Reverse Ageism & Subtle Biases People Don’t Talk About

In today’s social justice world we hear of many types of prejudice and discrimination, but what we hear is usually regarding large identity groups, namely race, gender, weight, and sexual preference.

What about the less obvious and hidden forms of prejudice that others have suffered in silence over. Just because their plight isn’t as mainstream does it mean that they should not be heard too?

A great example of this is reverse ageism.

What Is Reverse Ageism?

Reverse ageism is referred to as the discrimination and judgments projected on individuals who look young.

Now we’ve heard about people who are getting older and being discriminated against at work and in life. This is clearly a problem that is only going to grow into the future as we all live longer (or maybe it will get better as we end up respecting age more as we experience it?).

What we don’t often hear about is the subtle, underlying prejudices in treating someone differently because they ‘look’ young for their age.

There are other types of less known prejudices too, such as treating people differently because of their height or because of particular facial features, even body odor.

The Game Of Prejudices

The stereotypes behind such prejudices do seem to exist as strongly as ever. I know I’ve gone through life having had a lazy eye following an accident as a child and had my fair share of teasing over it. ‘Teasing’ is apparently seen as okay, but prolonged teasing undoubtedly takes its toll.

It’s like the smaller the prejudice in terms of global attention the less it actually matters, but this is absolutely wrong.

It actually creates a bit of a game in prejudices. It looks out for some dealing with difficulties but not others.

It’s a bit like a schoolyard game.

‘My prejudice is more important than yours’.

The problem here is that it leads people to miss what is seen as important to an individual.

We keep leaning towards this whole collective idea in today’s world, but it’s a bit short-sighted. If we don’t treat people as individuals first then the collective agenda really doesn’t matter, as we will still be offending people individually without realizing.

So, back to these ‘secondary-prejudices’.

For those who don’t think these ‘minor’ prejudices are a big deal then I invite you to speak to some of the people who are being marginalized by them in favor of larger mainstream social injustices.

It certainly doesn’t make their hardship any less important, and it is not crying victim mentality when someone has got a genuine life-altering prejudice against them that affects them on a daily basis. It is a crying victim mentality when people are hiding behind an identity group to crave attention.

So, let’s take ‘reverse ageism’ as a prime example.

How Subtle Biases & Prejudices Affect Someone

How do you think this could negatively affect someone’s life?

If I said, the majority of people who look substantially younger than their age end up in professions of more caring types, but with less pay, would you believe it?

The studies suggest this is true, and especially so with men, who are not treated the same as men who have features that make them look older than their age.

We often hear people say ‘wow, you look young, you are so lucky, I will I did’, as people are ingrained to treat people based on face value, and society and consumerism have led many to believe that looking younger a virtue.

Well, here comes another stereotype. It appears that this ideal applies more to women than men. While women are unfairly objectified to be seen as more desirable the younger they look, men are treated the opposite.

A young-looking man might be seen as more trustworthy but not when it comes to running a company apparently.

Thankfully, bedroom CEOs are changing that stereotype slowly, but reverse ageism still exists, and experiences reverse ageism on a day-to-day basis can have a paralyzing effect on your life, as pointed out eloquently here:

Just like how many women have felt they have had to work harder to climb up positions in the past and to be taken seriously, the same can be said for men who look younger than they do.

It’s interesting how humans seem to have this desire to look older when looking younger but look younger when looking older. The psychology at play tells us that we are simply trying to be treated as an individual rather than fall into a stereotype and then be treated as such.

It’s not just reverse ageism where hidden biases and prejudices are found.

What Are Examples Of Subtle Biases?

They are everywhere, and often subconscious to us.

Our first impression of someone is often created through the visual biases we have implanted in our minds. You only have to think about dating apps to see how this works. The shallowness of the internet creates this accepted discrimination in judging people each day through their profiles.

It doesn’t stop with profiles though. Today it manifests in how popular someone ‘appears’ through follower counts. If we visit someone with less coverage than someone else we tend to watch the one with more followers. We instantly associate that person as being more successful, even if the other person’s video was actually better.

It goes on.

If someone wears a suit to work compared to someone with a hoody we may assume the suited person is better at his job when the opposite may well be the case.

If someone smells funky we naturally try to step back, but what if this person can’t help their body odor and showers all the time? We are even conditioned to seek out familiar smells and tend to judge people who wear similar perfume or aftershave as us as more desirable than those who don’t.

If a friend tells you that the person you are about to meet cannot be trusted you instantly have your guard up and judge them differently (thanks to your friend who might be looking out for you, but also might just have a biased history or a chip on their shoulder with the other person).

As you can see, it doesn’t even have to be obvious physical features for us to display bias or prejudice.

So, What Can We Do About It?

Companies have tried to promote unconscious bias training into their workspaces, but largely they are redundant, scams, or just make biases even more direct rather than help reduce them. They often fall into the whole virtue-signaling ‘we must do this to look right in today’s world’, rather than actually seek to address the issues.

The reason unconscious bias training fails is because often the questions are loaded questions and biased in themselves. It’s like trying to fit a bunch of interns into a new corporate business wearing the same suit/dress, same smile, same tone, same safe space talk, and so on.

That hardly helps create original thinkers, yet to think originally is exactly what we need to do to help change certain ingrained biases.

Most people with ingrained biases and prejudices are not bad people, they are just conditioned people from conditioned environments that get them thinking in the same way, until that environment is then changed, but they haven’t changed so then they feel threatened by the change forced on them.

To move away from this bias we simply have to change the way we look at ourselves in that environment, instead of just going along with the status quo until the status quo is challenged.

The best way to change your perception of an ingrained environmental bias is to step away from that environment. If that isn’t possible then it’s to switch off that environment (such as social media, or always surrounding yourself with the same people).

To be able to think originally takes a lot of practice to come naturally if you are so ingrained into set ways, but it can be started right now, this second, with simple techniques that challenge the way you are looking at something.

This is where Richly’s Training courses come in (sorry for the plug, but we have to eat too).

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When you seek to adapt and challenge your mind to think differently each day then you will find that the environment around you doesn’t determine your biases, but you get to choose how you treat people as individuals and not stereotypes, and you become less likely to fall for subtle subconscious biases or first-impression biases as you will don’t judge every book in the same way or with the same ingrained rules as before.

You see each book (person) as a very interesting read that is uniquely original to the next one and find you can get something inspiring from all these great stories.