Comment Paper for Week #6

Barron, Karin (1997). The Bumpy Road to Womanhood. pp 223-239 in Disability & Society, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Sweden)
Priestly, Mark (1963). Disability: A Life Course Approach. pp.88-115. (Cambridge, UK : Polity)

The topic of this weeks reading was ‘disabled youth’. I think that this weeks articles by Barron and Priestly complemented each other very well. It was nice to read Barron’s stories of personal experiences of disabled youthful women, and then to relate their life experiences to Priestly’s literature.
Although the issue of gender was of bigger emphasis in Barron’s article it was brought up in both. Gender is a part of who we are and our everyday life, but we often fail to look at it critically to determine how it may impact our lives on a larger, social, scale. A very interesting connection between both articles is the reference to women with a disability being viewed differently than men with a disability because they are women. I found it very disturbing when Barron (1997:229) spoke about how some male teachers may ask young female students with a disability if they need help using the washroom. Before reading the rest of her explanation I never would have thought about how this could be a form of sexual harassment or abuse. Even if a young girl were disabled, it would not necessarily mean that she needed help using the bathroom, and if she did need help using the bathroom, there would always be a female teacher around to help her. Therefore, it is very out of line for a male teacher to be asking that. In Priestly’s article he quotes a newspaper interview that stated:
“When you look at the fact that there are so few prosecutions and the law doesn’t provide an effective deterrent, I think society is saying that these acts are trivial compared with those carried out on non-disabled people. You are effectively saying that they should not be treated as seriously.” (Priestly 1963: 100)
When I analyze these parts of both articles I come to the understanding that if an able bodied girl was asked if she needed help using the bathroom by a male teacher and reported it, action would probably be taken against the teacher. But, if a disabled girl was asked if she needed helping using the bathroom by a male teacher and reported it, chances are that nothing would be done because she would be viewed as needing help anyways.
Another topic from both articles and talked about in class was the view of disabled youth as being asexual, not normal, and also the sterilization of disabled people. Barron’s article talked less about asexuality then I thought it would considering Priestly’s article focuses a lot on it and therefore you would expect that topic would come out in her interviews with the six women. But, what I did find interesting from her article was the point that from a young age, girls with a disability are focusing on their physical appearance, but in a different way then able-bodied youth. Barron states that, “the everyday lives of physically disabled girls/women involve a great deal of physiotherapy treatment which aims at ‘correcting’ and ‘making whole’ their bodies. (Barron 1997:230) This is a hard issue for me to deal with being able-bodied myself. I personally think that the physiotherapy and other treatment should happen if necessary for the functioning of the person, but it is awful to think that a young girl might feel like they are being ‘corrected’ because of this.
Sterilization is an awful topic. Although much could be said about this, I would like to focus on two quotations from Priestly, the first stating, “as the proceeding examples show, past and present practices have been highly gendered, and are most likely to involve young women with the label of learning difficulties.” (Priestly 1963: 103) The second states: “Thus, Waxman Fiduccia (2000) concludes that medio-legal intervention in disabled people’s sexuality seeks to control the fertility of ‘dangerous’ women but to restore the potency of the ‘damaged male’”. (Priestly 1963: 103) From these two quotations, the conclusion can be drawn that sterilization was a highly gendered thing, placing more of the discrimination and oppression on disabled women. Although none of the women in Barron’s article had been sterilized, they speak of other people continually telling them that they will not hold a job or get married or have children of their own because of their disability. “Motherhood in our culture is viewed as an essential part of womanhood” (Barron 1997:232) and by telling a woman that they will probably never experience this joy in life because they are disabled is an extremely discriminatory thing to say. I feel as though both of the readings were useful towards my understanding of the oppression youth with a disability face, although I don’t feel as though I gained a better understanding of how to over come these barriers through my readings. The authors may not have wanted to touch on that aspect of it but I feel as though the education of able-bodied people and of caregivers of youth with disabilities may lessen some of the oppression they face. I also think, after reading Barron’s article, that youth who do have an impairment or disability need to work together on all aspects of their life to make their voice heard, not just when cut backs in funding are made or when a larger issue comes up. (Barron 1997: 226) If it is easier for a youth with a disability to have his or her voice heard when they are part of a group or organization then that is something that they should be doing to counter more of their oppression.

