Quotes About Ageism

All my life, I faced sexism and racism and then, when I hit 40, ageism.

Being gay and being a woman has one big thing in common, which is that we both become invisible after the age of 42. Who wants a gay 50-year-old? No one, let me tell you.

It's not loving a man that makes life harder for gay guys, it's homophobia. It's not the color of their skin that makes life harder for people of color; it's racism. It's not having vaginas that makes life harder for women, it's sexism. And it's ageism, far more than the passage of time, that makes growing older harder for all of us.

Nowhere is ageism more sexist, and vicious, than in the domain of sexuality.

Most doctors want to keep their success rates high, so they'd rather deal with someone who is younger, who has healthier eggs and more of them.

We shouldn't be put out to pasture just because we've reached somebody's idea of retirement, which was certainly happening in Australia, and I think elsewhere as well.

I look young. I heard this said so often that it became irritating. I once worked as a babysitter for a woman who, the first time we met, said she didn't want somebody in high school. I was 22. Later, I realised that in certain places being female and looking 'young' meant it was more difficult to be taken seriously, so I turned to make-up.

I realised you could become fat and bald as a director and still remain employable.

I was complimented for looking young and yet was offered roles of aunts, sister-in-law and very soon grandma too!

In literature, older women are not often given center stage.

In the American office lexicon, 'aging' - and its close cousin 'old' - are inconsistent modifiers. While older women are often labeled as 'tired' and 'out of touch,' aging men get to be 'distinguished' and 'seasoned.'

Women are usually only interesting to studio executives when they are fecund, between the ages of 15 and 30. I decided to get through the really tough patch, around 50, by just cutting my price and playing ten years older. I didn't want to have to wait until I was an old lady to play one.

This phenomenon with Betty White is so wonderfully amazing. In a world where ageism runs rampant, out of left field, all of a sudden, the country decides to celebrate Betty White, and she becomes cool at 90. That's remarkable.

Our distorted media culture sees men as subjects and women as objects; in films, Woody Allen gets older and older and still dates 20-year-old babes; movies about women are called 'chick flicks,' and men make fun of them.

The traits the word 'childish' addresses are seen so often in adults that we should abolish this age-discriminatory word when it comes to criticizing behavior associated with irresponsibility and irrational thinking.

Cameras love pretty girls and craggy, old character men more than they can take craggy, old character women. But that's what's always happened. Work out how you can fit into it, and make that work. There are never going to be millions of parts for older actresses because there never were.

I'm carded for R-rated movies. And I get talked down to a lot. When I try to go rent a car or buy an airplane ticket or other stuff adults do, I get 'Okaaaaaay, honey.' I remember when I was 18, getting crayons in a restaurant.

I think one of the great dangers faced by women over sixty in this country is starving to death in a restaurant. We were invisible.

There are very few record companies who will entertain a middle-aged woman coming to them with original material.

I don't know what record company would sign a 45-year-old former 80s pop star.

Didn't Lionel Richie just make a country album? No one is giving him a hard time... and God bless him - I love Lionel and should be able to do what he wants to do, like Madonna should, too. Both are having success and I applaud them. If you don't like it, don't buy it. The ageism criticism is getting old.

Every old dude hates young people.

Hindi cinema hasn't moved at all in terms of roles for actresses beyond 18 years.

It's hard not to let criticism make you feel bad about yourself - I do continue to struggle with that as an older woman in the workplace.