Etymology
Originating from ''-able'' (in disable, disabled) and ''History
Canada
Ableism in Canada refers to a set of discourses, behaviors, and structures that express feelings of anxiety, fear, hostility, andNazi Germany
In July 1933,United Kingdom
In the UK, disability discrimination became unlawful as a result of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and the Disability Discrimination Act 2005. These were later superseded, retaining the substantive law, by the Equality Act 2010. The Equality Act 2010 brought together protections against multiple areas of discriminatory behavior (disability, race, religion and belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age and pregnancy the so-called "protected characteristics"). Under the Equality Act of 2010, there are prohibitions addressing several forms of discrimination including direct discrimination (s.13), indirect discrimination (s.6, s.19), harassment (s.26), victimisation (s.27), discrimination arising from disability (s.15), and failure to make reasonable adjustments (s.20). Part 2, Chapter 1, Section 6, of the Equality Act 2010 states that "A person (P) has a disability if (a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and (b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities."United States
Much like many minority groups, disabled Americans were often segregated and denied certain rights for a majority of American history. In the 1800s, a shift from a religious view to a more scientific view took place and caused more individuals with disabilities to be examined. Public stigma began to change afterRehabilitation Act of 1973
Section 504 and other sections of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 enacted into law certain civil penalties for failing to make public places comply with access codes known as the ADA Access Guidelines (ADAAG). These laws prohibit direct discrimination against disabled people in government programs, employment, public transit, and public accommodations like stores and restaurants.Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984
The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act was passed to promote the fundamental right to vote by improving access for elderly individuals and people with disabilities to registration facilities and polling places for Federal elections by requiring access to polling places used in Federal elections and available registration and voting aids, such as instructions in large typeFair Housing Amendments Act of 1988
The federal Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of mental or physical disability and requires that newly constructed multi-family housing meet certain access guidelines while requiring landlords to allow disabled persons to modify existing dwellings for accessibility. It was an amendment for Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The law also protects people with mental disabilities by prohibiting discrimination in housing and allowing people with mental illness or any other disability to live where they choose.Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
TheIndividuals with Disabilities Education Act
TheUN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
In May 2012, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was ratified. The document establishes the inadmissibility of discrimination on the basis of disability, including in employment. In addition, the amendments create a legal basis for significantly expanding opportunities to protect the rights of persons with disabilities, including in the administrative procedure and in court. The law defined specific obligations that all owners of facilities and service providers must fulfill to create conditions for disabled people equal to the rest.Workplace
In 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act was put in place to prohibit private employers, state and local government, employment agencies and labor unions from discrimination against qualified disabled people in job applications, when hiring, firing, advancement in workplace, compensation, training, and on other terms, conditions and privileges of employment. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) plays a part in fighting against ableism by being responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. Similarly in the UK, the Equality Act 2010 was put in place and provides legislation that there should be no workplace discrimination. Under the act, all employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for their disabled employees to help them overcome any disadvantages resulting from the impairment. Failure to carry out reasonable adjustment amounts to disability discrimination. Employers and managers are often concerned about the potential cost associated with providing accommodations to employees with disabilities. However, many accommodations have a cost of $0 (59% in a survey of employers conducted by the Job Accommodation Network (JAN)), and accommodation costs may be offset by the savings associated with employing people with disabilities (higher performance, lower turnover costs). Moreover, organizational interventions that support workplace inclusion of the most vulnerable, such as neurodivergent individuals, are likely to benefit all employees.Healthcare
Ableism is prevalent in the many different divisions of healthcare, whether that be in prison systems, the legal or policy side of healthcare, and clinical settings. The following subsections will explore the ways in which ableism makes its way into these areas of focus through the inaccessibility of appropriate medical treatment.Clinical settings
Just as in every other facet of life, ableism is present in clinical healthcare settings. A 2021 study of over 700 physicians in the United States found that only 56.5% "strongly agreed that they welcomed patients with disability into their practices." The same study also found that 82.4% of these physicians believed that people with a significant disability had a lower quality of life than those without disabilities. Data from the 1994–1995 National Health Interview Survey-Disability Supplement has shown that those with disabilities have lower life expectancies than those without them. While that can be explained by a myriad of factors, one of the factors is the ableism experienced by those with disabilities in clinical settings. Those with disabilities may be more hesitant to seek care when needed due to barriers created by ableism such as dentist chairs that are not accessible or offices that are filled with bright lights and noises that can be triggering. In June 2020, near the start of theCriminal justice settings