Week 6: Disabled Youth

Karin, Barron (1997). “The Bumpy Road to Womanhood.” Disability and Society 12 (2): 223-239

Mark Priestley, Ch. 4 of Disability: A Life Course Approach

In the assigned readings they discuss the importance of the transition period between childhood and adulthood. As young children, we are oblivious to the world around us without a care in the world, but as we grow and interact with other people, we can see the changes that can or may occur throughout this time change. These next two articles compare and contrast disabled and non-disabled youth, reasoning around the unique transitions they experience based on their gender, age and cultural affects. It is evident in the readings that many societal constraints subject youth and women to certain stereotypes depending on the severity of their impairments.

The first article, The Bumpy Road to Womanhood by Karin Barron, describes the knowledge and experiences of young disabled women from Sweden. In the Swedish society they acquired a realistic approach in regards to disabled youth; they are expected to accept their impairments and remain independent. This reiterates the idea of independency and dependencies by showing young disabled women trying to live in a society that claims to be independent. Not only do they have to be independent they must accept their disabilities, and after all said and done they are described by society only as that, disabled, rather than a certain sex. I found this to be a very negative attribution, this not only devalues disabled individuals, but also this diminishes women as a sex. In Sweden’s society, much like Western society, autonomy for young disabled women is non-existent. These young women have to act together, ‘collective action’, and form as one to be listened to by decision makers in order to ensure certain rights. A profound example of collective action that I can think of is the Women’s Rights Movement; where many women collaborated together in order to reach an agreement for their rights and rights for all women. All the young women in the article are doing just that, trying to attain autonomy through civil disobedience, as one they are refusing to obey certain laws and avoiding certain stereotypes of not only women, but those with disabilities as well. Most women have a common dream of womanhood, growing up, getting married and having a family. We can see how society makes it difficult for these individuals to accomplish such a goal by labelling them as asexual. If an individual has a disability does that deny them the right to be sexual? Certainly not!
In this article, the body and youthfulness are both used to describe the norm of what is ‘acceptable’ socially. If the body is youthful it is accepted as beautiful according to society. According to the norm, people want to be ‘normal’ and have the ‘perfect’ body. This is not only evident by diets, but others workout on a daily basis in order to attain the ‘perfect’ body and to be physically attractive in a youthful image. I wonder how interesting life would be if we were all ‘perfect’ with nothing to differentiate between each other. This article describes another example where those involved in physiotherapy treatment, individuals with disabilities and their body are aimed to be ‘corrected’ in order to be ‘normal’ and accepted. These norms are a way of controlling these young women and setting the norm for femininity. Everyone has something different about them, whether its hair, weight, height, age etc. The best thing about difference is that it makes the world interesting and helps us learn about all facets of life.

