Ageism
Should We as Women Care So Much About Our Age?, asks Shefali Karani
“I’m not much older than you, dear” I recently quipped to someone I knew who called me “Aunty.” As endearing as “Aunty” may seem when it comes to Desi culture, it’s offensive calling someone that who’s almost the same age as that person. It’s pretty much saying that you’re old when you’re not. In the popular series, “Fabulous Lives vs Bollywood Wives,” ageism comes up when the girls deal with being called “aunties” and “old.” It seems that age shouldn’t matter, but it clearly does.
When Selena Gomez got Botox at 31, people were mad about it since they thought that she shouldn’t have done that at her age. When Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas got married, people were furious because of their age gap. Ageism seems to be everywhere. Whether it’s in TV shows where adults play the parts of high schoolers or in movies where the cast is getting younger and younger, there’s so much pressure to look young and stay that way forever. I still remember years ago when I had to meet someone, and that person wasn’t expecting me to be so young. “You’re an executive?” he said. “Yes, I am.” For a young Indian American girl right out of college, I certainly didn’t look like the typical executive. When it comes to executives, you’d probably think of a balding White man in a suit who sits at his corner office, not a young minority woman who just started working and sits across the desk from her father. Age shouldn’t matter, especially when it comes to work. If we as women let that get in the way of our success, then we’re stopping ourselves from achieving anything.
“I’m the youngest here” a woman said at an event I had gone to a while back. She was the only person who bothered to mention with great pride that she was the youngest. I didn’t bother telling her that we were just a few years apart because clearly, she wanted to be the one that stood out. Sure, everyone else wasn’t bothered but it certainly bothered me since she basically called us all “old” to our faces. To this day whether she knows it or not, I wouldn’t even try telling her about our age difference. The next time anyone calls me “Aunty,” I’m simply going to say “I ain’t no aunty, darling” and leave it at that.
