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.
I'm 40. I'm laying next to my wheeled walker (rollator) right now. It's the mobility aid I use when I'm not wearing my prosthesis.
It's an absolute banger of a technology - a classic, so simple and elegant for its task, one of the cheapest, most effective mobillity aids you can get.
Thank you for the inspiration to buy a mobility aid to help with some persistent knee inflammation (probably arthritis-related) I’m dealing with. The ingrained ableism and stigma is real. (I also really enjoyed your book!)
Thanks so much! Mobility aids are useful tools. Hope it goes well for you!
If you haven’t, please ask for an x-ray on your knee. (I’m an amputee from bone cancer: it’s rare but also super easy to see w basic x-ray. I know too many people whose dx was delayed bc no imaging offered.)
I rarely used my wheelchair for the first 13 years I had it, partly due to this, partly due to not having anyone who'd push it for me. Thankfully my current partner is thrilled to. My ex and my family wouldn't be seen with it.