The provision of effective healthcare for people with disabilities in criminal justice institutions is an important issue because the percentage of disabled people in such facilities has been shown to be larger than the percentage in the general population. A lack of prioritization on working to incorporate efficient and quality medical support into prison structures endangers the health and safety of disabled prisoners. Limited access to medical care in prisons consists of long waiting times to meet with physicians and to consistently receive treatment, as well as the absence of harm reduction measures and updated healthcare protocols. Discriminatory medical treatment also takes place through the withholding of proper diets, medications, and assistance (equipment and interpreters), in addition to failures to adequately train prison staff. Insufficient medical accommodations can worsen prisoners' health conditions through greater risks of depression,Healthcare policy
Ableism has long been a serious concern in healthcare policy, and the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly exaggerated and highlighted the prevalence of this serious concern. Studies frequently show what a "headache" patients with disabilities are for the healthcare system. In a 2020 study, 83.6% of healthcare providers preferred patients without disabilities to those with disabilities. It is important to assess the impact of such views on care for these individuals and healthcare policies. One example is the crisis standards of care. Though these standards have been in place before the COVID-19 pandemic, crisis standards of care have come to the forefront of healthcare policy because of their timely relevance. To maximize space in hospitals, "states, localities, and individual hospitals... explicitly rul dout treatment for people with certain 'pre-existing conditions,' choosing 'healthy' non-disabled people to live, and 'sicker' disabled people to die." This policy is especially concerning since according to the CDC, people with disabilities are at a heightened risk for contracting COVID-19. Additionally, in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, people with intellectual disabilities were told that they will not be resuscitated if they become ill with COVID-19. These examples illustrate how the devaluation of disabled people's lives is done for logistical reasons and considered ethically sound. Another policy example that clearly demonstrates ableism is that of ventilator rationing for hospitals during the pandemic. New York State instituted explicit guidelines for the distribution of ventilators and named specific exclusion criteria for access to the ventilators. The criteria were made on the basis of a patient's functional status (presence of disabilitie) and prognosis. Some examples given for functional statuses include recent cardiac arrests, hypotension, and currently needing a ventilator, inter alia. In England, Scotland and Wales, an abortion may be performed on the basis of the foetus having physical or mental abnormalities.Education
Ableism often makes the world inaccessible to disabled people, especially in schools. Within education systems, the use of the medical model of disability and social model of disability contributes to the divide between students within special education and general education classrooms. Oftentimes, the medical model of disability portrays the overarching idea that disability can be corrected and diminished at the result of removing children from general education classrooms. The model of disability suggests that the impairment is much more important than the person who is helpless and should be separated from those who are not disabled. The social model of disability, as society slowly becomes more progressive at making changes toward inclusive education, suggests that people with impairments are disabled at the result of the way society acts. When students with disabilities are pulled out of their classrooms into receive the support that they need, that often leads their peers to socially reject them out of the habit of not forming relationships with them in the classroom. By using the social model of disability, inclusive setting based schools where the social norm is not to alienate their peers can promote more teamwork and less division throughout many campuses. Through implementing the social model of education within modern forms of inclusive education actively provides children of all abilities with the important role of changing discriminatory attitudes within the school system. For example, a disabled student may need to read text instead of listening to a tape recording of the text. In the past, schools have focused too much on fixing the disability, but progressive reforms make schools now focused on minimizing the impact of a student's disability and giving support, skills, and more opportunities to live a full life. Moreover, schools are required to maximize access to their entire community. In 2004, Congress made into law theMedia
Disabilities are not only misrepresented in the media but often underrepresented as well. While roughly 20 percent of the US population is disabled, only 2 percent of characters played in television and film have a disability. 95 percent of the time, disabled characters are played by actors who are not disabled. These common ways of framing disability are heavily criticized for being dehumanizing and failing to place importance on the perspectives of disabled people.Disabled villain
One common form of media depiction of disability is to portray villains with a mental or physical disability. Lindsey Row-Heyveld notes, for instance, "that villainous pirates are scraggly, wizened and inevitably kitted out with a peg leg, eye patch or hook hand, whereas heroic pirates look like Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow". The disability of the villain is meant to separate them from the average viewer and dehumanize the antagonist. As a result, stigma forms surrounding the disability and the individuals that live with it. There are many instances in literature where the antagonist is depicted as having a disability or mental illness. Some common examples include Captain Hook, Darth Vader and the Joker. Captain Hook is notorious for having a hook as a hand and seeks revenge on Peter Pan for his lost hand. Darth Vader's situation is unique because Luke Skywalker is also disabled. Luke's prosthetic hand looks lifelike, whereas Darth Vader appears robotic and emotionless because his appearance does not resemble humans and takes away human emotions. The Joker is a villain with a mental illness, and he is an example of the typical depiction of associating mental illness with violence.Inspiration porn
