Campaigns to combat ageism are typically focused on discrimination against older people, with a footnote that young people may also experience discrimination. Globally we are, in my view, seeing a worrying form of ageism emerge.

If we agree with the definition that ageism is essentially the holding of stereotypes, prejudice, or discriminating against (but also in favour of) people because of their chronological age, then what are we to make of the increasing use of generational categories that attribute to all born within a designated time period a common set of characteristics irrespective of gender, ethnicity, country, or socio-economic status?

Putting to one side the fact that there is no research, that I have seen, that supports the existence of distinct generational categories, is it not discriminatory to create a category of the “other” and then attribute to them both negative and positive stereotypes? “Baby Boomers are…”, “Gen X is…”, “The Millennials are…” Really, are they? Does this not fuel division and exclusion? Dividing people by age – any age – is ageist.

However, unlike racism or sexism, which are aimed at those who are different to us, ageism can ultimately affect all of us. Regardless of race, gender, religion or socio-economic status, we all age. Keep in mind when you discriminate on the basis of age or use age-based categories, you could well be discriminating against your current and future self.