An electric toothbrush and an escalator are two things that can stop working and still accomplish their original goal.
Ah, wonderful! This post can help me illustrate something I’ve been trying to articulate for awhile: the concept of benign or unintentional abelism.
Escalators and electric toothbrushes are perfect examples of things that many able-bodied people assume exist for their own convenience, and this post is a perfect example of that unconscious assumption.
An escalator that has broken down is still perfectly functional, right?
Well, sure–if you could have used the stairs to begin with.
But for people like me, for whom the escalator was not a convenience but a mobility device, a broken down escalator is not functional.
An electric toothbrush might seem like something that could be just as easily used turned off as turned on, but for someone with Parkinson’s, or any other number of nerve, coordination, or grip issues, the function of the electric toothbrush is a necessary feature, and without it, the task at hand becomes far more arduous (or even impossible).
I’m not angry or trying to point out why this post is “bad” or “wrong”–I’m simply trying to point out that people who assume every time or energy-saving invention was created as a means to help able-bodied people be lazier should consider re-examining those assumptions. It might help you become more compassionate toward your disabled friends and family, or at least more aware of the struggles we face daily.
I’ve had plenty of folks ask for examples of abelism and I am terrible at coming up with them on the spot, so here you go. This is a great one: assuming every modern convenience is only a convenience for everyone, when for some, it is, in fact, a necessity.
dare i say that stuffed animals are one of the single greatest inventions of all time and im thankful every day for the fact that someone thought to make animals but in huggable plush form…..saved me from a lot of bad nights and nightmares as a kid, i love you stuffed animals
You may offer your thanks to Magarete Steiff
She lived in Germany and could be considered as the first person to sew stuffed animals merly for children to play with and to counter the common “hard” toys out of wood or metal wich were popular back then.
There is even so much more to the story, because she was as you can see paraliezed from polio, she couldnt walk or use her right arm, she had to fight all her life just to be accpeted as a human being, she wasnt even allowed to sit in the front row of church in her home village and had a pretty abusive mother. One time she and her brother almost drowned but the townpeople only attempted to save her brother because he was healty. Her father saved her from drowning in last minute.
Only her father and brother stood behind her, still she learned to accept her faith and make the best out of it. After a failed operation she said she had gone around living this way anyways. She started to sew, more importantly she started to sew with a sewing machine wich was realy new at this time. People would not buy from her at first but then she made a realy beautyfull dress for her best friend and suddenly everyone was crazy for her work.
Then she started to sew little elephants as pincushions, but when she attempted to sell them around christmas she quickly realized that for one children were crazy for them and wanted them as toys and also. this was what she wanted to do, bringing happiness to kids.
She expanded futher and gave work to over 20 women as sewers in her factory, her brother helped her to do so, and she started producing stuffed animals of all kinds (almost) their trademark was a button sewed into every anmals ear. It still is to this day.
Whit the economy crisis her factory, and she almost lost it, she already couldnt pay her workers, he factory was about to be forceclosed and the last hope was a toy fair they would attend,
and then she had an idea, she sewed a bear, the very first stuffed toy bear there was, with moveable head and limbs and realy soft fur and glass eyes, it was beautyfull, but at the toyfair most people thoght it was to expensive
most people because one american buyer fell in love with the bears, he bought them all and he ordered 3000 more, it saved the factory
you may ask why would anyone need 3000 stuffed toy bears easy, to support and
advertise the candidacy of
Theodore Roosevelt as the U.S. president, trough that the toy bear invented by Magarete Steiff became well known as the
Teddy Bear
<3
Disability history matters!
The fact that she faced so much ableism and discrimination in her life was indeed sad (and infuriating!) – and that may be the reaction of many abled people when they hear her story (the poor disabled little girl).
But the fact that she survived, and innovated, and brought modern machines to her hometown, and advocated for herself, and brought joy to so many people, in spite of that discrimination
(and I do mean “spite”)
is not sad at all.
It’s downright victorious!
I owe this woman so much joy thay my stuffies have brought me QwQ, I love her <3
I don’t get seasonal depression, I just get slightly sleepier and more irritable and mopey when I don’t get any sunlight, but when I said this to my doctor she was like “you should still get a lightbox” and I did and now I have way more energy.
