Category: ableism

ableism, Advocacy, PreEmployment Transition Services, Solidarity

Why Does Disability Surprise Us?

In 32 years of living with a visible disability, I’ve learned that my condition brings up many different emotions in people: fear, pity, and awe, to name a few. But there’s another common emotional reaction to disability that, I think, supports all the others: the reaction of surprise.

Sometimes people seem surprised to find us out on the streets. They’re shocked when we disclose our disability in the course of applying for a job, for school admission, or on an online dating site. We are sometimes socialized to pre-warn such people of our disability status before meeting them face-to-face, so we don’t just “surprise them” with the news. When I talk to parents whose infants are newly diagnosed with a disability, one of the most common things they say is “This wasn’t what we expected” or “we needed to change our expectations.”

But, why is this? When statistics show that 15-20% of human beings have a disability, why is encountering someone with a disability, either a stranger or a new addition to your family, so unexpected and surprising?

I don’t know the answer to this. I suspect that, at least in part, our surprise is a consequence of our denial. In some ways, we may be either hard-wired or taught to fear becoming disabled in much the same way we fear our own death. And, if we are motivated to deny the possibility that we might become disabled someday, we may also extend that thinking to the belief that disability in others isn’t all that common. When we encounter a person with a disability, we may be motivated to see that person as an unusual oddity rather than an ordinary human being. This way of thinking makes it more difficult for us to acknowledge the fact that or our own children, employees, friends or romantic partners could be disabled.

As a consequence of this collective surprise, when a disabled person does arrive on the scene, we may end up scrambling and fumbling to accommodate that person. Whereas, if we expected disability from the outset, we could build our systems from the ground up so that they are fully accessible to people of all abilities. For example, all too often employers find themselves having to figure out how to make their company’s computer hardware and software accessible when a blind person is hired, rather than simply buying accessible software ahead of time in the event that a blind employee (or, really, anyone who might not work well with graphics-based technology) is hired in the future.

So, I challenge you not to be surprised by disability. Instead, expect it. Expect that 15-20% of the people you will meet will have some physical or mental difference that affects their ability to access one or more environments. Expect that the people with whom you interact may have differing needs or strengths. Don’t be surprised if someone in your workplace, school, family, social circle, or anywhere else has a disability, perhaps one you didn’t notice at first. Their revelation doesn’t affect their belonging in that social space. It doesn’t mean that their successes are somehow inspiring or unusual. It just means that they may do some things in a different way. Perhaps once we start to think of disability as regular and mundane, we may find it easier to accept those who have disabilities as ordinary people.

ableism, Psychology, research, Solidarity

A Threat in the Air: How Stereotypes Affect Us, and How We Can Rise Above Them

I’m walking home from the bank, along familiar sidewalks. My mind wanders from thoughts of my latest project at work, to the book we’re reading in my book club, to thinking about dinner. It’s my turn to choose the restaurant my husband and I will visit for our weekly date night. Amid my internal debate about whether I feel more like Indian or Chinese food today, I absently round the corner onto my street, a moment too late. My cane misses the street sign and, instead, my head slams into it. I freeze in shock, pressing my fingers on my forehead to extinguish the pain. After a few seconds, the pain subsides, and I keep going.

The physical pain is gone, but a new sequence of thoughts takes hold. I wonder how many people saw me crash into that sign? And what were they thinking? These bystanders had no idea about the paycheck I just put into the bank, no clue about my taste in novels or ethnic cuisine. They only know that I carry a white cane and my eyes dart around. To them, I’m likely just a poor blind lady who ventured out by herself and crashed into a pole. I wouldn’t mind much if they just thought I was a klutz. But the fear that they could blame my accident on blindness cuts to my core. Might my accident confirm their belief that all blind people (or, at least, most of us) are bumbling fools? And, at the root of my worries is a fear that they are right. What if there is something fundamentally wrong with me because I am blind? What if I’ve just been tricking myself into thinking that I have a happy, well-rounded life, when most of society seems set on telling me that my existence is flawed?

As I turn into my driveway, I feel the blood pulsing in my forehead where I bumped it. A welt is forming, a visible mark of shame. I’m relieved to get back home, away from the judgment.

