As our class discussed race, gender, and social constructions, I thought about other ways we categorize people to make sense of the world. Our constant need to categorize and group individuals can often be damaging, turning into stereotyping and eventually into profiling. This type of categorizing individuals is especially prevalent when it comes to individuals with disabilities, oftentimes creating two distinct categories: those with disabilities and those with abilities. While physical differences and health statuses are physical, the way in which we attach meaning to these differences is socially constructed. These meanings change amongst time and place. Those with different medical conditions and needs do not fit the expectations of what an individual is supposed to be.
Quick judgements are often made regarding people with disabilities or different medical conditions. Even the word disability points to how society views and understands those with differing physical abilities. In the United States, those with disabilities are often viewed as inferior. People with visible disabilities are assumed to be less competent academically and professionally and invisible disabilities are often not recognized as a “real” disability. As a person living with Type 1 diabetes, I have had some insight into disabilities and stereotyping. While I do not like to label diabetes as a disability, I know I have certain needs and differences in living my everyday life, making accommodations sometimes necessary. People living with Type 1 diabetes are limited from serving in the military and from a career as a pilot and in the past, many jobs discriminated against those with Type 1 diabetes due to fear of blood sugar issues that might arise. Blood sugars can negatively impact performance and success if not properly controlled, and this chronic condition can often be unpredictable.
Since my diagnosis, I have seen the common, uninformed stereotypes surrounding diabetes. Much of American or Western society associates diabetes with a donut or a Big Mac and fails to understand the complexities of the condition. Diabetes is often the punchline for comedy skits or social media posts. Diabetes has been given a social definition and this has been upheld by the media industry.
The Deaf community is another example of how disability is understood and labeled in society. It is also a great example of how social constructions are contested, institutionalized, and are an ongoing process. For a while, hearing impaired was a popular term, especially by politicians, as it was deemed “politically correct”. However, the Deaf community contested this label and overwhelmingly prefers the term deaf or hard of hearing. In fact, many people born deaf do not like to think of themselves as disabled, but instead think of themselves in terms of their own unique minority, distinguished by language and culture.
It is important to include disability in the conversation of social constructions and be aware of how social definitions of physical differences impact the way we treat and respond to others. The understanding of disability is constantly changing and dynamic. Different cultures and groups of people respond differently to those with differing abilities. By looking at how disability is socially constructed, we can be more receptive and respectful of people’s unique needs and abilities.
Couser, T. (2008). Disability as diversity: a difference with a difference. Retrieved from https://periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/desterro/article/download/7325/6748
National Association of the Death. (2019). Community and culture- frequently asked questions. Retrieved from https://www.nad.org/resources/american-sign-language/community-and-culture-frequently-asked-questions/
Beyond Type 1. (2017). Bad diabetes jokes wall of shame. Retrieved from
While I appreciate your response and the notion that there are identities outside of race and gender that can be viewed as social constructions, I think we need to be careful not to lose the material in our conversations. To live as a member of a non-normative group, whether it be a marginalized race, gender, ability, class, sexuality, or some combination thereof, carries with it a lived embodied experience. As we have discussed, space has both a material and constructed component. Thinking of the body as space, bodies too are both subject to constructions of “history, space, text, representation, and discourse” and a material reality (Johnston and Longhurst, 2010, p. 22). As you mentioned, as someone with a chronic illness, you have different material needs than a non-chronically ill person (i.e. need for medication), but your illness is also subjected to stereotypes that are more a consequence of a social construction than a material need. But, I think in acknowledging and shifting the conversation around social constructions, we need to be careful not to lose sight of the fact that differences related to ability, (as well as race, class, gender, sexuality, etc.) do still have some material difference from the normative experience. I would argue, the discomfort that many have with the label disabled/disability is more a consequence of the social constructions that you point to than the material reality of disability, and I think by emphasizing disability as an embodied experience we can emphasize the different kinds of lived experiences individuals who actually make up that social category have and combat some of the social stigma.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the post, Emma, and also for Katie's comment. I understand Emma was referring more to the social stigmatization of any kind against the perceived disabled, but precisely what Katie highlights is that sometimes we may not notice that we can tend to exclude the physicality of the disabled conditions in their relationship with space (public). As the Philo reading points out, this seems to be a consequence of consciously (or not) trying to avoid stigmatizing disabled bodies as it was done by institutions (such as the UN) in the 80s, that had a ‘medical model’ of approaching the disabled as ‘damaged’ bodies or minds. Dialectically, after the critiques this approach received from scholars in the 90s, the ‘social model’ replaced the medical model, where the disabled were seen socially as symbol of ‘tragedy’ and ‘heroism’; and the consequences of the social model taken to extremes were that the physicality of the disabled were somewhat excluded in what Philo points as the
ReplyDelete'disembodiment approach' (Pinder, 1995), an approach that excludes the body and its space needs, negotiations, and pains. So now we are going back to rescue the material aspect to see the disabled in a more integral approach of both the social and the physical without stereotyping or stigmatizing.
