Ageism and inequalities against the elderly in a pandemic context:

re-updating demands for a national care policy

Abstract

This article aims to problematize the universalizing ideas of ageism against the elderly and point out how it intertwines with more general demarcation of class, gender and race/ethnicity, expanding the social inequalities that were immediately manifested in the pandemic context in Brazil, in the rates of illnesses and mortality among the elderly, placed on the public agenda, the care demands presented in this scenario, and which it demarcates in an imperative way, for the need for a national care policy. It is a theoretical research, of the bibliographical and documental type with qualitative methodology, from the Marxist theoretical-methodological perspective, that is, the historical-dialectical method. It is concluded that the impacts caused by the covid-19 pandemic, especially for the elderly population, do not manifest themselves in the same way for everyone and that in order to break with inequalities, asymmetries, hierarchies and power relations, it is necessary to overcome the society marked by exploitation, because isolated changes are partial, even if necessary and urgent. Brazilian social policy reproduces familism, social inequalities and class, race/ethnicity, gender and generational oppression by overestimating and expecting care to be provided by a family member, especially women, without remuneration, based on the care provided based on visions idyllic.