The above scenario is hypothetical, but the thoughts and feelings described are common to many minority groups. It’s a phenomenon known as stereotype threat or, more broadly, “social identity threat.” It’s the fear of being judged based on stereotypes about one’s group—be it one’s race, gender, disability, or other characteristic. The pioneering social psychologist Claude Steeledescribed social identity threat as a “threat in the air” because it can hang over any setting where stereotypes might come into play. It may be felt by visibly disabled people, or by people with invisible disabilities asking for accommodations. It may hang over the female engineering professor who’s the only woman in the department meeting, the African American teenager checking the race box on his SAT, or the low-income person using food stamps at the grocery store. Regardless of the particular identity, social identity threat comprises a series of interrelated worries: Do people think less of me because of their stereotypes? If I mess up on some task, or do something else stereotypical (like getting emotional as a woman), will they judge me even worse? Will my actions or mistakes reflect badly on other people who share my identity (other disabled people, African Americans, etc.)? And, are their stereotypes actually true? Is there something fundamentally wrong with who I am?

Notably, we often aren’t consciously aware of these worries and fears. But, like carbon monoxide poisoning, this “threat in the air” can quietly pull us down.

Social identity threat has a number of negative consequences. The distracting worries it brings can hurt our performance on any kind of situation where we are being evaluated (like a standardized test or a job interview). In fact, research suggests that much of the racial difference in standardized test performance can be linked to social identity threat. The poor performance, in turn, can fuel our fears, leading to a vicious cycle. Another way we might cope with social identity threat is by hiding the identity, if we can. After all, if others don’t know I am blind, they can’t judge me based on that. So, people may choose not to use assistive devices like canes or hearing aids, even if those devices could help them. People with invisible disabilities may not request needed accommodations, or people with low incomes may not ask for financial assistance. Finally, if we have an identity which can’t be hidden, we may just try to avoid the situation by not doing things or going places where we might be stereotyped. The woman may not major in engineering; the African American student may opt for a two-year college that doesn’t require the SAT; and I might get a ride home from the bank, even though I can walk it.

But, there is a positive approach we can take to keep stereotypes and judgments from ruling our lives.

In a separate line of research, Dr. Steele described how humans have a fundamental need for “self-integrity” which he defined as:

a phenomenal experience of the self … as adaptively and morally adequate, that is, competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important outcomes … (Steele, 1988, p. 262).

In other words, we are driven to see ourselves as fundamentally “OK.” Steele theorized that self-integrity is a flexible system. So, when we take a hit in one area, we can preserve our self-integrity by building ourselves up in another area. He called this approach “self-affirmation,” and over the past three decades, researchers have found that simple self-affirmation exercises can reverse the course of social identity threat. The most commonly studied exercise involves having people choose their most important values, such as their friends or family, religious values, having a sense of humor, or being good at art. People then write or talk about why these values are important to them, or specific things they have done to uphold their values. Such exercises can have dramatic benefits for people who are stereotyped; for example, they can boost the grades of minority studentsWhen we think about our values or things we are good at, we may be less bothered by other people’s judgments or stereotypes. We remember that we are fundamentally OK in the end.

It’s important to note that a self-affirmation isn’t just chanting “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough ….” In front of the mirror. In fact, such empty platitudes can backfire. Instead, we can affirm ourselves by reflecting on real, tangible indicators of who we are. For example, before going into an identity-threatening situation or after getting out of one, you might:

  • Think about something nice you’ve done for someone recently.
  • Think of a recent accomplishment you’re proud of.
  • Carry a symbol with you that represents your passions and connections to others. For example: a family picture, a wedding ring, a religious symbol, or button or ribbon from a political group.
  • When you get a written compliment (like a good performance review at work), save it, and review it if you’re feeling down or insecure.
  • Phone a friend. Talk to people who see you positively and love you unconditionally. Processing identity-threatening events with others who share your experiencescan be particularly helpful.
  • Laugh. There’s a reason why TV shows like SNL and John Oliver’s show became more popular among liberal Americans after last year’s election. Humor disarms fear and can counteract physical stress responses.
  • Above all, remember that we can control what we do, even though we can’t control other people’s judgments and stereotypes. We have the power to be the best people we can be.
ableism, research

She Swings! She Hits! She’s Great! She’s…Benched?

“You’re so brave for crossing that street all by yourself!”
“You handle those stairs better than I do!”
“You’re such an inspiration… Sometimes I have trouble motivating myself to go to the gym. But when I see you there, I know I don’t have an excuse.”

