061 Chapter 5 Impact of the age awareness workshop Case study: For your age Near the beginning of the workshop, participants were shown a video about the inherent ageism in the phrase ‘for your age’. In the post-workshop discussions, many participants mentioned how discovering that the commonly used phrase ‘for your age’98 – something they had either used themselves or heard someone else use – made implicit assumptions about a person based on their age, was an eye-opening moment that allowed them to see how ingrained ageism is in our society. None of us had really thought of that comment as negative … For all of us I think it was a light bulb moment … We are really conditioned to just think that it’s a compliment, but it’s not. —Participant, age 52–60 That one was the most powerful … [I thought] ‘Wow, I didn’t even realise I’m doing it [being ageist]’. —Participant, age 40–51 [I thought] ‘Oh wow, that is actually an ageism thing’. —Participant, age 52–60 I always thought that it was quite a nice thing to say and then you realise that well, maybe it’s got other connotations that you need to think about. It made me think about how language can define your views and put people into categories. —Participant, age 61+ Another revelation was around the language we use. Instead of saying, ‘You look good for your age’, why don’t you just stop at ‘You look good’ … I would’ve never even batted an eye at that before but now [I realise] even though it’s a positive comment, it’s full of ageist elements. —Participant, age 52–60 The video ‘For her age’ was an eye opener. —Survey response 5.5 Work approach and practices Figure 18. Proportion of respondents in the follow-up survey who thought about how they could change ageist attitudes in their workplace Thought about what I can do in my workplace to change ageist attitudes 7% 86% Yes No Not applicable 6%