Inspiration porn is the use of disabled people performing ordinary tasks as a form of inspiration. Criticisms of inspiration porn say that it distances disabled people from individuals who are not disabled and portrays disability as an obstacle to overcome or rehab. One of the most common examples of inspiration porn includes the Paralympics. Athletes with disabilities often get praised as inspirational because of their athletic accomplishments. Critics of this type of inspiration porn have said, "athletic accomplishments by these athletes are oversimplified as 'inspirational' because they're such a surprise."Pitied character
In many forms of media such as films and articles a disabled person is portrayed as a character who is viewed as less than able, different, and an "outcast." Hayes and Black (2003) explore Hollywood films as the discourse of pity towards disability as a problem of social, physical, and emotional confinement. The aspect of pity is heightened through the storylines of media focusing on the individual's weaknesses as opposed to strengths and therefore leaving audiences a negative and ableist portrayal towards disability.Supercrip stereotype
The supercrip narrative is generally a story of a person with an apparent disability who is able to "overcome" their physical differences and accomplish an impressive task. Professor Thomas Hehir's "Eliminating Ableism in Education," gives the story of a blind man who climbs Mount Everest as an example of the supercrip narrative. The Paralympics are another example of the supercrip stereotype since they generate a large amount of media attention and demonstrate disabled people doing extremely strenuous physical tasks. Although that may appear inspiring at face value, Hehir explains that many people with disabilities view those news stories as setting unrealistic expectations. Additionally, Hehir mentions that supercrip stories imply that disabled people are required to perform those impressive tasks to be seen as an equal and to avoid pity from those without disabilities. The disability studies scholar Alison Kafer describes how those narratives reinforce the problematic idea that disability can be overcome by an individual's hard work, in contrast to other theories, which understand disability to be a result of a world that is not designed to be accessible. Supercrip stories reinforce ableism by emphasizing independence, reliance on one's body, and the role of individual will in self-cure. Other examples of the supercrip narrative include the stories of Rachael Scdoris, the first blind woman to race in the Iditarod, and Aron Ralston, who has continued to climb after the amputation of his arm.Environmental and outdoor recreation media
Disability has often been used as a short-hand in environmental literature for representing distance from nature, in what Sarah Jaquette Ray calls the "disability-equals-alienation-from-nature trope." An example of this trope can be seen in '' Moby Dick'', as Captain Ahab's lost leg symbolizes his exploitative relationship with nature. Additionally, in canonical environmental thought, figures such asSports
Sports are often an area of society in which ableism is evident. In sports media, disabled athletes are often portrayed to be inferior. When disabled athletes are discussed in the media, there is often an emphasis on rehabilitation and the road to recovery, which is inherently a negative view on the disability. Oscar Pistorius is a South African runner who competed in the 2004,Types of ableism
* ''Physical ableism'' is hate or discrimination based on physical disability. * '' Sanism'', or ''mental ableism'', is discrimination based on mental health conditions and cognitive disabilities. * ''Medical ableism'' exists both interpersonally (as healthcare providers can be ableist) and systemically, as decisions determined by medical institutions and caregivers may prevent the exercise of rights from disabled patients like autonomy and making decisions. The medical model of disability can be used to justify medical ableism. * ''Structural ableism'' is failing to provide accessibility tools: ramps, wheelchairs, special education equipments, etc. * ''Cultural ableism'' is behavioural, cultural, attitudinal and social patterns that may discriminate against disabled people, including by denying, dismissing or invisibilising disabled people, and by making accessibility and support unattainable. * ''Internalised ableism'' is a disabled person discriminating against themself and other disabled people by holding the view that disability is something to be ashamed of or something to hide or by refusing accessibility or support. Internalised ableism may be a result of mistreatment of disabled individuals. It is a form of gaslighting from society. * ''Hostile ableism'' is a cultural or social kind of ableism where people get hostile against symptoms of a disability or phenotypes of the disabled person. * ''Benevolent ableism'' is people treat the disabled person well but also like a child (" infantilisation"), instead of considering them as full grown adults. Examples include ignoring disabilities, not respecting the life experiences of the disabled person, microaggression, not considering the opinion of the disabled person in important decision making, invasion of privacy or personal boundaries, forced corrective measures, unwanted help, not listening to disabled people, etc. * ''Ambivalent ableism'' can be characterized as somewhere in between hostile and benevolent ableism.Causes of ableism
Ableism may have evolutionary and existential origins (fear of contagion, fear of death). It may also be rooted in belief systems ( social Darwinism, meritocracy), language (such as "suffering from" disability), or unconscious biases.See also
* Disability abuse * Disability and poverty * Disability hate crime * Disability rights movement *References
Further reading
* * * * * * * * Fandrey, Walter: Krüppel, Idioten, Irre: zur Sozialgeschichte behinderter Menschen in Deutschland (Cripples, idiots, madmen: the social history of disabled people in Germany) * * * * * Schweik, Susan. (2009)External links