The moral of the story is, if you spend time thinking to yourself “well I don’t actually have [diagnosable problem], I have [milder version that I can just ignore]”, you could instead of just ignoring it get the accommodation for the problem and see if it improves your life. I do not expect to remember this next time I “don’t actually have the real problem”, but maybe eventually I will learn.
We treat accommodations like something that you can only have if you’re really really desperately suffering and cannot function at all without them, but that’s… really really not the case. Or at least it shouldn’t be.
Not to uuuhhh highjack this post, but I have some experience with this. Not only does it corroborate the above but I have found that even you don’t have any need for whatever accommodation that also shouldn’t bar you from getting one if you just…
want it
see years ago my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, and as happens with progressing cancer her mobility was drastically reduced. To help combat this and allow her to retain independence at home Papa (my grandfather) got a shower chair. This is about as self-descriptive as it can get, it is a chair made of metal and plastic that sits in your shower or bathtub. I’m sure those with physical disabilities are already quite familiar with them, for those of you that aren’t just google it.
Eventually my grandmother passed. A couple years after my dad had to stay at Papa’s house for a couple weeks, for his own medical reasons. While there he discovered that Papa had kept the chair. And while Papa was old he was hardly infirm, he didn’t use a cane or have any severe mobility issues. Certainly none that would have affected his ability to stand in the shower. The conversation went more or less as such:
Dad: Why they hell did you keep the shower chair, dad? You don’t need it
Papa: Kevin, you wait until you use it. Then you’ll know why I kept it.
My dad was disbelieving tbh, to him chairs in showers when you don’t need them was a thing that like. Lazy rich people had. wtf could be so great about being able to sit in the shower? Why would an able-bodied person even need to? it’s a fucking shower? wash urself and then get out. Then he used the chair, and according to him it was like he’d had a proper religious revelation. Shortly after his return home (tbh the amount of time it took for him to take a shower sans chair) my dad went out and bought a shower chair.
The ensuing conversation with my mother went as such:
Mom: Kevin why did you buy that? We don’t need it!
Dad: Just use it once, this will change your life.
And it did. After using the chair for the first time my mom straight up wanted to know why they had never thought to get a chair for the shower before. Ever since we have had a chair in the shower.
It has proven itself invaluable.
Exhausted but covered in grime from yardwork so you HAVE to wash before doing anything else? shower chair
Don’t have the spoons to stand in the shower? shower chair
Leg/hip/back injury slowly getting worse over time making standing for long periods a difficult matter? shower chair
Home from work and just want to shower but your feet are killing you? shower chair
can’t keep your balance when masturbating in the shower? shower chair
want to write fic in ur head without your feet starting to hurt because you maybe spent a little too long standing there in spray? shower chair
disassociating? shower chair
gotta shave your legs? shower chair
crying because you’ve now realized how much easier being able to sit down and prop up a leg makes shaving while in the shower? shower chair
I have no current mobility issues, and yet if I had to move house tomorrow a shower chair of my own would be one of the first things I purchase for my own home.
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of “this could make my life easier but do I really need it?” And y’know what maybe you don’t need it. Maybe you don’t need that accommodation, but maybe it would make your life easier anyway. When it comes to things that you keep in your home for personal use does it really matter? Besides there is always the very real chance that buying it now, when you don’t’ need it but can afford it, will save your ass down the line when you suddenly do desperately need it.
Normalize the accommodation so that the stigma behind not using it is eroded.
This week, the Office for National Statistics has added ready-made mashed potato to the UK’s official shopping basket, which it uses to measure inflation, and people are up in arms. Who buys a pre-chopped onion that costs three times as much as a whole one? How lazy do you have to be to choose a frozen omelette over a couple of eggs?
These kinds of convenience foods are an easy target. But for the 13.3 million people in Britain with disabilities – and those living with arthritis, chronic illness, recovering from injury or surgery, or undergoing cancer treatment – convenience foods aren’t just convenient: they are a lifeline.
This is an issue close to my heart. I’m a professional cook, but I also have a chronic pain condition, and there are occasions when I can’t even hold a knife. In times like those, I’m never going to opt for the impenetrable whole butternut squash over one that has already been diced for me.
