Infrastructure is the most common aspect we tend to think of when talking about accessibility.
However, accessibility is an umbrella concept that entails many other aspects which, unfortunately, are often overlooked.
Social interactions between people with disabilities and people without disabilities is definitely one of the often overlooked aspects. However, making our society truthfully inclusive is not just about accessible general services (e.g., public transports, public venues, etc.). It is also about accessible companionship and social contacts.
Indeed, stereotypes, stigma, and prejudice often make socializing a challenging prospect.
Let’s see how and why social interactions can result frustrating and/or “unsuccessful” for people with disabilities at times.
Social attitude as a barrier to social life
Looking at the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD), it is interesting to note how the definition of disability goes beyond the condition of cognitive, physical, intellectual, or sensory impairment.
In fact, disability is understood as an evolving concept that “results from the interaction between persons with impairments and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others”.
But, what are these barriers in the specific?
The United Nations (UN) recognize the existence of some specific obstacles which people with disabilities normally encounter. Amongst these obstacles, some result from:
- physical environment
- Legislation
- Policy
- Societal attitudes
- Communication.
A specific focus on societal attitude may draw particular attention to the following barriers:
- Stereotypes
- Prejudices
- Stigma.
These negative forms of societal attitudes easily result from disinformation and misconception discouraging a full participation of people with disabilities in society.
However, it is fundamental to mention that negative attitudes of people towards disability does not always result from conscious calculations. In fact, in most cases, it is merely a matter of unreflective responses, suggesting that some behaviors or reactions are simply clouded by a set of pre-existing assumptions.
In other words, a mix of misinformation and internalized stereotypes can make socializing somehow hard for people with disabilities.
Let’s see more in the specific why this type of barriers impacts on social participation of disabled people.
Social interactions
In most cases, societal attitude as a barrier for people with disabilities normally happen during first-time meetings. For instance, first-time meetings can be job interviews, meetings with friends of friends, in person meetings with people one came into contact with on online platforms, etc.
However, this type of barrier can clearly come up again in a wide variety of occasions.
In order to understand these interactions properly, it is necessary to consider two different perspectives. On the one hand, there is the perspective of abled-body people, and on the other hand there is the perspective of disabled people.
However, one commonality of these two perspectives is, in most cases, a feeling of discomfort.
On the one hand, this feeling of discomfort can result from a “fear of the unknown”.
People without disabilities may be start wondering:
“how am I supposed to behave?
Do I need to help them? How should I help them?
Which words am I allowed to use and which ones will be considered offensive instead?”.
Clearly, all these questions are totally legitimate and, in most cases, abled-body people will try their best to cope with that specific situation.
However, all these unanswered questions can easily lead to unpleasant social interactions on both sides.
Indeed, on the other hand, people with disabilities are perfectly aware of this feeling of discomfort. Also, they are aware that very likely many questions may arise even though, in most cases, they will not be asked to avoid intrusion.
Clearly no one would be happy to Create discomfort or to experience it, which means that most of the times disabled people may feel discouraged from finding themselves in this kind of situations again.
How does this discouragement impact the social life of people with disabilities?
Impacts on social life
Clearly, this feeling of discomfort can result very frustrating on both sides.
It is more likely that people with disabilities will not do what they would otherwise do just to avoid this type of awkward situations and that unpleasant feeling of frustration.
Spontaneity easily leaves space to anxiety during social interactions, encouraging auto-isolation in most cases.
In an attempt to empathize so to understand better what we are talking about, we can try to imagine a concrete example.
Let’s try to think of how stressful a job interview can be, for instance. We will all try to be at our best to leave a positive impression on the interviewer and pass to the next stage of the interview.
What if we take this “normal” stress and multiply it by two at least.
Questions like the following Arise very often:
“What will their first reaction be once they understand I have a disability?
Will they think that my disability will slow down my work and thus their company?
How can I proof that my disability does not make me a less competent candidate than others?”.
These questions clearly result from negative societal attitude disabled people experience almost everyday. However, it is worth it to highlight that these are questions that no one should ever pose to themselves, because this type of assumptions could not be any wronger, false, and misleading.
Anyhow, drawing attention on these questions is essential in order to understand how internalized some stereotypes and prejudices are, so internalized that not only did they ended up shaping abled-body people thoughts, but also those of disabled people.
Thus, these questions really point out how distorted and misleading the narrative of people with disabilities is in our society.
Then, one may easily say that people’s perception of what living with a disability means influence consciously or not their attitude towards people with disabilities.
Prejudice, stereotypes, and stigma often make it difficult for someone with a disability to fully participate in everyday social activities.
What can we do to bring change?
Societal attitude as barrier to the social life of people with disabilities is a challenge that only an inclusive educational system can face.
An inclusive educational system can help dispel many of the mis around people with disabilities. Misrepresentations, misconceptions, and misinformation around how abled-body people see and think about people with disabilities should be the target of an inclusive educational system which can contribute to remove many barriers coming from societal attitudes.
If we consider that intentional and unintentional discrimination comes from misinformation, an inclusive educational system can actually contribute to change the discrimination that people with disabilities face.
But, clearly, it is not enough.
Talking about disability in all spheres of our society is fundamental.
It still happens very often that people are uncomfortable talking about disability. In this way, either this subject is pushed into the background, or we tend to put a positive spin on it.
Unfortunately, neither of these two things help our society to improve.
If we want to bring change, then we need to talk about disability. We need to unpack this topic and analyze all type of challenges that disability carries with it.
When we stop having conversation about problems, then we stop solving them.
When we stop acknowledging the whole host of challenges that disabled people face, we stop willing to find a solution and improving our society.
Awareness is power.
If we really want to make our world truthfully inclusive for all of us, awareness is something we all need to reach, whether we are abled-body or disabled people.
It is possible to reach awareness only through information, dialogue, and the desire for change.
Talking about disability in schools and job places, fighting a pietistic narrative of people with disabilities, changing how media coverage portrays disabled people, etc., this is possible by exploiting the power of information.