In chapter 4, Mark Priestley’s Disability and Youth, discusses issues regarding age, cultural space and the body, much like the first reading. Many of the same issues from the first reading are tied together through similar ideas here. Agreeing to Karin Barron’s article, Priestley emphasizes the identity of youth and how it is distinguished by disability culture, offering the affirmation of identities. In other words, Priestley explains how society views individual’s disabilities as who they are, personally, not based on their personality but their disability. Our culture these days puts too much emphasis on individualism and independency, and this idea reiterates itself throughout the articles. We can see this in our society, where youth are living at home longer so they can continue to go to school and support themselves, eventually to attain a career to support oneself, a family and become independent. As read in the previous reading, the body is an important marker of ‘beauty’ and social norms. Priestley describes the culture and social structure of the body as a marker of youth. For instance, there are many forms of eating disorders and diets used to strive to attain the perfect body by means of purging and/or fasting. On the other hand, there are males trying to exercise and lift weights to have defined muscles and feel socially accepted as ‘attractive’. This can explain a high social value attributed to youthfulness through fitness and beauty. However, the myth of bodily perfection makes individuals with impairments seem of lesser value and unable to achieve ‘normality’ and ‘beauty’ because there body is not ‘perfect’ in societies standards. As we discussed in the first reading, we are introduced to the idea of young disabled women being asexual and the unfair recognition as non-sexual beings. Society is too concerned with eugenics and making the perfect human race, for example, sterilization was a way to keep disabled females from being sexual or reproductive. Still today, these young girls are denied their right to express sexuality because they are assumed to be at risk for sexual threats, more so than non disabled young women. A perfectly healthy woman can have a baby with the chances of the baby being born unhealthy; similarly, disabled women have the same probabilities. Everyone at any given time is at risk for threats no matter their sex, race or age; therefore the decision for women to have children should be made by the women themselves. This is very discouraging, as sexuality is very healthy and anyone denied the right to be a sexual being is denied their freedom of rights. Similar to the first study, the UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for People with Disabilities, led by disabled women and activists as a group worked as one on the emergence of a “sexuality and disability movement”. This movement offers a change in the lifestyles of individuals with disabilities and their ability to attain acceptance from others.
We can see how independency repeats itself within the two readings in a variety of factors. Managing the transition period between childhood and adulthood is essential to see what kind of adulthood young disabled people are prepared for. Throughout both readings we understand the structural categories of both youth and disabled women and what they have to endure throughout the transition period into adulthood are based on their ability to conform to the norm of society and become independent. Society could make it easier for young women to live in an environment and conform to others if we can all accept differences and the importance of each imperfection.

What does that kid feel like knowing that his mother wished she could have prevented him being the way he is?

Week 5: Issues in Bioethics and Human Rights

Adrienne Asch, “Disability, Bioethics, and Human Rights” Readings Package #13
Mark Priestley, Chapter 2 of Disability: A Life Course Approach


Would you terminate a child if you found out from prenatal screening that he/she has Down syndrome or an imperfection? “Is it appropriate to use technology and skill to sustain the life of someone who would have a disability”?

The two articles this week pertain to the same topic: bioethics and eugenics. Both articles revolve around the medical perspective. The medical perspective in the first article by Asch revolves around the issue of bioethics. The field of bioethics looks at health and illness, and what constitutes a life worth living. Asch also looks at how prenatal testing and selective abortion is trying to slowly decrease the number of individuals with disabilities or impairments in our society.

“Bioethics has supported claims that life with disability should not be maintained”. An example of this would be family members making the decision for those with a disability, or mental impairment, who want to end their life or want physician assistance in dying. Another example of this would be prenatal testing and selective abortion. Going back to the question of whether you would terminate a child if you found out he/she had an imperfection, what would be the determining factors? It is not only a personal choice a couple faces, but one that is mainly influenced by the public. Asch states, health care professionals and theorists, believe prenatal testing, and if detection is found, will “promote family well-being and the public health”. Personally, it seems the medical perspective is trying to slowly eliminate the number of people with disabilities in society because of the stigma and stereotypes that go along with being disabled or impaired. An unborn child, with a disability, should be given the same chance at life as those babies who are conceived to unsuitable parents.

Priestley makes the point that there is also a lot of pressure on mothers to have a “normal baby”. Mothers are “supposed” to have normal children and if they do not produce one, it may seem to the woman that she has failed at child bearing and being a good mother.
Due to prenatal testing, it leads us back to the medical perspective where it has a large influence on reproductive choices. In a way, due to eugenics and prenatal testing, it allows for us to “control” who we want in society. If parents decide not to have their child, due to medical reasoning, would our society be “disabled free”, 50 years from now?

