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Northwind said:
DaisyJane, you raise a good point about the social-medical models being on a continuum rather than an either/or situation. I do not see how we can put people into a "disability" category. As you say there are many disabilities and many variables within each category. For instance, I have met Kimmio in person and know a little bit about her. I also know someone who has a very similar disability and who is likely a similar age. The two women likely have many similarities, i.e. gait or build, and also likely have many profound differences. If I saw them both walking down the street, I might be tempted to believe their experiences of life are the same and that they are in one group. I would be wrong if I made that assumption.
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Yes. You would be wrong to make that assumption. Maybe we didn't come from the same background, maybe our support systems or lack thereof are different. Maybe our family's attitudes are different, maybe the opportunities we've been given are different. Maybe one of us has other invisible disabilities and the other doesn't. You wouldn't be wrong to assume we have both at some point experienced systemic or attitudinal barriers - even such as the assumption you and others would be tempted to make when seeing us walk down the street. That is also a barrier.
 
DaisyJane said:
Of course they do. Again, no argument. But what you can't say is that your experiences count more than others' experiences or ideas. You also can't say that academic discourse, or education, is less important then the lived-experience. You've been spouting academic references all thread when you want to support your argument and ignoring it when it makes sense for you.

I am a huge advocate for the radical inclusion of the lived experiences of people with disabilities in academic circles and in all forms of research. However, what I have learned through this experience is that there are a range of experiences and voices. Disabilities are a very, very diverse experience and espousing one unifying "narrative" of disability is simply unhelpful.

No argument that the social model of disability is important and very relevant. It just isn't the unifying narrative of disability.
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The unifying experience - what makes disability disability, is the experience of discrimination. Impairments differ. Socioeconomic backgrounds differ.
 
Academic discourse is less important than a person's lived experience. No question. Academic discourse is there to explain the lived experience, in some cases bypasses the lived experience and puts it into labels and boxes to support academia itself but not the person wearing the labels and put into the boxes. Academia is not the lived experience itself - hopefully it can help make the lived experience better, but not without starting with the voices of those living the experiences.
 
ChemGal said:
How do you explain the disabilities that are a result of an impairment, and not a social barrier?
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Impairments are a result of impairment. Disabilities are a result of an impairment faced with a social or environmental barrier. Disability is in society. Impairment is with the person. Just because things like the tax credit forms use the word disability to have a person justify how physically or mentally impaired they are - and ignores the systemic factors (including the form itself), factors that are part of why they need the credit, doesn't make it the current definition. They are using an outdated model.
 
Kimmio said:
Impairments are a result of impairment. Disabilities are a result of an impairment faced with a social or environmental barrier. Disability is in society. Impairment is with the person. Just because things like the tax credit forms use the word disability to have a person justify how physically or mentally impaired they are - and ignores the systemic factors (including the form itself), factors that are part of why they need the credit, doesn't make it the current definition. They are using an outdated model.
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Explain that with my earlier example. What do you call that? It isn't an impairment.
 
Kimmio said:
Your first question. It may or may not be about oppression. All PWDs experience systemic impression though because the 'norm' they have to keep up with is the able bodies norm. Some successfully do that but not without barriers. Statistically, more PWDs now have post secondary education. But, also statistically, drastically more PWDs are also not attached to the labour force than people without disabilities.
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So, are you including ALL PWDs in this statement, even the people who are actually not employable. A person can choose whether or not to keep up with norms and expectations. What if the person is just not suited to whatever they have failed at. I am reminded of my friend who would immediately assume the door didn't open because she wasn't strong enough to open it and wouldn't try another way. Sometimes it would have opened had she tried a different method.

People with disabilities can overcome barriers to succeed but the question should be why should they have to overcome barriers at all? Why are there barriers?
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There are significantly fewer barriers than there were when I was growing up. Of course there is still room for improvement. We all face barriers of some sort. Should we have all our barriers removed and have easy paths in life? (I've said a variation of this already.....)
 
Kimmio said:
Yes. You would be wrong to make that assumption. Maybe we didn't come from the same background, maybe our support systems or lack thereof are different. Maybe our family's attitudes are different, maybe the opportunities we've been given are different. Maybe one of us has other invisible disabilities and the other doesn't. You wouldn't be wrong to assume we have both at some point experienced systemic or attitudinal barriers - even such as the assumption you and others would be tempted to make when seeing us walk down the street. That is also a barrier.
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For the record I try not to make assumptions. My point was that we cannot paint all PWDs with the same brush.....
 
Northwind said:
So, are you including ALL PWDs in this statement, even the people who are actually not employable. A person can choose whether or not to keep up with norms and expectations. What if the person is just not suited to whatever they have failed at. I am reminded of my friend who would immediately assume the door didn't open because she wasn't strong enough to open it and wouldn't try another way. Sometimes it would have opened had she tried a different method.



There are significantly fewer barriers than there were when I was growing up. Of course there is still room for improvement. We all face barriers of some sort. Should we have all our barriers removed and have easy paths in life? (I've said a variation of this already.....)
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Are they not suited because the establishment won't budge on norms and expectations? Are they not suited because of attitudes about what is 'suitable' needs to change - or is it that they absolutely aren't suited to it? I mean if we went with normative able bodies expectations about how things should be done PWDs wouldn't be suited to anything. That used to be the view. The disability rights movement changed that but still has a ways to go. And, yet, people are trying to take that away and stall that progress from going further by again making 'expert' and medical views priority. What that does is it negates that there is an 'other way' that might not be the standard able-bodied way. It stomps down the will for another way. It reinforces even in small ways attitudes like that of your friend - she was not strong enough to open the door the way she has been taught she is supposed to - and gives up there. However, things like automatic door openers make it easier for everyone, including her, because she doesn't have to struggle to find a way around a door that wasn't designed for her to open. We need more 'door openers' for the invisible doors.
 
