Teh One Who Knocks
03-12-2019, 11:39 AM
Yetta Gibson - CBS 5 This Morning
https://i.imgur.com/3Bk7k5dl.jpg
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- You may want to take a second before you use the 's' word: senior, or senior citizen when referring to someone over 50.
There is a push to get rid of this term, because some argue it's dehumanizing.
Deb is a 60-something-year-old with 42 years in a career in sales. Call her professional, boss, the life of the party but you better not call her a senior citizen.
"For ages, we had a stigma. In reality, aging gives us experience. At AARP, we don't think we should be defined by age," says Alex Juarez with AARP. "For a couple of years we have been using the term 50 plus. That's important because we don't want people to be identified as seniors."
Some say it creates barriers, especially in the workplace with many people not even realizing they're doing it.
"The way that the brain works is interesting. Human beings get so much sensory input that we try to label things to make it easier for us. When you have a term like senior citizen, what people are doing is trying to make a short cut to understand that person by putting them in a category," says Jennifer Ward, president of the Arizona Employers Council. "There is no way for us to turn that off, it's going to exist because that is the way our brains work."
"We are in a period of transition, many people are changing jobs, finding new ways to live and today we are living longer," says Juarez.
The Journal of the American Geriatrics looked at the way people talk about seniors, encouraging authors submitting research to change their style and words when referring to people over 50.
https://i.imgur.com/3Bk7k5dl.jpg
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- You may want to take a second before you use the 's' word: senior, or senior citizen when referring to someone over 50.
There is a push to get rid of this term, because some argue it's dehumanizing.
Deb is a 60-something-year-old with 42 years in a career in sales. Call her professional, boss, the life of the party but you better not call her a senior citizen.
"For ages, we had a stigma. In reality, aging gives us experience. At AARP, we don't think we should be defined by age," says Alex Juarez with AARP. "For a couple of years we have been using the term 50 plus. That's important because we don't want people to be identified as seniors."
Some say it creates barriers, especially in the workplace with many people not even realizing they're doing it.
"The way that the brain works is interesting. Human beings get so much sensory input that we try to label things to make it easier for us. When you have a term like senior citizen, what people are doing is trying to make a short cut to understand that person by putting them in a category," says Jennifer Ward, president of the Arizona Employers Council. "There is no way for us to turn that off, it's going to exist because that is the way our brains work."
"We are in a period of transition, many people are changing jobs, finding new ways to live and today we are living longer," says Juarez.
The Journal of the American Geriatrics looked at the way people talk about seniors, encouraging authors submitting research to change their style and words when referring to people over 50.