I believe we are “disabled” in one way or another. We all have our own little quirks and weird habits, however, how does this make us seem “normal”, when in reality, we are just the same as the person in a wheelchair. Because our society is focused largely on individuality, it has now become the new conformity. With everyone trying to be different, we are all moving toward similarity because we do not know how to be different.

In the chapter by Priestley, impairment is seen as “undesirable” and the main purpose behind prenatal screening and selective abortion is to reduce the number of children born with disabilities. Terminating a child does not only revolve around the fact that a child has a disability. It also includes social, economic and familial issues.

The direct-action protest group Not Dead Yet, argues singling out those with disabilities or impairments, as people who want to end their lives, is a very narrow minded approach to disability. They believe those who are impaired should end their lives because their lives are “understandable of less value to them and to others…”. Again, it goes to show that society believes this is what the disabled person wants, just because they seem to be living in pain or difficulty. However, “every life has burdens, some of them far worse than disability”.

I found the views of those in Asch’s article to be very negative. Everything surrounding those with a disability has to deal with politics and it shows how strongly society has an effect on parents and their decision to whether or not to keep their child.

I believe the public, society, family units, societal norms all play a large influence on parents who face the decision to terminate their child or not. However, it is up to the parents to decide if they are prepared and ready to have their child face a world of stigma, stereotypes and most of all, a society that is too focused on the able bodied and being “normal”.

Week 4 - The Built Environment as Disabling

French, Sally (1993). What’s so great about independence?, pp 44-48 in John Swain, Vic Finkelstein, Sally French and Mike Oliver (eds.). Disabling Barriers —Enabling Environments (London: Sage).

Gleeson, Brendan (1999). Can technology overcome the disabling city? pp 98-118 in Ruth Butler and Hester Parr (eds.). Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairment and Disability (N.Y.: Routledge).

Imrie, Rob (1998). Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment, pp 129-46 in Tom Shakespeare (ed.). The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives (London, Cassell).

This articles assigned discuss how there is a barrier in society that stops disabled people from moving through life and accomplishing what they need to. They discussed independence and why it is important that we be independent; the different technologies that may/may not benefit disabled people, and how buildings are built with accessibility worked into the building design, all of these are explained in relation to how they affect a disabled person’s life on a day to day basis. The first article What’s so great about independence? discusses how independence is something all disabled people are told to attain, and people assume that a non disabled person in independent. All people are dependent in one way or another no matter age, race or capabilities, an example of this is as a student with no car I rely on the bus to show up and get me to school on time. When a person is pressured to be independent they are also pressured to conform to the norms of society. An example of this would be when my father goes out in public in the summer he likes to wear long pants so that he does not have numerous people gawking at his prosthetic leg, he does not like drawing attention to it and it is still fairly new for him, by covering up his leg he feels normal.

The second article Can technology overcome the disabling city? discusses how people believe that new technologies can cure disabilities, and will help a person become a ‘normal’ member of society, the problem with this idea is many people do not have access to the technologies. The built environment is made to suit the average person; some of the things that cause a disabled person to not access the built environment are broken surfaces that reduce the use of devices, entry into buildings with stairs and manual doors, public transportation, and public information such as signs. An example of this is a hockey rink in Toronto, built within the last 5 years, the arena parking lot had handicap parking, automatic door openers, to get to the doors there was no causing someone in a wheelchair to have to find another way into the building, they could not access the building on their own. This makes a person feel dependent and incapable of completing tasks. If disabled people had proper access to buildings they may have better chances of getting jobs that suit them. Many countries around the world are working to better society and the built environment, New Zealand is being met with a great deal of resistance, and Germany has set an ‘obligation of employers to employ severely disabled persons’.

