Y’all realize poor eyesight (aka needing glasses) is an actual disability right?
Its simply one our society has normalized and made accommodations for. Its one you can function with at virtually no impairment for most because its easy to get glasses/contacts and enough people need them that we’re taken into account.
People laugh at the concept of needing glasses being a disability, but that’s because its become the standard to see disabilities only as things extremely difficult and unbearable to live with, or things that aren’t for “normal people.”
That’s wrong. How life is for people with glasses is how life should be for people with any other kind of disability – normalized, unstigmatized, unquestioned, accommodated, with resources made available.
It should be just as easy for someone in a wheelchair to have access to things that make life functionally indifferent from people without wheelchairs – just like living with glasses is for most.
Society needs a redefinition of disability – or, scratch that, they need reorienting on what “disabled” looks like and how life should be for disabled people. Being disabled isn’t defined by its hardships – it is a state of being that is unfortunately 99% accompanied by ridiculous hardships because society refuses to accommodate and still thinks they don’t have to because to them, its a simple fact that “being disabled is hard.” Why should they change?
A disability is something that leaves you at a disadvantage, in pain, non functional, etc. without some sort of aid.
Without glasses I could not drive or work, and it would severely impair my ability to even be social. You know what else does that? My other disabilities that are considered “real disabilities.”
You know what aid I have ease of access for? The thing not considered a disability. And I’d bet money that’s a direct reason why.
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All of this.i will say, that while glasses are certainly normalized, cost=wise there’s definitely barriers to getting tests, different kinds of prescriptions, quality of frames and lenses etc. that being said, everything else is spot on.
^^ op is extremely correct and so is this comment. a significant number of latinx and black children in impoverished school districts don’t have the funds to pay for tests and prescriptions. this has turned out to be one major factor that affects these students’ performance in school and, more importantly, their ability to learn in a classroom they cannot see well in. it’s not just abt normalizing accommodations, but making them accessible to everyone!
Another thing with how normalised glasses are: no one thinks twice about people only needing them sometimes, or only needing a very weak prescription. But someone who only needs a wheelchair sometimes? Or who could technically manage without one but everything would be harder? That’s controversial. It needs to not be controversial.