Defining Disability
The new wave of activists took the medical model and turned it upside down. Don’t focus on the individual, they said – focus instead on the built and social environments in which the individual must function.
How do you define “disability?” It depends on why you are asking. For potential grievances, you may want to consult section 10 of Ontario’s Human Rights Code. This definition is fairly technical and constantly being interpreted and reinterpreted. It is important, of course, but perhaps not as important as the definition we hold in our minds.
Traditionally, “disability” is something that has been widely viewed as an individual, medical problem afflicting an individual. Why is Linda unemployed? Because she is deaf, or blind, or cannot use her legs. The source of the problem, in other words, is her. Perhaps if science can eventually cure her deafness (etc.), she will be able to get a job. In the meantime, there are always telethons.
This line of thought is generally called the “medical model” of disability. It is a very powerful notion, one that colours our perceptions, and shapes our view of what constitutes normality. In the world of work, it is especially prevalent. If you are an educator who, for whatever reason, applies for long-term disability insurance benefits, you will be faced with all kinds of questions about your own “functional limitations.”
About 30 years ago, however, a new line of thinking emerged as part of a wave of human rights activism amongst people with disabilities. One of the pioneers in this movement was the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation in Britain. UPIAS published a short tract called “Fundamental Principles of Disability” which, ever since, has been cited as a watershed in the evolution of thinking about disability issues.
The new wave of activists took the medical model and turned it upside down. Don’t focus on the individual, they said – focus instead on the built and social environments in which the individual must function. Don’t tell us about Linda’s functional limitations – tell us about the physical and attitudinal barriers at the school where she would like to teach. Tell us about inaccessible public transit. Tell us about two-story schools with no working elevators. Tell us about a room filled with expensive computers and other electronic equipment, all of which lack screen-reading software or sound and font enhancing capacity.
As Catherine Frazee, activist and former head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, once noted: Disability is not intrinsic, but rather extrinsic.
This new way of thinking about disabilities is called the “social model.” It refuses to define a physical or intellectual impairment as a defect or pathology. It speaks not of disabled individuals, but of disabling surroundings.
In recent years, this rights-based approach has slowly gained ground in our legal system and public policy framework. The concepts of barrier removal, social handicapping, and design by inclusion were once alien, but are not so today. Perhaps one day we will be able to open a dictionary and find the following:
disability (n); an array of physical, social and attitudinal barriers which result in discrimination against individuals whose physical, sensory or intellectual characteristics do not fit an arbitrarily-imposed norm – barriers which prevent these individuals from full and equal participation in society.