Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto by Simon(e) Van Saarloos

What if we refused numerical age and distrusted linear time? What if our behaviours, desires, and access were no longer determined by age? What if we were able to enjoy more intergenerational living?

Against Ageism: A Queer Manifesto starts with what it is not: a socio-economic argument against ageism, celebrating the ‘elderly’ as economically viable. Instead, Simon(e) van Saarloos presents a radical critique of conventional arguments against ageism, rejecting constructs of ‘age’ and ‘youth’ and assumptions of their inherent qualities.

 Drawing from personal experience, the manifesto offers a reckoning with how ageism overlaps with structures of white supremacy and patriarchy. Through the lens of crip and queer theory, as well as anti-carceral and anti-colonial perspectives on time, this piercing text provocatively calls for the abolition of age-related laws, reframing commonly held understandings about age from van Saarloos’s defiant perspective.

Paperback / 145 Pages