Over the years I´ve encountered all kinds of discrimination. Being a `smelly`foreigner in Japan (every foreigner is smelly) to a blonde bimbo, short stuff, a bitch-for being assertive, but never, ever, have I been given less pay on the basis of `looking young`not on the age I am (which is not that young now) but on the age 'I looked'...until now that is....how does that person know that I am not really ninety and I have good genes? Or maybe I decided to be the first person to freeze myself in the 80`s who-ha and and come back ready for the 2012 equinox...
.....I am not one usually to rant on my blog; such is the usual tone on millions of other blogs out there, but this is one thing I thought I had to call to attention. Ageism can be easily brushed off as a comment not to be taken so seriously or even as a compliment "Oh you look so young" but when a cut in salary is attached to that comment and actually becomes the reason for a deduction (despite the person`s qualifications and experience) it becomes a whole other seriously discriminating matter. Umm, funny, I thought Austria was in the EU, operating in EU law?
So often "young" women would just accept this convincing themselves that there is a hidden compliment in there. All it takes, is for that scared little girl inside every woman to walk straight through that bright light of RESPECT over to the other side. It takes a moment of choice and a life time ahead of change.
RESPECT yourself and others will do to. Do not let seemingly `harmless`comments slide, note them as discrimination and if it continues, take action. One, two, strike out.
Finally some words from a very clever chap:
"Prejudices are the starting point of many accumulating disasters in this world. At first as innocuous as land mines, to which they bear a certain resemblance when inactive, they become lethal when children toy with them. Every human needs opinions to express. But they must be fresh, freely expressed, considered. Beware stale opinions, dead opinions, inherited opinions thoughtlessly adopt. When they turn into contagion, they can humiliate entire nations. Death is there to survive. Humiliation can last for centuries." Peter Ustinov
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