Ableism: More Than Just a Fancy Word

In October 2021, Israel's energy minister, Karine Elharrar, could not be a part of the first day of the U.N.'s climate summit (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. It is not because she did not go to the event. She had to come back from the threshold of the venue’s entrance and was forced to return to her hotel. Guess why? Because none of the entrances were made to be wheelchair accessible. Minister Elharrar has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair. This whole incident put her in a position of distress and humiliation.?

This incident occurred in the year 2021 at an international diplomatic summit of an organization that commits itself to support disability rights. Pretty ironic, right? This happened on a world stage to a person with power. Just imagine what keeps happening around the world every single day to someone or the other with disability.

This is a classic case of ableism.?

So, what exactly is ableism?

Ableism refers to the systemic discrimination and social prejudice that people with disabilities face and have faced over the years. Ableism comes from the roots of the assumption that there is a “correct” or “normal” way of body and mind functioning. And if any human being does not exactly fit into the norms (here, people with disabilities), the person is perceived differently; less valuable and inferior. This perception is deeply derived from the medical model of disability, where disability needs to be “fixed”.?

In other words, there is an implicit checklist of “typical” physical and mental abilities created by the social system over the years. When someone has a disability, one automatically gets defined and labeled by the disability, overshadowing everything else about the person.?

As a person with disability, you must have come across instances in your life where someone’s behavior totally changed (*cough* pity) when they got to “see” or know about your disability. And poof! They magically forget everything else that makes you a human being, except your disability.?

The disability community is the largest marginalized group in the world, forming 15% of the world population.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), officially about 1 billion people around the world live with some form of disability. And we still do not make it to the “checklist”, do we??

A new term but an old continuing practice?

Although the term ‘ableism’ has predominantly gained the limelight only in the last decade, ableism as a practice has been going on for centuries. Did you know that during the Holocaust, a systemic killing program called the Nazi Euthanasia Program was set up to kill people with mental and physical disabilities? Sounds horrific, right? The term “euthanasia” was used to make the program sound less dreadful than a mass murder program.?

In the 1970s and 1980s, people with disabilities were majorly treated as outcasts in India. In fact, beliefs such as people with disabilities were either possessed or paying for their sins from their past life were highly prevalent among the people.?

"Ableism is something I think most people have until they decide to or are forced to learn about disability,"

- Bri Scalesse

Even now, after passing the Rights of Persons with Disability Act in 2016, institutional and micro-level ableism still exist in the country and around the world. According to a study conducted by the American Bar Association, 76 percent of the respondents unknowingly showed an inclination toward non-disabled people, resulting in a high implicit bias against people with disabilities.?

As single-faceted as ableism might sound - misconceptions, stereotypes, and bigotry - ableism is complex. Ableism is so common and embedded in the social structure that people and institutions don’t often realize that they are being an ableist.?This makes it even more challenging to eradicate ableism from the roots.

Where does ableism tend to show up?

As discussed above, ableism happens both at the macro-level (institutional) and micro-level (personal). Whether it’s the policies that deliberately separate the disability community from the rest or someone randomly asking you if your disability is real - ableism happens at different levels.?

To make things clear, types of ableism can be stated based on the level at which it occurs in the social structure.

Systemic and Institutional Ableism

The laws and policies of systems, structures, and institutions that are non-inclusive of people with disabilities together form systemic or institutional ableism. Often, the structures and policies are outdated or are created without keeping people with disability in mind. This leads to physical barriers and systemic discrimination against people with disabilities.?

Institutional ableism is often right in front of our eyes but gets unnoticed due to the lack of need by non-disabled people. Some examples include:

• Public spaces and infrastructures with inaccessible designs, including a lack of wheelchair-accessible ramps and braille.?
• Schools unwilling to admit a child with disability and suggesting that the child is taught in a special school.?
• Programs such as Social Security Disability setting restrictive rules and penalizing people with disabilities for working or getting married.
• Outright refusal to provide inclusive accommodations.

Personal Ableism

The discriminatory and hurtful actions, interactions, and behavior that knowingly or unknowingly happen in a social setting between human beings lead to personal ableism. The tricky part of personal ableism is that non-disabled people often don’t realize that they are being ableists. Their actions are coming from a place of good intention. In such cases, awareness about ableism and how to aptly conduct themselves around people with disabilities can really be helpful.

