Tan Hui Yee muses on the negativity associated with being 'old'.
TO DYE to not to dye?
That question popped up one day, during the preparation for my Saturday Special Report on ageism, when retiree Lena Lim, 71, talked about how she felt excluded at parties when she no longer dyed her grey hair black.
Suddenly, she was deemed 'old' and no longer interesting.
It turned out later to be an emotive topic among colleagues. Dyeing, they said, was a no-brainer because 'grey hair ages you'. Would you go for a job interview with grey hair, they asked?
What was left unsaid: Would you want to be judged on how old you looked, and, because of the negative associations that being 'old' has, potentially lose out that job you are eyeing?
It is a hard question to answer, when society's ageist attitudes may force you to walk the line irregardless of your personal convictions.
Dr Robyn Stone, the executive director of the Institute for the Future of Ageing Services in the United States, thinks that 'our natural ageing process is really important'.
'Ageing builds character in individuals and societies. When you take that away, you don't have that opportunity in your society.'
Technology has made if possible for someone who is 60 to look 40, but it cannot mitigate the ageism that arises when everybody tries to look young. That lone grey haired women in the corner sticks out like a sore thumb because she suddenly doesn't look natural.
What would that kind of future look like, when everybody looks 'young'? Would the term 'young' still mean anything?
It is a paradox similar to one presented in the common line: Would we know what it is like to be happy if we have never experienced sadness?
Take out the grey, and we lose an important shade of Singapore. But the journey to erasing its stigma can be long and - in the case of Lena – sometimes lonely.
Read Hui Yee's Saturday Special Report on Ageism here.
Tags:
ageism,
saturday special
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Research conducted by Silver (www.silvergroup.asia) in January revealed that Singaporeans over 50 are more likely to consider themselves the 'same age or older' than most other nationalities in this region. By stark contrast, seniors in Japan (55%), Australia (46%) and China (42%) are more likely to "think, feel and act" 5 ~ 10 years younger than their actual age. This compares with a global 'norm' of 13 years younger than actual age.
As your report points out, the issue of ageing is two sided. Not only must we discourage disparaging stereotypes of older people, but seniors themselves must change their attitude to be more positive about their age.
Ironically, the SILVER research shows that the thing 50+ seniors find most annoying about their age is "Being categorized as an old person" by marketers and the community in general.
I left my hair grey when I was out of a job. What surprised mke was that friends of my own age were aghast at my decision. When I finally received a job interview, I was told to dye my hair black. Of course I relented because I wanted a job.
When I visit the supermarkets or stores, cashiers and shop assistants no longer speak English to me, they speak Mandarin instead. They are often surprised when I speak English.
I often lament how people steorotype others. Mature looking means illiterate or uneducated. Grey means ugly. To me dying my hair black is like denying my age. Why not allow me to be proud of my grey hair?