Kimmio said:
Can you give a specific example of what you think is a disability because of impairment but without social/ attitudinal, evironmental or systemic barriers?
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From my example, what social/attitudinal or systemic barriers are there? Environmental could be debated, but that's outside the social model.
 
An impairment is an "abnormality" of structure or function within the body that interferes with the ability to perform specific activities. For example, spasticity that interferes with walking. Within the WHO model disability, then, is the inability to access something because of barriers in the community (attitudinal, environmental, etc.).

However, the social model essentially supports the notion that all limits for people with disabilities stem from the environment (broadly speaking), which is not supportable. Limits and suffering also stem from the body and no amount of social accessibility will ameliorate that despite what Kimmio asserts.

As I have said. The social model of disability is important. It just isn't the universal story of disabilities.
 
Kimmio said:
Are they not suited because the establishment won't budge on norms and expectations? Are they not suited because of attitudes about what is 'suitable' needs to change - or is it that they absolutely aren't suited to it? I mean if we went with normative able bodies expectations about how things should be done PWDs wouldn't be suited to anything. That used to be the view. The disability rights movement changed that but still has a ways to go. And, yet, people are trying to take that away and stall that progress from going further by again making 'expert' and medical views priority. What that does is it negates that there is an 'other way' that might not be the standard able-bodied way. It stomps down the will for another way. It reinforces even in small ways attitudes like that of your friend - she was not strong enough to open the door the way she has been taught she is supposed to - and gives up there. However, things like automatic door openers make it easier for everyone, including her, because she doesn't have to struggle to find a way around a door that wasn't designed for her to open. We need more 'door openers' for the invisible doors.
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Okay, I need to clarify again. When I say not suited, I mean not suited. I mean physically unable to work for some reason.

I used my friend as an example not to suggest I had a belief in how she is "supposed" to open the door. I brought it up to show how she self-limited that time. She was perfectly capable of opening the door. It was the door to her apartment. She gave up quickly because it didn't occur to her that there might be another reason that the door did not open. In this case I believe she had just not inserted the key fully.....as any person might do on occasion. Her abilities have deteriorated since that time and she has many things that she can use so she can live independently. Something as simple as a number pad instead of a key, a door handle instead of a door knob, a modified bathroom, and grabbers make her life a lot easier.
 
I think there are a lot more people who could work at something meaningful - a means to alleviating the poverty that restricts them from other aspects of inclusion (if pay was adjusted to accommodate difference especially) - if there were more opportunities to customize their employment so that it works for them. The marketplace - the workforce in general - is hostile to this though. Units of production and time is money and all that - values in society that hurt people with disabilities and keep them poor.

There are some people who can't work at all (not cases that they can but are not hired regardless) - and what their barriers are often have to due with bureaucratic red tape in accessing supports - supports that are inadequate and, so, still leave them poor and isolated and unable to be included in other aspects of society. That's discrimination too. Systemically forced poverty.
 
DaisyJane said:
An impairment is an "abnormality" of structure or function within the body that interferes with the ability to perform specific activities. For example, spasticity that interferes with walking. Within the WHO model disability, then, is the inability to access something because of barriers in the community (attitudinal, environmental, etc.).

However, the social model essentially supports the notion that all limits for people with disabilities stem from the environment (broadly speaking), which is not supportable. Limits and suffering also stem from the body and no amount of social accessibility will ameliorate that despite what Kimmio asserts.

As I have said. The social model of disability is important. It just isn't the universal story of disabilities.
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Maybe you could illustrate by giving an example of a simple situation of someone with a disability and then 'parse it' through the different models you gave above?
 
ChemGal said:
Do you really not see that as being a disability?
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I don't see it as any less of a problem for the person experiencing it. I'm not dismissing the difficulty. I am trying to seperate words and their meanings as the social model has done in order to highlight that barriers outside of the person are discriminatory and put them at a disadvantage and that needs to be worked on. If we just equate disability with impairment we don't address how able bodies norms and expectations harm people who struggle to live up to them.
 
Kimmio said:
I think there are a lot more people who could work at something meaningful - a means to alleviating the poverty that restricts them from other aspects of inclusion (if pay was adjusted to accommodate difference especially) - if there were more opportunities to customize their employment so that it works for them. The marketplace - the workforce in general - is hostile to this though. Units of production and time is money and all that - values in society that hurt people with disabilities and keep them poor.

There are some people who can't work at all (not cases that they can but are not hired regardless) - and what their barriers are often have to due with bureaucratic red tape in accessing supports - supports that are inadequate and, so, still leave them poor and isolated and unable to be included in other aspects of society. That's discrimination too. Systemically forced poverty.
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So, it is totally society's fault when someone with a disability is not working?.....
 
Kimmio said:
I don't see it as any less of a problem for the person experiencing it. I'm not dismissing the difficulty. I am trying to seperate words and their meanings as the social model has done in order to highlight that barriers outside of the person are discriminatory and put them at a disadvantage and that needs to be worked on. If we just equate disability with impairment we don't address how able bodies norms and expectations harm people who struggle to live up to them.
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So what do you call it when it's not the impairment itself?
 
Northwind said:
So, it is totally society's fault when someone with a disability is not working?.....
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Given how many PWDs who have post secondary educations who are not attached to the labour force compared to people who do not have disabilities - I would say, mostly. Mostly, because employers don't design their workplaces and their policies and culture with physical and mental differences in mind.

I don't think it is because PWDs are lazy or have nothing to contribute.
 
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