I think it's a very fine line we have all walked as society (and still are) through different phases, to learn and understand and practice avoiding being even unintentionally condescending and being authentically empathic. Like Philo proposes in her paper, we need to rethink ‘disability geography’ in a way that we do not ignore the suffering (physical or emotional) but we don’t make it ‘solely about tragedy’, but rather about empathizing. Which means looking at disabilities in relation to the social, the physical, and the emotional spaces they occupy and transit. This requires what the reading calls as ‘a conversation’ of all bodies experiences in relation to space, so the disabled are not thought of as people who feel they have to compensate or ‘imitate normality’ but as people who just go around differently, do things differently than others.
This is why I agree with Emma when you talk about the importance of including “disability in the conversation of social constructions and be aware of how social definitions of physical differences impact the way we treat and respond to others.” As someone acknowledging a disability, I empathize with your feelings of being stereotyped or stigmatized, and I believe a very interesting way to look at why non-disabled people do this is to look into the Hexis (Bourdieu) concept mentioned in the Mc Dowell reading. He talks about how people make distinctions about others based on ‘bodily posture, gesture. facial expressions, speaking voice’ etc. Although Bourdieu refers to class distinctions, I think this can be extrapolated to discrimination distinctions in general, in this case against the disabled, since he offers this concept to understand the relationship between the ‘social world and its inscription on bodies’. In this sense, the non-disabled may - even unconsciously or by social programming- view the disabled as ‘not normal’ or like Philo points out, as ‘sub-human’, ‘pre-human’, ‘freak’, etc. All of these notions (socially constructed from the notion of the ‘normalized non-disabled bodies’ as natural) are also very much at play in Western capitalist societies where the ones not going at capitalism pace -because of their different mobility in space and time - are classified as a burden, or less productive or even non productive, since in this capitalist framework a more costly investment has to be put into them for them to ‘catch up’ with the dominant pace of capitalism production and efficiency expectations. All those type of dehumanization are the ones to be aware of and combat, I believe.
Thank you for sharing, Emma.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do not have diabetes, I have several medical conditions: severe allergies, Harrington rods, and an autoimmune disorder that often results in lymphoma. I am not quick to disclose such information because of others’ reactions, often being shocked that I “act normal” or “seem fine.” Such responses notate a disregard for conditions below the surface, having to be outwardly apparent in order to be deemed a disability. Further, upon listing all my conditions, I’m often told I should be “put in a bubble.” This not only suggests fragility but a subservient, secluded position. Instead of being a part of a landscape, I’d have my own that visibly contrasts with that of the larger environment.
Universal design, then, is called into question. I acknowledge the latter is a whole separate topic in itself, but it’s something I find myself pondering: who are we designing for and what does that say about the underlying values? As an abled-bodied person, navigating landscapes is much easier than someone who endures mobility limitations. However, I have to be cognizant of ingredient labels and food proximities as nuts—peanuts and tree nuts—are an airborne allergy; I cannot be in the same room without breaking out in hives and potentially going into anaphylaxis. Airports and amusement parks are also proceeded with caution as my spinal fusion can either set off security devices or make a joyous ride painful.
I agree, disability must be in conversations about social constructions not only for awareness regarding individuals, but how they inform and are informed by subsequent spaces. Like in the Judith Butler video, disability is the human site of interdependence. Expected uses of body parts and spaces, for instance, are apparent when norms are violated. If one picks up a coffee with his/her/their mouth instead of hand—even though it’s easier for the individual—it would most likely be met with glares and comments of disapproval or concern. Therefore, as Butler claims, physical access is social access.