The third article titled Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment discusses how accessibility for disabled people in public places has became a prominent issue in past decades, not everything in society is adapted so disabled people can access them. Schools for Architects teach the bare minimum about making a building presentable as well as fully accessible. Cities have been built with a certain person in mind and that is the male who is about six feet tall, muscular, and is able bodied both mentally and physically. It is interesting that in Canada where we are supposedly trying to help the disabled access the places they need, and many people are not aware of the term wheelchair accessible. In 2006 my father was looking for an apartment in Toronto that was accessible, because at the time he was in a wheelchair, when I called numerous apartments about accessibility I was met with answers such as “umm . . . yes . . . I think so?”, “what does that mean?”, “well yes but we have two steps into the building”. These people it seems were rarely in contact with disabled people and had a sense of sameness, just as the Architects. There has been a great increase in making the built environment accessible, but there is still plenty to do.

The articles tie in to the topic of independence in our society, disabled people, especially those using a device do not have the ability to access all buildings to complete daily tasks. The articles look at the ways in which an individual is unable to become an active and ‘normal’ member in society. Independence is not possible for people to attain whether they are disabled or non disabled because we all rely on others to help us live our daily lives. Disabled people are no more dependent than non disabled people. These articles support each other and the fact that many places in public are not accessible. Being able to access any building is important to a disabled person because it gives them freedom and many possibilities especially for employment. These articles were very helpful to further my understanding of disability. As a non disabled person I cannot truly feel how a disabled person in society feels when they cannot access a certain building, or how they feel when they ask for assistance. By seeing how society is stuck on the image of the ‘normal’ person, I can see why many people are being left out of this ideal. Now that my father is classified as a disabled person and uses a wheelchair on occasion and a prosthetic leg on most occasions, I am given a better insight to the way disabled people struggle to access basic parts of life that most access easily and take for granted. Companies should be looking to include accessibility when opening a store or make old locations accessible. With much of society being accessible other parts that are not as accessible are trying to lure the disabled in by giving them a device to make shopping easier. Some stores are accessible through the main door and have two levels but no elevator, instead they have a moving sidewalk in this case the store has employees standing at the top and bottom of the escalator to assist people to the upper or lower level, they are not able to access the other half of the store by themselves, which limits their freedom. Accessibility is an issue that needs to be taken more seriously and put as a major political concern.

Leilani Muir

The Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada introduced the Sexual Sterilization Act (1928). This act was to protect the gene pool, allowing the government to sterilize the mentally disabled persons so there would be no offspring created by them for they could only create undesirable children. The eugenicist believed that if these people had children they would inherit their mental illness, criminal behaviours or any other deviant behaviour they might have.
They even believed that they had a higher reproduction rate then the normal person without any physical or mental problems. You might think they thought these people bred like rabbits, how stupid can people be and the sad part of this is there are still people out there that believe that they still should be sterilized.
Some of the five prominent women of Canadian history supported the bill, Emily Murphy, Louise McKinney, Irene Palby, Nellie McClung, who believed that they had to keep the gene pool protected.
Leilani Muir was put into a school for the Mentally Defectives at the age of 11
At the age of 14 (1959) Leilani Muir was sterilized at the consent of the Alberta government. Why was she sterilized at the age of 14 because some of Alberta's finest passed a law to sterilize anyone who they deemed 'not fit' to bear children. She was given an IQ test in which she failed I presume and that gave them enough evidence to proceed with the sterilization of Leilani Muir. A doctor told Leilani that she could bear no children for what they had done to her insides was considered a slaughterhouse. She began a suit against the government in October of 1989, and won her case on January 25th, 1996 on wrongful sterilization and confinement she won $740,000. It took her seven years to get her case awarded this amount. Was she really compensated for all the emotional stress they had put her through. No, for no one can ease the hurt that someone thought her unable to be a mother, or, grandmother. How can anyone compensate for that. There is no real healing here just cheap compensation.
They performed castration and testicular biopsies on men with Downs Syndrome. Why would they do this when they were sterile from birth? I wonder if it was just science intervening and not the fact that these men could not contribute to the next generation.
The Sexual Sterilization Act came into effect in 1928 and was repealed in 1972. It effected the lives of approximately 3,000 people who could not reverse the sterilization. Those whom the prominent people thought to be unfit to have children were immigrants new to the country, women who had no husbands, epileptics, alcoholics, natives and the poor. Today Leilani and others are suing the government for sterilizing them without their knowledge.
Leilani sued the government and won

