That makes sense… I agree that it is certainly reasonable in contexts of that sort, although that strikes me as an extremely unusual circumstance, one in which society is deliberately introducing a barrier which greatly magnifies the effect of an otherwise minor physical disability. Or is that more common than it might seem?
As time goes by I’m more inclined to say “more common than it might seem”.
Part of the issue with social disability is that those not affected by the rules often don’t see it at all. I’ve spoken to people from “the colorblind can’t drive” places who are shocked that other places allow the colorblind to drive (or even fly airplanes) without restriction. The restriction has become such a norm for them they don’t even question it anymore, if they ever did.
Likewise, there are nations like Saudi Arabia where being female makes you disabled - you can’t drive, you have to be under the wardship of a male guardian, and so many other restrictions - which are all based on social rules, not actual inability of women to operate motor vehicles or make decisions. Being female is a disability in Saudi Arabia due to social disability, not physical.
So yes, more common than most people realize.
But let’s roll things back a bit from the big picture. There are many ways in which modern technology reduces disability based on physical reasons. For example, texting makes phones a LOT more useful to deaf people than they used to be, as does speech-to-text/text-to-speech software. Ditto for the blind, who can used software to read for them instead of using time-consuming methods or seeking out sighted people to do the task.
Sometimes this converts a physically-based disability to a socially-based one. I haven’t been involved in aviation for a bit, but back when I was there was some research going on into the possibility that texting could remove some of the restrictions from deaf pilots in the US (Yes, we let deaf people fly airplanes - many nations do not. Airplanes don’t care if their pilots are deaf, the problem is with radio communications). If texting and software get to the point that they can substitute or adapt radio communications sufficiently then current restrictions (which are based on a physical inability of deaf pilots to hear radio instructions) will become social disability items (based on inertia or bias against deaf people, not on their no longer existing inability to follow real-time air traffic control instructions). See how that works?
Here’s another one - used to be people with prosthetic legs didn’t compete in the Olympics because there was no way in hell they could qualify against people with natural, organic legs. Well, now they can (in at least one instance) - do we allow those with artificial legs to compete with those with natural legs or not? Why or why not? Is that rule (either way) based on physical ability or social rules?
A while back I saw a documentary on PBS about people with dwarfism; a quick Google suggests it was probably Big Enough. Anyway, it it made the point that buildings, equipment, etc., are usually designed with the height of the average adult in mind, so being much shorter than that can leave someone effectively disabled even if they’re not otherwise physically impaired. For instance, there was a scene where a woman wanted to get money from an ATM but couldn’t reach the buttons. IIRC there was also a scene showing someone who had to keep moving a stepstool around the kitchen to reach the stovetop, sink, and cupboards while making dinner. But in an environment designed for people their size, or at least designed to better accommodate people their size, these folks would have no trouble.
I am of three minds on this issue.
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A PERSON SHOULD HAVE A SAY IN WHAT YOU CALL ‘EM. If a black person wishes to be referred to as a “person of color,” peachy. If he wishes to be referred to as a “Descendant of Nubian Kings and Zimbabwean Nobility,” on the other hand, I might have a problem with that. If nothin’ else, it’s a bit of a mouthful, and I am told I should keep it short.
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A PERSON CAN BE CIVIL ABOUT IT. You’re a lot more likely to win my cooperation by simply quietly correcting me to “person with disabilities,” than you are by saying “THAT OFFENDS ME TO MY GODDAMN CORE, YOU FILTHY TEN TOED SONOFABITCH!!!”
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IF YOU ARE NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GROUP IN QUESTION, STFU. I am thinking of a TA I had in college who was frickin’ MILITANT about this. “THE PHRASE IS ‘CHILD WITH DISABILITIES,’ NOT ‘DISABLED CHILD!’ THE CHILD comes BEFORE the DISABILITY!” Loud and shrill. We quit using proper nouns about the kids by the third week of classes, because we were all kinda freaked out by her apparent insanity.
I found her offensive, because people screaming in my face offends me. Particularly when no insult or degradation was intended; she was being a bitch about the arrangement of syntax in a sentence, and more than once, I wondered if she would have gone off like that on a person who did not have English as a first language.
You want me to call you something? Fine. You want to get offended on behalf of some group to which you don’t belong? Respect my freedom of speech and good intentions. Scream in my face, and pay the price.
I guess what’s not clear to me is whether people will say something like “oh, Joe has what is basically a social disability more than anything else, while Frank has more of a (some other word) disability”. That is, distinguishing between different types of disabilities. If so, you’ve definitely persuasively argued that is’s a useful descriptor in some contexts. On the other hand, the way I initially interpreted the first mention of the “social theory of disability” (in post 12 of this thread), is that it’s a theory of disability, therefore, a lens through which ALL disabilities should be viewed (according to some people). Which I would take issue with… but I might be taking issue with something that no one is actually doing.