However, personal ableism also includes people intentionally calling out someone’s disability just to humiliate or isolate a person with disability. There are many instances of bullying and abuse that people with disabilities have faced over the years.?

Some examples of this ableism are:

• Assuming a person with disability as weak and incapable.
• Being awkward or not knowing how to conduct themselves when around people with disabilities.???
• Going overboard with pity and coddling when one gets to know about a person’s disability or chronic illness.?
• Randomly asking a person with disability (known or stranger) what is “wrong” with the person.

Microaggressions?

Microaggression is a subtle way of showcasing negativity towards people with disabilities through verbal and behavioral cues. Microaggressions happen every day, sometimes knowingly but often unknowingly. You don’t generally realize this, but some phrases you’re using every day might actually be harmful to the disability community.?

“You’re so OCD in cleaning your book rack!”

For instance, a few years ago my friend mocked me for how OCD I am in cleaning and arranging my book rack. Using such clinical terms loosely “just for fun” is outright problematic and is known as ableist language. Because first, a disability is not a joke; secondly, this indirectly sheds a negative light on a person with disability. A few other examples of microaggression include:

• “Are you even disabled? I don’t see anything wrong with you.”
• “She is so dumb” to describe a person not doing something accordingly.
• “You’re a big psycho.”
• A recent Bollywood star casually saying how maths makes her feel “retarded”.?
• “I am tired of your bipolar mood swings.”

Most people using these terms in casual statements often don’t use these with the intention of insulting the disabled community. However, you can’t imagine how this can be harmful to the disabled community, which has been fighting to gain rights and a respectable position in society over the years.?

"These terms can be associated with a person's identity or their challenges, and because of that, can be interpreted as insulting or hurtful."

- Dear Everybody

Here are a few more examples of ableism:

• Viewing people with disabilities as an object of inspiration (also known as inspiration porn) and framing stories around that in the media.?
• Assuming that disability is a disability only when it can be seen.?
• Building inaccessible websites totally forgetting that everyone uses the internet.
• Touching someone’s support equipment without permission.?
• Organizing an event in a location that is inaccessible.
• Building a hateful mindset that people with disabilities get more favors than the non-disabled community.

Some of my instances of facing ableism

*trigger warning*

“She must have received the scholarship because of her chronic illness or disability; whatever she has.”?

This was when I was awarded the prestigious French Government Scholarship based on my overall merit, my qualities, and my years of hard work.?

I recently had to visit a place on the first floor of a building. I was happy to see that the building has an elevator. But funnily, the elevator is programmed in a way that it wouldn’t stop on the first floor. When questioned, the manager of the building told me that people can just climb to the first floor. Of course, to him, “people” only meant non-disabled people.?

“Have you fallen off a building or something?”

I have heard this so many times from random strangers during my childhood. Wish I had the awareness and the guts back then to retaliate.?

Recently, before going to a restaurant, I checked its address which says the restaurant is on the ground floor. When I went there, the reality was that being on the ground floor meant being on a floor above the parking lot. That meant climbing at least 8 to 10 steps to reach the “ground floor”. Seldom do ableists understand that those 10 steps can be no less than a mountain for a person using a wheelchair or someone with motor impairment.?

“She can do everything on her own, even travel alone and live abroad on her own. Does she really have a chronic illness?”?

How dare she be independent and live a life of her own? Dammit! On a serious note, this is a very common form of ableism. Hardcore ableists will either patronize you until you remain an object of pity or turn hostile toward you when you don’t “act like a disabled or sick person”.?

I have so many more serious instances of ableism in my life that I will share in the coming editions. But for now, I will leave you to process these, wink-wink.?

Ableism not only affects the disability community as a whole but can be traumatic at an individual level. By now, you already have a fair idea of what impact ableism can cause. Let’s discuss.

What is the impact of ableism?

A study conducted by the American Institutes for Research states that people with disability earn 37 percent lesser than the average. A mindset built out of ableism is a core reason for such discrepancies in the work sector.?

Ableism causes both emotional and physical pain for people with disability. Everyday microaggressions and systemic ableism usually put a person with disability in an uneasy circumstance and often lead to humiliation.?