WEEK 4 COMMENT PAPER

The built environment as disabling

French, S. (1993). What’s So Great About Independence? Disabling Barriers:
Enabling Environments, 45-48.
Gleeson, B. (1999). Can Technology Overcome The Disabling Society?
Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairments and Disability, 98-118.
Imrie, R. (1998). Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment.The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives, 129-146.

Independence is generally something persons with a disability or an impairment desire more than anything else. However, is there such a thing as being too independent? This issue is brought up in many ways in Sally French’s article What’s So Great About Independece? She profoundly describes independence and how too much of it may create such consequences for disabled people such as, restricting their lives rather than enriching them. During her time as an assistant housemother in a residential school for multiple disabled children, she witnessed a young boy trying to remove his socks off for a period of 15 minutes which he was eventually successful in doing so after rubbing his ankles together. She argues how even though independence may be important to most able-bodied persons, it may be an intolerable chore for persons with an impairment. Writers such as Shearer and Sutherland argue that insisting independence for people with an impairment may also be considered as a form of oppression. Since persons with a disability may already be slower than others at completing such tasks, it is nonetheless necessary to prolong their task by expecting them to be fully independent. French also discusses on the topic of technology. She states that even though technology may speed things up for persons with an impairment, it may isolate them as well since they are fully dependent on technology as opposed to asking for assistance and creating interpersonal relationships.

In contrast to the statement which Sally French makes about how technology may reinforce the isolation of persons with a disability, Brendon Gleeson’s article argues that technology may in fact be a cure for their disability as these ‘rehabilitating’ forces will help disabled people overcome the socio-economic ‘handicaps’ they face. Gleeson believes that technological invasion may help persons with a disability become ‘socially accepted’ and may also help turn the disabled person into a ‘normal’ citizen or worker.

Gleeson also argues that the physical layouts of societies discriminates against persons with an impairment as they do not take into consideration their mobility requirements. According to him, there are three answers in which architects do not take into consideration their mobility requirements, which are: the natural limits, the thoughtless design, and the historical-geographic construction. As described in his article, the natural limits and the thoughtless design share the same importance for environmental modifications to buildings and access routes. However, the historical-geographic construction does not agree with relying exclusively on environmental modifications.

Similar to Gleeson’s article, Rob Imrie’s Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment also discusses on the topic of persons with an impairment and how they face many challenges when it comes to their surrounding environments. He argues how most built environments discriminate against persons with an impairment due to the fact that they do not take into consideration bodily differences when they are building their facilities. In his article, he uses the example of clothes retailers and how most of them only have a restricted amounts of changing facilities for people in wheelchairs. Mcglynn and Murrain argue how architects have a restricted understanding of bodily differences and do not consider mobility requirements, which therefore, create an alienating environment for people with impairments. According to Imrie, this type of architecture is also known as a non-contextual architecture, where buildings are strictly built to express function and structure.

I personally believe that environments should be built for both able-bodied persons, as well as persons with impairments. By failing to do so, exclusion and segregation arises, which create an unhealthy, negative surrounding for those with impairments. Fortunately, according to the articles which I’ve read and described briefly up above, there have been an increase of buildings and facilities taking into consideration people’s mobility requirements. Since there has been an increase of buildings taking into consideration people’s mobility requirements as they build their facilities, we are able to observe how many buildings include ramps for persons in a wheelchair, as well as more elevators and handicap bathroom stalls. I believe that our society is on the right path in creating a more inclusive and healthy environment for all, especially for those with impairments, and I strongly hope that our society will continue to evolve into a community where persons with impairments feel socially accepted, just as they should.

