A lot of ableism isn't deliberate: that makes it more pernicious! A walker is representing being at lower faculty, by your description.
I tweeted this on the other site: "The way walkers are used in media/culture is truly revolting -- & this rep prevents ppl from using what is a useful tool."
Using the walker on the magazine cover is not deliberately ableist.
And at some point people are going to have to learn discernment and how to view creative media within the context it’s presented.
The walker on the cover is to the point of an elderly person no longer being at full faculty.
Walkers repeated used to point out infirmity/old age becomes fewer people being willing to use walkers or being seen using one. Walkers are mobility/stability tools: we might think of that as a neutral or even as a positive thing, if not for the cruddy way walkers are maligned - like in that cover.
It's hard to avoid some element of internalized ableism, but it's so clear how it becomes internalized sometimes when everything around you screams at you "mobililty aid = lesser/incompetent/lower faculty."
The Economist is absolutely being ableist with that image.
None of those dudes use walkers. But disabled people do. Maybe we should think more carefully about how we represent disability technologies, esp when framed as the only image next to the words "No way to run a country."
This rep is bad enough, but there are material consequences to having walkers constantly maligned and seen as something to avoid: people will avoid them. They will avoid using them when they should, and it will cost in terms of injury and death (because we know things can go south from a fall).
I'm pointing to one direct material consequence here, but there's also those who won't go out or participate if they need the mobility or stability help too. Fewer disabled people will participate in public when some of our simple tech is constantly depicted as signaling our inferior/lesser status.
This isn't nothing. I've heard conversations where people talk about not using their walkers (when they should, or lamenting they didn't) because they don't want their friends or family members to be embarrassed to be seen with them.
There are myriad consequences to shitty depictions here.
the way i have to encourage mom to actually use her walker when she needs it . . 🤦🏻 not just because it's clumsy and sometimes inconvenient, but because she doesn't want to be the sort of person who needs one. and then she's likely to be stranded somewhere without it because of shame. 🤷🏻
i'm young and pretty and tall and outwardly look good at standing/short walks and i use a rollator and it fucking rocks: i can take instant sitting breaks as often as i need; it's extra support; and i get a basket for carrying shit.
i hope my being out in the world helps shift perceptions a bit.
I would not have regained my ability to walk and do activities of daily living (most of the time) after a traumatic injury, without a walker.
It was really frustrating how a number of members of my care team were actually hostile about it despite the difference it made for me
A rollator would be super beneficial to me.
I’ve had trouble getting measured for one because of unintentional ableism.
Because I don’t meet the “expected demographic”.
Unintentional ableism is still ableism and ends up causing harm.
Awesome thread!
Although this was so clearly deliberate, and I'm sick of being told to put up with ableism with "they didn't mean it!"
a) They almost certainly did, & b) Let's focus on the harms it's doing to disabled people, rather than having to soothe ableists who don't like being called out.
Harm matters WAY more than intent, yep. I don't care if people mean to compliment me by saying I'm brave. I'll tell em fuck off.
They gotta like that one guy from Target when I had TWO walking casts/boots (long story) and was in a mobility cart. He said "Wow you must be kicking a lot of ass!".
mobility is only one human faculty
many of the most brilliant, energetic, and competent people I know have also been people experiencing mobility challenges
oh, so the walker represents him being "lame" in the figurative sense, not *literally* lame. I used to be lame a lot of the time before I had spinal surgery but it didn't make me outdated/obsolete/unhip/square and it didn't damage my media literacy of how slurs work
It's saying people who are lame in the physical sense must necessarily be so in a mental sense and therefore unfit to lead the country. It's gross.
I can't see the blocked post but I HAVE seen that cover. Blech.
It is tough to read the sign on the bench without zooming in.
If we zoom in, the bench seems to be dedicated to the Biden's late son, Beau, Joseph Robinette Biden III
He was once the Attorney General in Delaware.
I can't make out the rest if the words.
And when:
www.capegazette.com/article/pres...
I thought it would be soonething along those lines. I included a link but other than location and when, I didn't read for all of what the sign says.
Thanks for knowing and sharing!
I'm flashing back to an anti-ableism ad from decades ago in the U.K. It showed a child reading a chapter book, and a man in a wheelchair reading...I forget what.
The caption was "People think we're at the same level."
It stuck with me.
It was posted by the charity now known as Scope.
