How a Brandeis Scholar Turned the Mirror on Our Youth-Obsessed Culture—And Found Us Wanting
There’s something deliciously subversive about a woman in her seventies declaring war on an entire culture. Margaret Morganroth Gullette, resident scholar at Brandeis and self-appointed scourge of American ageism, has spent the better part of two decades lobbing intellectual grenades at our youth-obsessed society—with the precision of a literary sniper and the righteous fury of a prophet in sensible shoes.
Her twin manifestos—Agewise: Fighting the New Ageism in America (2011) and Ending Ageism, or How Not to Shoot Old People (2017)—arrive like a bucket of ice water thrown at a culture drunk on the fantasy of eternal youth. Both books bristle with the kind of uncomfortable truths that make you hesitate before googling the price of an anti-ageing serum you’re dying to try. Nothing else has worked—but hey, keep trying.
The Epiphany in the Shower
Gullette’s famous “epiphany in the shower” passage from Agewise captures something most of us have felt but never articulated: that moment when you catch yourself in an unguarded reflection and think, with a jolt of genuine surprise, When did I start looking like my mother? But where most of us reach for concealer, Gullette reaches for her laptop.
Her central revelation is that much of what we dread about ageing is actually the result of ageism—which we can, and should, battle as strongly as we do racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.
It’s a thesis that slices through cultural mythology like a cosmetic surgeon’s scalpel. Consider the absurdity: we live in a society where “rampant ageism causes us to discount—and at times completely discard—the wisdom and experience acquired over a lifetime,” while simultaneously worshipping “disruption” delivered by twenty-something tech bros whose greatest life achievement is figuring out how to monetise our loneliness.
The Decline Narrative vs. The Progress Narrative
Gullette’s brilliance lies in her recognition that ageing, like everything else in American culture, is fundamentally a story we tell ourselves. She distinguishes between decline narratives and progress narratives—and once you see the difference, you can’t unsee it.
Turn on any television commercial and count the decline narratives: the woman clutching her back until she discovers the miracle of Aspercreme; the man shamefully hiding his “embarrassing” baldness; the couple whose romance has apparently died alongside their ability to achieve a spontaneous erection.
As Virginia Woolf observed, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman”—but Gullette might add that, in contemporary culture, Invisible is anyone over fifty. She documents how “the sudden onset of age-related shaming can occur anywhere—the shove in the street, the cold shoulder at the party, the deaf ear at the meeting, the shut-out by the personnel office.” It’s discrimination hiding in plain sight—so normalised we barely notice it.
The Art of Not Shooting Old People
The provocative title of Gullette’s 2017 book is a masterclass in double entendre. How Not to Shoot Old People refers both to cameras (the power of representation) and to guns (the very real risks of growing old in an ageist world). It’s a pun Oscar Wilde would envy: simultaneously clever and deadly serious.
The book confronts “the incitement to commit suicide for those with early signs of ‘dementia’”—a cultural pressure so pervasive we’ve turned “dignified death” into a cottage industry. These narratives often sound suspiciously like polite suggestions that the old should hurry up and get out of the way.
When did we become a society that treats cognitive decline as a moral failing rather than a medical condition?
The Last Acceptable Prejudice
Gullette argues that “ageism is the least censured, the most acceptable and unnoticed of the cruel prejudices.” She’s not wrong.
Try swapping “old people” for any other demographic group in the casual cruelties we accept daily. “OK, Boomer” became a viral meme precisely because it allowed younger generations to dismiss entire swathes of experience and wisdom with a sneer. Imagine the outcry if we treated any other group that way.
The irony, of course, is that ageism is the one prejudice that targets its practitioners as much as its victims. As Maya Angelou said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” But what happens when that untold story is the one about growing older—with grace, wisdom, and relevance?
The Gullette Method
What sets Gullette apart among age researchers is her status as a “self-described independent scholar” who writes for the well-educated general reader and aims to raise awareness in the wider public.
She’s not content to publish in academic journals read by dozens—she wants to change minds and reshape culture. Critics note her work lacks the dense referencing of academia, but that’s precisely her strength. She speaks the language of literature, media, and memoir—not data tables and footnotes.
Her approach is equal parts cultural criticism, personal testimony, and urgent manifesto. She “demonstrates a well-honed ability to tell stories,” arguing that narratives can effect both personal and social change. In a world obsessed with metrics, she reminds us that humans are storytelling animals—and the stories we tell about ageing define how we live it.
The Wisdom of Experience
There’s something radical about a cultural critic in her seventies refusing to go quietly into that good night of irrelevance. Both of Gullette’s books have won prestigious awards—the MLA Prize for Independent Scholars and the APA’s Florence L. Denmark Award for Contributions to Women and Ageing—proof that, sometimes, wisdom can indeed trump youth.
Importantly, Gullette doesn’t just diagnose the problem—she proposes solutions. Her vision includes “ambitious plans for the whole life course,” from teaching children to resist ageism to strengthening social safety nets. She calls for an “epistemic shift—a new conception of life’s course, a fresh understanding of words like ‘age,’ ‘youth,’ and ‘decline.’”
The Mirror Crack’d
Perhaps Gullette’s greatest act is holding up a mirror to a culture that no longer recognises its elders. In a society that treats ageing as a disease to be cured rather than a life stage to be honoured, her books arrive as a much-needed intervention.
As Tennyson wrote, “Old age hath yet his honour and his toil”—but you wouldn’t know it from scrolling Instagram or watching prime-time television.
Her call to “turn intimate suffering into public grievances” echoes the consciousness-raising work of 1970s feminists who insisted that the personal is political. Gullette now extends that lens to ageing—and urges us to do the same.
In the end, her books serve as both diagnosis and antidote to a culture that has lost its way. In an age obsessed with disruption, perhaps the most radical act is simply refusing to disappear on schedule.
After all, as Gullette might say: “Good stuff happens not because we are still young, but because we are not.”
Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s Agewise and Ending Ageism are available in paperback. She is currently a resident scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis University.
