Calgary author takes on those who treat people differently for aging

A 77-year-old woman in Calgary is speaking out about how she's been treated differently since she started to show signs of aging.

Sharon Butala,an award-winning author of 19 books, wants that to change.

"We've got to break down the notion that you've got to shy from old people because they don't look nice and they don't talk the way you do," she told theCalgary Eyeopener, after publishing a hotly debated essay in The Walrus magazine this month.

Her article, Against Ageism,describes how she feels she's become invisible as she's aged.

Waiters have served her at restaurants without once looking her in the eye, speaking onlyto her younger dinner companions. Younger people have addressed her as "dear." Doctors, she said, have turned her down once they've found out she's in her 70s.

Often, she's the most senior person in the room.

"I'm the old guy in the corner. That's painful," she said.

And she's watched many loved ones go.

Butalamoved to Calgary from Saskatchewan after her husband died. After mourning his death, she was looking forward to exploring the city, making new friends and seeing new sights. But instead she found she was faced with having to force people to pay attention.

• How Sharon Butala became a writer

She's arguing that the negative ideas associated withaging needto be erased, from both the minds of younger people and those of older people, who've internalized negative stereotypes.

"I see it as people thinking of old people or the old as all the same one large block of people who've passed a certain age ... to whom a blank set of descriptors applies," Butala said.

"If you're old, you can't do anything, you're not much good to anybody, you don't look very nice and you have nothing to offer society.

"You have become a burden."

This is a unique concern today, she noted, as the largest number of elderly people are alive now than in any time in history, due to gains in lifespan.

Work to do

That means that as a society, the issue of loneliness, for example, must be addressed.

A new way of relating with old people should be developed, she said. She suggested having older people volunteer in elementary schools, so children grow up familiar with relating to people of all ages.

"It would be wonderful if we had a society where elderly people were engaged, concerned and a part of everyday life and not shuffled off into separate communities, even if they choose that themselves," she said later on Alberta@Noon, which took calls from the public on the topic.

Butala, meanwhile, continues to explore the experience of older people in her own work. Next month, her latest novel, Zara's Dead, will be published. It features a 70-year-old woman still angry at the unsolved murder of a former classmate.

• MORE CALGARY NEWS |Mystery clouds death of baby girl on Stoney First Nation
• MORE CALGARY NEWS |Climate change risk reporting becomes hot topic among investors
• MORE CALGARY NEWS |U of C students make new gears to improve winter biking

With files from theCalgary Eyeopener.