Next month’s Bermuda College Fall Lecture Series will put age discrimination under the spotlight.

Titled “Age Discrimination: An Inconvenient Truth” will focus on defining and promoting an understanding of age discrimination, in as wide a scope possible, looking specifically at the implications for Bermuda, said a College spokesperson.

The discussion will involve panellists Peter Sousa, Chief Executive of the Pension Commission, Ben Adamson, Human Rights Commissioner, Dr. Claudette Fleming, Director of Age Concern and Dr. G. McPhee, gerontologist.

The panel will be moderated by Tawana Tannock, Chair of the Human Rights Commission.

Dr Janet Ferguson, Director of the Seniors Learning Centre at Bermuda College and Lecture Series Committee member, said the topic was “likely be a flashpoint for tangential discussions beyond the senior segment of the community, and therefore relevant to the entire community.”

“The struggle against ageism is even bigger than the one against racism or gender discrimination — it affects everyone.

“Much more has been invested in valorising youthfulness, avoiding ageing and fearing death!

“The starting point of any effective activism and linked advocacy has to be questioning, interrogating, and thinking creatively about all the assumptions that we hold — every taken for granted, so-called evidence-based ‘truth’ that we have accepted about the meaning and impact of ‘old age’.

“This should include the tendency to believe that the world 50 years from now will be the same as the one we currently work and live in. It won’t.

“And activism and advocacy should point the way to a world of possibility and how to get there.

“Retirement as we know it now was invented at a time when life expectancy was 75 years, perhaps over the 100 or so years since there might be different ways of thinking about work, performance, developmental possibilities and human capacity across a lifetime”.

The Lecture Series will be held on Tuesday, November 1 at 6.15pm in the North Hall Lecture Theatre. It is free and open to the public.