Dealing with the aging in Canada is dealing with the stereotype it sets on older adults. Ageism is an act of discrimination towards older adults that deals with making assumptions about capacity, ignores the older person's wishes, and can sometimes treat the older adults as children (Keon, 2009). For some reason people cannot come to the conclusion that older adults can be useful to society even in their circumstances. The fact that they are mistreated and underprivileged is a major concern and personally does not sit right with me. All of these major concerns such as pensions, workplace, health benefits, accessibility, etc., are primitive issues that concern society in aiding older adults.
When looking at this issue from the marxism perspective, it is easy to see where the discrimination comes from in our society. Marxism deals with the idea that people are on top because they worked for it, and those on the bottom deserve to be because they didn't meet society's requirements. In Marxism the most important features in society are its economic classes and their relations to one another (McCarthy, 1995). Perhaps society has such a hard time assisting older adults because they have an underlying marxist views. We can't deny this fact; people will always strive to be on the top, because they believe they deserve it and will do what they can in their power to achieve those goals. There is a focus on themselves and not others, particularly why older adults have such a hard time achieving equality in society.
-Amy
References:
"Canada's Aging Population: Seizing the Opportunity ." Special Senate Committee on Aging Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2012. <www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/402/agei/rep/AgingFinalReport-e.pdf>.
"Marxism (27-Aug-2008)." Formal Reasoning Group . N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2012. <http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/marxism.html>.
Thanks for the post!
ReplyDeleteI had a placement in a nursing home while studying nursing at Sault College, and I really enjoyed working with the older adults. The stories they told would sometimes amaze me...they have been through and seen so much!
I found that some of the other workers would talk to these adults like they were children. Although they needed extra care because they could not care for themselves, they are not children and deserve to be spoken to like an adult.
Aging and becoming less independent is not easy for people. People do not like to be treated like they are less than anyone else or incapable of doing things on their own, especially when these older adults most often times were very successful and independent career people at one point in their lives.
It takes a very empathetic and supportive person to work with older adults. This person needs to know boundaries, when to give people their independence and space, etc.
Meagan (LGBT)
I really enjoyed your post. I agree 100% with you when you put in the quote that older adults contribute a lot to society. I feel that they have a lot of knowledge within society and have a lot to offer. They grew up in a different era then us where I feel that they are a lot more caring and down to earth because of that reason. I find it unfortunate that the Marxist view focus's on people who are on top. Older adults are at a time where sometimes they can't work which means they can't be on top but that's not their fault. Views like this are why issues within (as an example) older adults occur. People in society need to be more understanding and look at the world and everything that is going on in it as a whole!
ReplyDeleteBy: Hunter
I very much appreciate your choice of topic and I agree that ageism is a major issue. That being said, I believe from a Marxist perspective, the class conflict created by labour disparities is seen a negative division based on ones relationship with production. If society did in fact hold a Marxist view, we would not see these divisions based on labour. Through the utopia that Marxism holds in essence, we would all share the benefit of our production, we would all have voice, and human need would be priority.
ReplyDelete- Kayla T.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" - Karl Marx
Delete-KT