Comment Paper for Week 4

French, Sally. (1993). What’s so great about independence? In J. Swain, V. Finkelstein,
S. French and M. Oliver (Eds.), Disabling Barriers: Enabling Environments. (pp.
44-48). London: Sage.
Gleeson, Brendon. (1999). Can Technology Overcome the Disabling City? In R. Butler
and H.Parr (Eds.), Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairment
and Disability. (pp. 98-118). New York: Routledge.
Imrie, Rob. (1998). Oppression, Disability and Access in the Built Environment. In T.
Shakespeare (Ed.), The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives. (pp. 129-
146). London: Cassell.

Independence is usually viewed as being a great and wonderful thing that everyone is suppose to want to have, right? Well that is the case for some of us, but not for everyone. Sally French and Brendan Gleeson discuss how it is the belief of the able-bodied that disabled people want to be independent and that technology helps disabled people to be more independent, and in a way fixes them. Rob Imrie on the other hand discusses disability as a form of oppression in society caused by the structural environment around us. All articles lead to the idea of disability being seen as oppression.
Sally French and Brendan Gleeson both have written about disabled people being fixed and becoming independent due to technology. French, who has a disability says that she “believes that the notion of independence can be taken too far, restricting the lives of disabled people rather than enriching them.” (French 1993: 44) It is my belief that technology has been put into place to help the able-bodied more than the disabled. It is restricting disabled people and causing them to actually take more time to do things. It is a way of the able-bodied to try to make disabled people seem normal by doing things for themselves. French states that “Shearer and Sutherland believe that to insist on independence is a form of oppression. It individualizes disability rather than viewing it in social terms.” (French 1993: 45) The forms of oppression that are referred to here are marginalization and powerlessness. When trying to make disabled people independent, it is not taking them into consideration in the running of society, or not allowing them to have control over the conditions of their own life. It is just not possible for a disabled person to do absolutely everything on their own. They may be able to, but it could take them hours. There is this pressure put on everyone for the disabled to become independent so that they fit into the norm, as seen by the able-bodied.
In Gleeson’s article he discusses how technology is going to be the cause of helping disabled people become more independent. He talks about this independence based on technology as being both a good thing and a bad thing. Gleeson states in his article that “techno-enthusiasts have proclaimed that new aids and inclusive designs will progressively ‘correct’ for physical impairments and thereby turn the disabled person into a ‘normal’ citizen or worker.” (Gleeson 1999: 98) The able-bodied are concerned with trying to make disabled people part of the norm, rather than trying to actually help them. I believe that there are many devices of technology that do help disabled people become more independent, such as driving sticks for the people in wheelchairs, but technology being used to help disabled people become independent can also be a bad thing and cause them to be oppressed by not taking into account the people with the physical impairments when it was designed or built. Gleeson states that “technologies often disadvantage disabled people by requiring high levels of education, technical skills, self confidence, and in many cases physical dexterity.” In my opinion technology, to an extent makes disabled people more disabled, because when it is taken into consideration what to build and where to build it, it is looked at from an able-bodied perspective instead of a disabled perspective. Therefore, things are not made to benefit the disabled, but rather to benefit the able-bodied, although it may look like the disabled are being taken into consideration.
In Imrie’s article his discussion is more on how the built physical environment has come into play to associate disabled people with oppression. He discusses how the environment is built, based on only thinking about the able-bodied. Imrie talks about buildings and equipment being built “premised upon the idea that human behaviour was wholly predictable and knowable, the human beings conformed to a type, to particular patterns of (able-bodied) normality in both bodily and mental terms.” The emphasis here is on sameness, and the normal and this is what environments are built on the basis of. No wonder it is that disabled people are viewed so different, because they are not able to fit in even if they wanted to. Disabled people are seen as being different and able-bodied individuals do not want to be seen as being associated with different. Imrie uses a good example in his article to help illustrate this. A building was built, but at the time of building the front doors they were not accessible for disabled people and instead of making the front doors accessible they decided to make side doors for the disabled to use. This is how disabled people become oppressed through marginalization and not being treated as a member in society. It is as though disabled people have no control over the conditions of their life.
It is clear that disabled people are viewed by the able-bodied as wanting to be independent, but that throughout the process of disabled people trying to become independent they are oppressed, by not having their opinions or attitudes toward their life taken into consideration. Sally French, Brendan Gleeson, and Rob Imrie have all expressed ways in which disabled people become oppressed through independence, through technology, and through their environments. Disabled people are not seen as normal so it is the able-bodied that believe they know what is best for the disabled, even though it may only cause them to become more disabled.

