First of all, what is chase-ism? It definitely is not a word that was just made up to define the various social theories and mysteries one chases obsessively to understand (it is).

What is ageism? That’s pretty self-explanatory, but to cut to the chase, it is bias based upon a person’s age. You might wonder, in a world full of sexism, racism, ethnicism, capitalism, and eliteism, isn’t ageism just the lesser of all evils? Well, you’d think so, but not really.

Ageism feeds directly into all the other vicious cycles of discrimination. You may find yourself too young to gain a job, title, or position. You may also be deemed too old to fit an employer’s culture. Post 35, or perhaps even before that, women are considered ‘geriatric mothers’, or of ‘advanced maternal age’, should they choose to procreate. This feeds straight into the myth that women should marry young and pop babies out like a jack-in-the-box. The myth does not take into account paternal age, whereby what we will refer to as ‘geriatric sperm’ can be the cause of mental disorders in children, including major depressive disorder, bipolar, schizophrenia and anxiety. A difference of 11 years or greater between the father and mother also leads to a similar risk. So if you’re 22, and your 33-year-old beau has just sowed all his wild geriatric oats and is ready to settle down, think twice before signing that nikahnama.

The pressure women all over the world, but especially in South Asia, feel to get married and start families is enormous. A woman of a certain age – in her early 20s, to be honest – is looked upon suspiciously by potential employers because she might get married and abscond. Or get married and have babies.

Men face similar prejudices. Older men, mainly Gen X, will today be regarded as quite obsolete for certain industries. It won’t matter that they hold multiple qualifications and listen to multiple podcasts a day and know exactly who Ye is and what his journey has been, a young, tech-inclined industry or company will hesitate to employ them.

Where does television come into this giant blackhole of societal bias? Let’s not even pretend TV doesn’t impact almost everything we do. From soundtracks to hairstyles to clothes or relationship patterns, our favourite shows and ads have long led how we live our lives.

We love the beautifully crafted tea ads, where husband and wife tend to each other, or a loving bahu looks after her family. We have obsessed over Ashar and Khirad, Ted and Robin, Chandler and Monica, and parroted some ridiculous life theory from a TV show we have loved. We have at one point or the other, wanted to be any of the strong, resilient women who make their way through life after being subjected to injustice by a man or a particularly evil woman. We have also all wanted Mahira Khan’s skin, but like, not in a Hannibal Lecter way.

But if you look at examples locally, or even internationally, women past 40 are often portrayed as sexless, passion-less, just-want-to-clean-their-kitchen creatures. And heaven forbid if the storyline involves a dead spouse, they just aren’t allowed to move on, even though they are fictional and the writer could just have done the character a solid and let her have a life.

Men past a certain age are either players or grandpas. Or both. No in-betweens. To paraphrase Goldie Hawn’s character Elise Elliott in First Wives Club, Sean Connery may be 300 years old, but he’s still a stud.

Portrayal of older men and women on television has only now started to evolve, and we suspect that the slightly looser view of streaming services on character development may be responsible.

In the last few years, Netflix alone has given us Grace & Frankie and The Kominsky Method. Both shows tell the stories of over-60, though privileged – and white – people. More recently, ’90s sweetheart, Sex And The City was rebooted as And Just Like That…

While a lot of us followed Carrie and the gang’s many, many exploits on HBO and on DVD, and had many, many opinions on Carrie’s hair, Big’s callousness and Charlotte’s obsession with her happily ever after, we didn’t quite know what to expect from the reboot.

And Just Like That… actually takes the plunge in the very first episode of issues that are very real to people well into their 50s and 60s. Of course, even while Carrie was broke af in her 30s, and often just as heartbroken to match, she somehow had a fabulous lifestyle that no way in hell her badly-written column was supporting. Similarly, And Just Like That… shows the ladies in helpless situations, but still cushioned by their privilege.

And as I watched And Just Like That… I couldn’t help but wonder, is 60 the new 30?

We definitely have the benefits of better lifestyles and science and medicine on our sides, and you will see, in Pakistan too, girls running the world, no matter how old or young. So why do we feel like when we put the same women on TV, they are either pious ammis or blowdried society aunties?

The only examples that come to mind of even slightly more emancipated older female characters on TV locally are those that Saba Hameed and Samina Ahmed play on Geo TV’s Ayegi Baraat series. It didn’t matter who out of Azar, Dolly, or Taaka was getting married, the writers actually gave both actors their own, significant storylines, that we followed with as much interest as the main one.

There have got to be more stories we can tell about women and men after they are no longer youthful, whether they are single, or easing happily into the twilight of life. No matter what the age, people are people, and people are complex, and any insight we get into their slice of life will always be educational, entertaining, and intriguing.