Let's Come Together for YODA
I have a proposal: let's talk about age and power
Last August 40 people showed up for Summer School, a convening hosted by the Old School Hub in Montréal to envision a world without ageism. One question that emerged from the attendee-led gathering was "Do all ages have a voice?"
Good question. Truth is, younger people are largely absent from the age-equity movement. This has to change.

It's not hard to understand why so many age advocates are older. Because aging is a privilege — which it should not be — some see ageism as an issue for the old and well-off. In an ageist world, who wants to think about growing old? Youngers shell out for "preventive botox." Middlers cling to "midlife" like flotation cushions. Octogenarians insist, "I'm not old!"
I have a proposal: bring olders and youngers together to talk about age and power. I've dubbed this initiative YODA, for Youngers + Olders Dismantling Ageism.
Ageism normalizes and enforces age segregation. Without acquaintances of all ages, we give more weight to chronological age than it deserves. Age segregation creates barriers to understanding one another's lives and experiences: why no one wants to go back to their youth, what it's like to be young today, and why most of us grow more content in late life.
Age segregation also sustains hierarchies. Sooner or later, roles and dynamics change: rookies become veterans, new hires move into management, teens become elders. Yet we don't talk about age in those terms: when it confers power, when it diminishes it and why this matters. That silence leaves us vulnerable to old vs. young framing. Like all prejudice, ageism operates to divide people who might otherwise unite to change the status quo.
There's an antidote: bust out of our age silos. In recent years, mixed-age programs have sprung up around the world. But how many intergenerational meet-ups address the underlying forces that make all-age gatherings so rare? What if we crossed age gaps with the explicit goal of identifying and challenging these structures, along with the assumptions that underlie them? What if people like me, who are over-represented in the age equity movement, made collaborating with youth liberation advocates a priority going forward?
YODA
I have a proposal: bring olders and youngers together to talk about age and power. I've dubbed this initiative YODA, for Youngers + Olders Dismantling Ageism. Together, we would pose questions like:
- Where is my age an advantage, and where is it held against me?
- How does bias against olders perpetuate bias against youngers, and vice versa?
- How does age sustain existing hierarchies, who benefits, and how might we subvert them?
YODA conversations could occur in any context and at any scale. They could be customized in any way. YODA conversations would be challenging. They'd require skilled facilitation, to ensure that people with different backgrounds and abilities and orientations get heard and listen hard.
What if olders and youngers heard one another's accounts of what's great and what's awful about being 19, and 90?
Fortunately, terrific organizations like Generations United and CoGenerate in the United States and Generations Working Together in the UK have been doing this work for decades. YODA could build on their efforts. The goal would be to establish shared needs and goals and to identify collective ways forward. The outcome would be to reduce inequities and advance a world where everyone has the opportunity to live long and age well.
We'd Transform What Most People Think "Aging" Means - and Who's Doing It
As is, people think aging is something sad that old people do. In fact, everyone is aging, from the day they're born. Everyone, everywhere is living longer. Everyone is old or future old. One welcome corrective to the misconception that aging is the province of the old and ill is gaining ground in gerontology: the life course approach. This framework studies the aging process across a person's life, and encompasses social, economic and physical factors that affect how well we age — and who gets to age at all.
YODA conversations would adopt this framework. They would help participants understand that if we adopt a life course approach early in life, we're more likely to avoid the quicksand of age denial and to make lifestyle choices that pay off later on.
YODA conversations would center the fact that every age and stage involves pleasures and constraints. What if olders and youngers heard one another's accounts of what's great and what's awful about being 19, and 90? What if we learned about how being young in the 20th century differed from what it's like to be young in the 21st, when minors need to grow up faster? What if we compared getting no respect as a kid or an early-career professional to becoming invisible as a menopausal woman or having doctors tell us, "At your age, what do you expect?"
All of these are encounters with ageism. They may suck for different reasons, but they all suck. To undo ageism, we need to understand where these experiences differ, what they have in common, and how to build on that new awareness to support each other across the lifespan. YODA conversations would help catalyze this process.
We'd Lay the Groundwork for Cross-Generational Coalitions
Currently, divisive myths persist: that "greedy geezers" profit at the expense of the young (think again). That older workers clog the pipeline and should make way for younger ones (the fallacy of the "lump of labor"). But the old are not to blame, and the young are not the enemy.
Aging is the one universal human experience, and ageism intersects with every form of bias.
Because olders bear the brunt of age discrimination, they think their marginalization deserves more attention. Resentment, which moves in both directions, is tempting. Because youngers experience age bias differently, it gets labeled "adultism" or "reverse ageism." But we're all up against the same thing: barriers to opportunity and access because of our age. That's ageism. As ever, like generational labels, divisive language distracts us from making common cause. YODA conversations would emphasize that we're all on this journey called aging, just at different stages.
Aging is the one universal human experience, and ageism intersects with every form of bias. That's what gives age advocacy such potential to effect social change — and why dismantling ageism means supporting every struggle for equal rights. Age provides a tent under which we all could gather, to shape this nascent movement into one that represents us all. YODA meet-ups would be practice tents.
YODA conversations would further a movement that outlives us all. Wouldn't that be great?
To make YODA happen, we need to stop weaponizing age gaps and join forces across them. We need to envision age-neutral spaces and systems, and how we might create them and use them. Alliances must be grounded in genuine relationships and mutual understanding. Establishing trust is slow and difficult. But we have initiatives to build on and a network of experienced advocates to do it with.
We'd Learn to Leverage the Relationship Between Age and Power
An ongoing debate in social justice circles is whether it's most effective to focus on policy change or to prioritize culture change. It's a both/and proposition of course, often visualized as a double helix, but actions play to different strengths. Youngers are more visible and have more cultural clout, but less access to leadership roles. Olders have more wealth and more political clout, though those with neither disappear. Talk about synergy!
YODA would also enable us to emulate writer and activist Audre Lorde, which is never a mistake. According to her biographer Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Lorde "always wanted her students to ask themselves: 'What is my power in this moment? What is our power in this moment?'" YODA would create spaces to pose Lorde's questions, skillfully and respectfully, to all kinds of people across the life course, and to build on what we learn.
A lesser-known but more prophetic line of Lorde's is "What I leave behind has a life of its own." YODA conversations would further a movement that outlives us all. Wouldn't that be great? Lorde would probably see YODA as a starting point for a far broader and more complex conversation about age, power, and social justice. Wouldn't that be great too?
The risks of implementing YODA would be low, the cost minimal, and the gains immeasurable. If humans are to make the most of the new longevity, not to mention tackle the enormous challenges facing the planet, we cannot afford to let age divide us.
