Yesterday we published part 1 of an interview with Maureen Wiley Clough, creator and host of the podcast It Gets Late Early, which delves into ageism, including “youngism,” which is primarily directed toward young women. Here is part 2.
Is there a solution to ageism? Ageism is never going away. I think it’s a core part of being human. What happens when we see time marching on across our face or elsewhere? We’re reminded of our own mortality. We’re always going to push against it, right? Ageism is bad. It’s wrong, and it really starts with us internally. And especially when you think about women, societal messages that we’ve been fed since the day we were born, it’s all about worshipping at the fountain of youth.
Why do women have it worse? Because of societal expectations in terms of how we appear, right? It’s certainly exacerbated by Hollywood and unrealistic beauty standards, and that’s going to be hard to eviscerate from society. But if we really want to make a dent in ageism, we have to start with ourselves and tell different stories about what it means to get older and see the good in it. We have to get to a point where we don’t denigrate people who happen to have been born in a different time period.
But aren’t there differences in each generation? Yes. Societal norms are shifting. Gen Z (those born between roughly 1997 and 2022) are very into relaxing at home and not going out. They’re not as interested in drinking. I like to joke that we millennials had a blast — we went to the club, we partied, we drank our faces off, and Gen Z stays home doing their skincare routine. It’s fascinating. They’re much more health focused. I know there’s always a problem when you try to generalize across millions of people, but there is sort of a generational norm.
Don’t these differences naturally lead to judgments around different generations? It totally does. Absolutely, 100%. Think of it as wanting to push against the process of aging. There are 10-year-olds that get facemasks. It’s extremely problematic. It’s perpetuating these very unrealistic beauty norms. Add social media into that and it is a disaster for our youth. I think people start thinking they’re getting older a lot earlier.
Where are you at with aging personally? The podcast was a little bit of a midlife crisis for me. Do I want to keep going down this path when I know that every day I go on I’m being viewed as less valuable? My answer was no. I wanted to push back against it and create a better future for not only me but everybody who comes in front and will be behind me. I just thought it was such an important topic that just couldn’t be left unsaid. For some reason, very few people were talking about it.
Were you still employed when you launched the podcast? This was supposed to be my side hustle, so to speak. I was employed at another tech startup, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t too keen on me doing the podcast. It was extremely youth centric. I logged onto Slack my first day of work and I’m scrolling, wondering what the culture’s like here. And I see a picture of a man mooning the camera standing next to someone cheering the camera with a flute of champagne, and I’m wondering, “How the hell does this person have a job?” Of course, it’s the co-founder and president of the company who posted this photo. Am I in a fraternity or a workplace?
Final thoughts? Ageism is real, but it’s not always ageism. People want to blame someone for their struggles. Sometimes you’re not showing up the way you’re supposed to. Sometimes you’re not assimilating to the changes in technology or how corporations work right now. It’s really incumbent on everybody to change and adapt, and if you don’t, you’re putting yourself behind. It doesn’t matter your age.