One other comment: the way you’re using the term here, at least broadly, leads to some very non-intuitive results… for instance, a felon who is not allowed to vote might be considered socially disabled. But that’s incredibly far away from the way people normally understand the term “disabled”. Which is not necessarily bad in and of itself, but might lead to confusion or even deception in contexts such as “we’re looking for a job applicant for this position who has experience working with the disabled”.
I see what you’re saying, but that’s very different from the type of situation that Broomstick is suggesting. For instance, her example of colorblind people not being allowed to drive is a situation in which society would have to just literally do nothing (ie, NOT pass a law forbidding colorblind drivers) and the disability (colorblind people being unable to drive, with all the attendant issues that brings) would vanish. That’s very different from most-things-are-built-at-the-height-for-average-height-people, in which basically society IS doing nothing other than not going out of the way (even if only a little) to make things easier for the little people.
I slightly prefer “person with disabilities” for the reason that it puts the person first, but even I often default to “disabled person” because it’s quicker and easier, so I really don’t mind if others do too.
The social model of disability has a lot of validity. National Parks, for example, would be terrible if they were fully adapted for people with disabilities, but it is possible to make them more accessible sometimes.
Including handrails where they won’t spoil the landscape, smoothing out some small part of the trail, having a Parks-provided buggy to transport people to certain areas that they won’t be able to reach otherwise - not all areas, just the ones that a buggy can reach but you don’t want a load of cars going up there - providing a sign-language interpreter at certain set times of the week for the tours, etc etc.
Not providing those is what makes society part of the disability rather than simply nature.
Also if a school made exploring that natural park part of a required course (where that particular task wasn’t really essential, just fun), even though students with physical disabilities couldn’t do it, that would be a problem with society rather than the course. Or if a company decided to have an important team-building event involve stuff at that park that just wasn’t accessible to people with physical disabilities.
Same with buildings. Old buildings often simply can’t be adapted without knocking them down and starting over. So a college, for example, shouldn’t provide the only course in a given subject in a building which isn’t accessible if they have other venues to choose from.
And often it’s easier to adapt than people credit. Move the class to the ground floor. Have a temporary ramp. Let guests use a different entrance. Not make activities involving moving around quickly be an essential part of the task unless you really have to (like an athletics course, say). Provide photos of and info about the upstairs areas that can’t be reached by mobility-impaired people so at least they know what they’re not seeing, and put them somewhere that those people can sit down and wait for their friends. Provide a free ticket for a carer because then the disabled person can bring someone along who will go and get them their drinks, help them up a few stairs, translate to BSL, etc. Get an office desk that can be adjusted to different heights. Loads and loads of things.
Also, make the facilities genuinely usable. Don’t have a disabled access gate or toilet and then lock it so nobody can use it without walking double the distance to ask for help. Don’t use a disabled toilet as a storage closet. Occasionally check the disabled parking spaces for valid badges. Provide all the info you can online or even by mail so that people can plan ahead without having to phone first (especially for people who Deaf or hard of hearing!)
However, I have never, ever been entirely comfortable with the people who really strongly push the idea that there is no such thing as disability, it’s just societal. If you have one leg it is a disability because you need something extra to help you get around. If you have a serious need for a regular routine (like many autistic people) then it is difficult for you in the many circumstances where routines are thrown out despite everyone’s best efforts. Profoundly deaf people can’t hear music or birdsong or car horns. If you’re in pain a lot or tired a lot then you will be even when society tries its best.
I think the social model has become more reflective and accommodating since it first became popular but it still has a few nutbar proponents who do nobody any good. They’re often not people with disabilities themselves except for the disability of being a nutbar.
One of the things that surprised me when I went to Canada was the colorblind-friendly traffic signals. They weren’t just color-coded, they had associated shapes (e.g. circle, square, triangle) too. That could even be helpful for non-colorblind drivers who, for some reason, encounter a poor lighting situation in which they have difficulty discerning the colors. That sort of redundancy is common in many other places too. Major roads in much of the USA are labeled (both on the map and physically on the road) with both names and numbers.
Interesting point. IMHO, one of the interesting features of Jefferson’s Rock in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia (just off the Appalachian Trail) is the experience of climbing the well-worn 19th century stone steps to the top. An elevator would change that experience…
My example wasn’t intended to be redundant with Broomstick’s example, but I think you’re missing the reason why colorblind people might be restricted from driving. This isn’t some completely senseless prejudice; the inability to distinguish between red lights and green lights can be a real safety issue when driving.
It’s not an insurmountable issue, there just needs to be some consistent way for a colorblind person to tell which light means “stop” and which one means “go”. In the US we have a standardized setup where there’s a separate light for each color with red always at the top or left and green always at the bottom or right. But this system presumably only exists because someone thought it was worthwhile to accommodate the colorblind. It isn’t the only possible way traffic lights could be designed, and it may be that other countries have (or used to have) a system that isn’t so colorblind friendly. As robert_columbia’s post indicates, it would also be possible for the US to have traffic lights that are more colorblind friendly than they are.