Week 4 Comment Paper

French, S. (1993). What’s so great about independence? Disabling Barriers – Enabling Environments. London: Sage. pp

Gleeson, B. (1999). Can technology overcome the disabling city? Mind and Body Spaces: Geographies of Illness, Impairment and Disability. New York: Routledge.

Imrie, R. (1998). Oppression, disability and access in the built environment. The Disability Reader: Social Science Perspectives. London: Cassell.



Independence is something that all individuals strive for, and once we achieve this asset we do all we can to maintain it through out our lives regardless of our capabilities as human beings. Having someone strip us of our independence however is almost like a slap in the face, for all. Maintaining independence for an individual who does have limitations or a disability can be such a challenging task that no one would be able to understand. The idea of independence is discussed in Sally French’s article, “What’s so great about independence?” French (1993) comments that this idea of independence tends to restrict rather than enrich the lives of those who are disabled. Being disabled does not necessarily mean that you are not capable of providing, caring or living for yourself, it just simply means that those who are disabled have a different time line for all of these activities.
The common themes in all three articles seemed to be this idea of independence as well as the technological aids that we see as a savior to all our problems, that we rely heavily only to be let down in the end. Technology can not cure an individual’s limitations it can only provide some assistance. Gleeson (1999) provides an insight as to how technology can provide better access to public buildings, transportation and even in the workplace, yet most cities lack the design for these particular individuals that may be in need of a ramp, elevator or even a fitting room that has the capacity to fit a wheel chair into. How society can choose to restrict those with limitations these rights is unreal, however what is more disturbing is that this problem still exists today. We can look at our own University. Some hallways are not large enough for a wheel chair to roll down with the flow of other students as well as the access to our elevators is limited as they only work how many days of the school year.
As able bodied individuals we take the simplistic things of everyday life for granted, without acknowledging the fact that some people struggle with these simplistic things. For example, Imrie (1998) discusses the simple task of going to a cash-dispensing machine. A technological device that provides access to all who desire. Wrong, these machines are placed too high for those restricted to a wheel chair. Once again, technology sets us up for failure instead of making life easier as well as leaving an individual with a limitation feeling dependant as they must either find another way to access this machine or rely on others to provide the service for them.
As we live day to day, we continue to use these technological aids that are provided for us to help make our daily activities simpler, but for some of us these advances do nothing but cause frustration. It is clear that we do not always think of others when developing these aids, we think of others that are like ourselves, but it is those others that are faced with limitations that we should be thinking about. The same when it comes to ones independence. We all like to maintain our independence to a certain degree and by having to rely heavily on these technologies we seem to minimize our independence greatly.

Hi Folks

Thanks for being a great, and interactive class today, my first full attempt at 'guest lecturing.'

Please keep in mind that you need to send comment papers to me (andriko) and to sharon, as in, both of us need a copy.

my email, is alozowy at lakehead u dot ca

In addition. Readings for Mark Priestly - have been left on Sharon's office door for your copying pleasure - please be gentle with them as many people will need to use them, keep them in order, and return them promptly. The chapters that you need for the course are all there.

la - ciao