Last week I went to a friend’s wedding party. It was held in the basement health club that was his own small business. I used the elevator to get down to basement level. He half complained about how he had been obliged by the law to spend a fortune for his small business fitting the [...]
In response to my last blog entry, a comic-collecting friend reminded me that, ever since the 60’s, Marvel Comics has introduced many characters (often super-powered) with imperfections. This contrasts with the other big comic company, DC, creator of smart and traditionally handsome figures like Superman and Batman. Marvel characters have ranged from the science nerd, [...]
Last week, I noticed in the newspaper that a new superhero is coming to US bookstores. The Silver Scorpion, a Muslim boy in a wheelchair, will be arriving there in November. Perhaps this is indicative of a fresh more positive portrayal of disabled people. In fact, a wheelchair manufacturer I know was recently approached about [...]
Scope, the charity that supports disabled people, recently reported that 90% of Britons have never had a disabled person in their house for a social occasion. A fascinating fact – not for what it says, but for what the number really shows underneath… Most people with disabilities, unless they come with a wheelchair or a [...]
Racism, ageism, and sexism are all, to varying extents, battles which are being won. Full inclusion may be some way off for some groups, but the issues are at least fully aired. By contrast, “Disablism” is arguably the next big prejudiced view that is commonly held in our society and which still frequently results in [...]
One of the things that is guaranteed to get on my goat is the likelihood that disabled people are almost always lumped together into a group called “the disabled”. This throws into focus two things that my English teacher would have had me up on: Firstly, since when did an adjective that should be applied [...]
A couple of years after my accident, I started thinking “wouldn’t it be great if we lived in a world where disabled people are defined by what they can do rather than by what they can’t?”. So, instead of being disabled, they are just as able to do things as anyone, but just in a [...]
During the stay at our hotel in Lincoln, an episode occurred that perfectly underscores many of the reasons why some disabled people still feel excluded from mainstream society and why they think that there is still some distance to go until genuine inclusiveness is achieved - a lack of true empathy. Our hotel informed us [...]
Some people with disabilities fall into a new gender category that I have started calling ‘the third sex’. In most bars and restaurants there are loos for men, loos for women, and disabled loos. And most ‘disabled’ hotel rooms are twin-bedded, not double-bedded. The reason for this seems to be that some individuals don’t expect [...]
It may sound strange, but I often think to myself how fortunate I am to be disabled in this modern world of microchips and other ground-breaking technology. It is an unarguable case that my life is made so much easier and so much better in quality than if I’d been born just a few years [...]