I just want to clarify, because this most recent post seems to imply that being colorblind is a binary state. It’s not. There is more than one form of color impairment. Many people that are diagnosed as color impaired and would not be permitted to drive in some nations actually have no problem distinguishing different colors of traffic lights, even if their impairment affects that part of the spectrum.
I’m a case in point - my version of color impairment has never been a problem with traffic lights because I can still distinguish the colors from each other even if some of the “green” lights actually look “blue” to me (which is a pretty rare event in real life). I still wouldn’t be allowed to drive a car in some countries.
In the US, the FAA has long recognized this an enabled pilots with impaired color perception to nonetheless fly without restriction provided they can prove their condition is not a safety hazard. Went through the process myself. I was required to demonstrate in real-world conditions that even if I couldn’t see certain colors properly I still had no trouble distinguishing colors for purposes of signalling. Other countries simply say that if you have any color impairment whatsoever you simply are not allowed to fly, period. In the US, if you are restricted in flying based on color vision it’s because of an actual physical inability to do something. In other places, even if you can still perform the task you aren’t allowed to due to human regulations, and that’s what makes it a social disability rather than a physical one.
There are actually a lot of good reasons to make things like traffic lights more friendly to the color-blind by shapes of the lights as well as colors because the “redundant” information could benefit even the non-disabled in adverse conditions. Making signals that involve safety as unambiguous as possible is a good thing. Likewise, many a wheelchair ramp has been used by the able-bodied for one reason or another, from simply walking along it to using it to transport material objects into and out of a building with greater ease. A lot of able-bodied people find that bath/shower grab bars in the bathroom can be useful and who knows, they might have reduced falls and accidents overall. The move away from door knobs to levers makes going in and out of doors with your hands full easier because you can manipulate those levers with your elbows in a way you can’t manage a knob.
Eliminating social obstacles tends to be of overall benefit to society, in my opinion. It makes the physically disabled less dependent on others, and can provide benefits to the able-bodied.
I think that’s a different conversation entirely, albeit an interesting one.
When should society as a whole do things to make life easier for the disabled? Well, that depends on a bunch of things:
-How common that disability is
-How much the change would cost
-How much the change would improve the life of the disabled
-What effect the change would have on everyone else
And probably some other factors I’m not considering.
There’s also a difference between changes that the government should make in publicly run situations (ie, at DMVs and national parks) vs changes that should be mandated by law for all places of business (and another distinction between having stuff available to customers vs having stuff available to employees…)
But this is now fully a tangent.
I’d say that even in the US the problem is still largely due to society, as signaling with colored lights is a human invention. What I’m trying to get at here is the distinction between what tasks an individual is physically unable to do (e.g. distinguish between red and green, reach above a certain height) and what tasks they’re unable to do because of procedures or design choices made by other people (e.g. distinguish between important signals, reach the buttons on an ATM).
I want to be clear that even in the latter case this doesn’t mean that the design or society itself is “wrong”. Sometimes a more accessible design might be relatively easy to implement, but sometimes there may not be a practical way to improve things with current technology. Since colorblindness is relatively rare, a color-coded system works fine for most people and may in some situations be objectively better than the alternatives. I’d guess that the average person can distinguish different colored lights at a greater distance than they can distinguish different shaped lights. But alternate systems are at least theoretically possible, and if red-green colorblindness were the norm rather than the exception then a system that used red and green signals wouldn’t have been developed in the first place.
When you’re using visual signals at a distance your options are limited. Even if we used a different combination than red/green there would still be some forms of colorblindness affected by the choice.
Those with different than normal color perception are about 10-12% of the population. Is that rare or not? Well, definitely a minority - but a significant number of those folks have sufficient color perception that traffic lights aren’t a problem for them because not all impaired color perception is the same impairment.
However, the point about society NOT being “wrong” about something that causes inconvenience to a minority of people with different perception or ability than the norm is also accurate. Some changes are just not practical to make, some are. I think discussing where to draw the line is a perfectly valid debate, and if there should be different lines based on whether the topic concerns a government or public building or a private business or a private residence.
I’d add to this that even when no practical accommodation could be made, it can still be worth recognizing that the barriers faced by people with disabilities are not always solely due to their physical limitations. I say this because it’s easy to assume that because someone can’t do task X then they can’t do seemingly similar task Y either, but this isn’t always the case. It could be that there’s currently no practical way to make the equipment needed for task X more accessible, but that accessible equipment is already available for task Y.
Thinking about signal lights reminded me of a school play I was in with a blind classmate (“Annie”). This show made extensive use of lighting cues, and after a performance another classmate’s mother expressed surprise that Annie had been able to memorize the timing well enough to compensate for her inability to see the lights. But in fact Annie could see the lights. She was mostly but not entirely blind, so while she was unable to perform most visual tasks and had needed a braille version of the script she could at least see whether her light was on or off. Even if she couldn’t, stage lights are HOT, so she could easily feel when her light came on. If the lighting cues had required us to distinguish between different colored lights then Annie probably would have needed some sort of accommodation, like a subtle sound cue, but as things were her disability wasn’t an issue.