Portuguese needs a new word, or at least Brazil needs one. And the word is <b>etarismo</b>, coming from the word ageism, which could be <b>idadismo</b> in Portuguese, but I believe <b>etarismo</b> sounds better. Sometimes a word is sorely missed in a language because it is more difficult for people to conceive of concepts without a specific word. If you try to translate ageism — which, by the way, many English speakers think it’s just discrimination against the elderly, which it is not, in fact it is discrimination against any age group by another age group— you can’t even find it in most popular dictionaries, but I’ve found it in two:
ageism : age discrimination (good)
ageism : discrimination against older people (totally wrong definition)
Many young people are judged immature just because they are young, but there are 13-year-old boys, and I know some, who are more mature than 40-year-old men, but are discriminated against just because they look young. Of course there is discrimination against all ages, but I believe that the elderly end up being more discriminated against than any other age group.
Ageism is a big problem in Brazil; it is such a big problem that Portuguese doesn’t even have a word for it. Discrimination is really a serious problem when people don’t even realize it exists. Lots of people in Brazil practice ageism shamelessly and nobody even talks about it.
People assume that because a person is fifty, like me, that person doesn’t know how to operate a computer, for instance. Well, let me tell you, I know more about computers than most young people. I’ve known about them ever since they put in an appearance and have been keeping updated all the time. I’m present in most social networks; I can use the office family of programs and the BrOffice as well. I can create websites and lots of other stuff. So, to just assume someone doesn’t know anything about computers because of their age is sheer ageism.
Another point they make is that older people spend more time in hospitals, examinations, etc. how about younger people who don’t go to work because of health problems as well, and many of them have too much fun at night and don’t work properly the next day. This argument doesn’t hold water; there are responsible young and older people.
And what’s funny is that a 70-year-old person can be considered for the presidency, but not for any other job, which is ridiculous.
I believe people should stop asking people’s ages on job applications and should ask key questions in them regarding the flaws a person might have when performing a job. For instance, “How often do you go to the hospital?” how healthy are you? How well do you know computers? And whatever they think is negative should be put in question form and this way they’d eliminate the people who don’t fit in with what they want, but just assuming somebody doesn’t know anything about computers, for instance, because of their age and therefore refuse to even give them a chance to prove otherwise is simply sheer discrimination. Please, older Brazilian people do make some noise, or you’ll keep on being discriminated against until you die. If not for yourselves, do it for future generations who will go through the same process. Everybody gets old, so everybody should help the old today to get their rights because they’d be fighting for themselves.
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