grey hair should be coloured and bald heads hid- den. Older minds and bodies are too frail to keep up with the pace of the modern working world and elders should just step aside for the new generation. Ashton Applewhite once held these beliefs too, until she realised where this prejudice comes from and the damage it does. Lively, funny, and deeply researched, This Chair Rocks traces her journey from apprehensive boomer to pro-ageing radical, and in the process debunks myth after myth about late life. Explaining the roots of ageism and how it divides and debases, Applewhite examines how ageist stereotypes cripple the way our brains and bodies function. She looks at ageism in the workplace and the bedroom, exposes the cost of the myth of independence, critiques the portrayal of elders as burdens to society, describes what an all-age-friendly world would look like, and offers a rousing call to action...

Ashton Applewhite is an activist and journalist, and an expert on ageing and ageism, recognised by the American Society on Aging. She speaks publicly on the subject across America, writes the blog Yo, Is This Ageist?, and has written for, amongst others, Harper's, Playboy, and The New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.