These are all real things I have been told, usually by strangers or casual acquaintances. And it’s not limited to one-on-one conversations either: Increasingly, social media is being inundated with “inspiring” images of disabled people going about their normal business, flanked by captions like “What’s your excuse?” or “The only disability is a bad attitude”. The late disability activist Stella Young unaffectionately called these portrayals “inspiration porn”, highlighting the fact that they are often, intentionally or not, created by nondisabled people to make other nondisabled people feel good.

On the surface, the comments and social media memes seem positive. Everyone enjoys a compliment now and then. And, if my actions can inspire another person to improve their life, what’s wrong with that?

Disabled people have found several problems with inspiration porn. It often objectifies the disabled person; it obscures real problems of disability discrimination; it accentuates the “otherness” of disabled people; it undermines disability identity. I agree with all those critiques, but I also want to offer another reason why inspiration porn bothers me, based on social psychology. I call this the “shifting standards” critique.

To illustrate, let’s think about children for a minute. We often get really excited about children’s accomplishments. We might marvel that the infant who breaks 20 pounds is “such a big boy!” or the 2-year-old who can recite the ABC song is “such a smart girl!” Now, when we consider the full spectrum of humanity, a 20-pound human is not all that big, and knowing the ABC song is definitely not the pinnacle of human intelligence. But, when we’re thinking about little kids, we naturally shift our standards. We know that little kids have not yet reached their physical or mental potential. So, we compare their achievements to those of other kids their age, or perhaps to where they were six months ago. There’s no real harm in this, and in fact, exaggerated praise may be a young child’s first reward for practicing a new skill.

But how would it feel, as a grown adult, to be praised for doing something as ordinary as filling out a deposit slip at the bank or parking your car? What if the stranger next to you at the gym, visibly lifting more or running faster than you are, kept going on about how strong you are? Might you wonder if your actions are being viewed through the lens of a shifting standard?

Social psychologist Monica Biernat described “shifting standards” as a discrepancy in social judgment. With shifting standards, we may judge members of some social groups positively on “subjective” metrics-like rating women higher than men on an athleticism scale of 1 to 10-but at the same time, we rate those group members lower on “objective” metrics-like believing that women score lower batting averages than men. What matters most about this, though, is that shifting standards can disguise discrimination against members of some social groups.

In a provocative studysharing the title of this blog post, Biernat and her colleague Theresa Vescio had college students pretend to be managers of a coed softball team. They were given pictures of 18 people, 9 men and 9 women. Their job was to assign 13 of the 18 people to be on their fantasy softball team, and then to pick 10 out of the 13 people to be in the starting lineup and assign batting and fielding positions to each player. The other three players on the team were “benched”. Then, the students looked at each picture again and were asked to imagine how they would respond, as managers, if the player hit a single (i.e., would they do nothing, or would they praise and congratulate the player)?

Consistently, the students (both men and women) chose more men than women to be on their fantasy team, and the women they chose were more likely to be benched. They also put men in more prestigious positions on the field than women. However, along with this, they said they would publicly praise and congratulate more female than male players for hitting a single.

So, what does all this have to do with inspiration porn?

As disabled people, we get benched all the time. Sometimes quite literally (a particular stretch of fourth-grade gym class comes to mind). Other times, the benching occurs in the form of job rejections, housing denials, being passed up for dates, or access refusals. And sometimes we are told, “You’re so independent!…But we think you’d be too much of a liability for this job” or “You’re so pretty…You’re like a sister to me”.

In other words, when I am called inspiring or amazing for doing ordinary things, it makes me question the standards used. Am I being measured against the same standards as my peers? Or am I being praised as amazing or inspiring compared with some stereotypic idea of what blind or disabled people are expected to do? The latter possibility suggests that the person praising me could pbench me, or pass me up for an opportunity that really matters. Ironically, while these “compliments” are often meant to raise disabled people up, their implication of shifting standards may unintentionally drag us down.

So, next time you are feeling impressed or inspired by a disabled person, ask yourself a few questions. First, would the same action still be inspiring if this person were nondisabled? And second, is what this person is doing impressive enough that you’d pay your own money for it? For example, if you’re inspired by watching a disabled person walking their dog in the park, would you feel comfortable hiring them to pet-sit for you?

If your answer to either question is “yes”, great! But if your honest answer to both questions is “no”, then you may want to re-examine your standards. Get to know us, read about us, and learn the adapted methods we use to achieve equal results. Perhaps by meeting and interacting with disabled people, you might be surprised by how ordinary and unremarkable life can be for us.

And, to help spread more balanced information about disabilities, check out these tips for creating anti-inspiration porn
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