Ableism such as inaccessible infrastructure leads to stress. Every time I plan to go out, I first need to find out how accessible my destination is. Lack of adequate information adds to the stress. A person with disability has to be ever ready for disappointment when they reach a destination due to common cases of inaccessibility.?

Ableism forces us to become pessimistic.?

This can take a worse turn when some people with disability starts to believe that they are less valuable and incapable. Not everyone can simply ignore or fight ableism and microaggression. This can take a toll on such people and might result in:

• Thoughts such as not being worthy of someone’s love.?
• Thoughts such as their presence can be burdensome due to the needed “extra” support.
• Chronic anxiety and depression.
• Feelings of loneliness and hopelessness.

What can be done to tackle ableism??

Because ableism happens at every level of the social construct, confronting ableism also needs to happen at every level. Here are a few starter ideas to confront ableism at the grassroots level.?

Unlearn and learn: Take your time to unlearn the stereotypes, prejudices, and unknown microaggressions that you might have consumed subconsciously over the years. Learn about disability, ableism, accessibility, disability rights, and other related concepts. Listen to the experiences directly from the people with disability and not from the media. Take a step forward and spread the word around disability and ableism by giving the stage to the disability community.?

Change the perception: Before anything, you need to first break through the universal perception about people with disability; that they are less valuable and incapable than non-disabled people. How do you do that?

First, when you see a person with disability, don’t just assume that the person needs your help. Help only when asked for. Instead, you can contribute by being vocal about issues in the system or by creating support systems for disability rights at the institutional level.?

Secondly, think of it in this way. Every human being is unique with their own set of exclusive abilities, instead of weighing every human being against a primitive checklist of “abilities”. Developing an inclusive mindset is a key step toward reducing ableist actions and infrastructure.?

Empathy, not sympathy: The first instinct when you meet or see a person with disability is sympathy towards the person. Although this is well-intentioned, you need to understand that the more you sympathize, the more you turn the person into an object of pity and sadness.

Instead, practice empathy, which is about putting yourself in the person’s shoes. Having sympathy is reactive, having empathy is proactive. When you empathize, you understand the real systemic problems that the community has been facing and work toward them.?

Mind your language: When discussing ableist microaggressions, we discussed the ableist language that people use in daily life. Ableist words such as “lame”, “dumb”, “psycho” and more have been so deeply embedded in our lingo that totally eradicating their ableist usage will take time.??

Little drops of water make the mighty ocean.?

You can start being conscious about the language used around you, point out ableist words, and educate the speaker. I know it is not as easy as it sounds. But doing something good always comes with retaliations, right??

Don’t assume that you know everything: Be humble! I recently came across a video where a girl is accusing a lady of using the disability parking space. She assumed that the lady is not disabled because she doesn’t “look” like she has a disability. This kind of harassment happens because some people think they know everything. The lady had to finally show her disability card to prove her disability. This is just one example.?

Better representation: Whichever sector you are working in, make sure to propose the idea of better disability community representation. People with disability need more visibility in order to make everyone truly understand disability, ableism, disability rights, and more.?

A Marketer’s Point of View

Being a marketer in the digital space, I have added this special and short section on how we can address ableism. Apart from all the points mentioned above, we need to majorly address web accessibility. That is, making sure everyone (including people with disability) can use websites and digital content. To achieve that, we have to go back to our defined user/ buyer persona.

Often, when we are defining our “ideal” buyer persona based on data, we subconsciously tend to ignore people with disabilities. As marketers, it is time we started REDEFINING who an “ideal” buyer persona is.?

Let’s start questioning the status quo.

This is a win-win for both the disabled community as well as the businesses. That is because your business will be creating inclusive customer experiences for an untapped section of potential buyers.

Content marketing is the foundation of digital marketing. Make sure that the language in the content is inclusive and accessible, sans any ableist words.?

I will dedicatedly expand more on this section in an upcoming edition.?

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Ableism can not be addressed in a single day because it is so deeply embedded in our social system. However, everyone can start taking one step at a time to be self-aware about conduct around people with disabilities.?

Let’s reinvent the way we have been thinking all these years!

Stay tuned for more thought-provoking topics.?

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* Sources are mentioned in the comment section.