Ageism is stereotyping and prejudice against individuals or groups because of their age.
Age discrimination in wages is often enshrined in law. For example, in both the United States and the United Kingdom minimum wage laws allow for employers to pay lower wages to young workers. Many state and local minimum wage laws mirror such an age-based tiered minimum wage. Outside of the law, older workers, on average, make more than younger workers do. Firms may be afraid to offer older workers lower wages than younger workers.
Labor regulations also limit the age at which people are allowed to work and how many hours and under what conditions they may work. In the United States a person must generally be at least 14 years old to seek a job, and workers face additional restrictions on their work activities until age 16. Many companies refuse to hire workers under 18.
Ageism may take the form of “granny bashing” in the popular press (blaming some or all of society’s current economic or other worries on older adults). It is often reflected in advertisements where older adults are depicted as slow, out of date, and lacking knowledge about new technologies, and where youth are shown as quick and knowledgeable. It may also be reflected in the media where older adults as a group are characterized as a drain on society or as alternatively, as a well off group who are unconcerned about the needs of others (in which case, they are labelled “greedy geezers”).
On 1st October 2006, a new law – The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 – comes into force in England, Wales and Scotland (similar legislation is in force in Northern Ireland from 1st October 2006).
The Regulations will provide protection against age discrimination in employment, training and adult education, for people of all ages.
The new law makes it unlawful in most circumstances for an employer to treat you less favourably than a younger colleague, because of your age. This includes in recruitment, promotion, terms and conditions, redundancy and dismissal. But there are some exceptions and situations when an employer may be able to justify discrimination.
There is a new retirement procedure which employers will have to follow. Employees will have the right to request staying on past the employer’s retirement date.
People over age 65 will now be able to claim unfair dismissal, statutory redundancy payments and statutory sick pay as the upper age limits for these are removed.
The law applies to training and education as well as employment. This includes adult learning, further education, higher education such as university courses, and other training which provides skills related to work.
But the new law provides limited protection for people over 65, particularly when it comes to recruitment and forced retirement.
Lookism
Lookism is discrimination against or prejudice towards others based on their appearance.
Nearly everyone knows the phenomenon that you need to hand in photos for job applications, that good looking people are the center of attention at parties, that people are subconciously rated as too fat, too skinny, too tall, too small, as beautiful or ugly or that one's own body can be perceived as ugly and therefore one feels insecure and unhappy.It is so common that billboards, magazines and TV shows almost only show people who match the dominant beauty image (they are mostly depicted as white and heterosexual) that it hardly attracts attention.This imaginary world which is full of beautiful people and which is depicted by the media clumsily illustrates which values are relevant to gain acceptance in society. Beauty is a market value within the competitive, capitalist society and the positive estimation of beauty coevally leads to the discrimination of others who deviate from this contructed, bodily norm.This form of discrimination, which is prevalent in all areas of life and still hardly regarded, is called lookism.This website is meant to be an information and discussion portal against lookism. Its aim is to motivate people to spot this form of discrimination and to act thereupon.
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