The annual Disability History Month (UKDHM) is in its 12th year, and it will run from the 18th of November 2021 – 18th December 2021. This year two main themes will be focused on
Disability and Hidden Impairment
Disability Sex and Relationships
Regardless of the themes around this annual event on the disability calendar the aim has always been to:
Celebrate our Lives as Disabled People now and in the past
Challenge Disabilism by exploring our oppression over time
Achieve equality
Currently the Equality Act 2010 defines disability as “if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.”
substantial’ is more than minor or trivial,
long-term’ means 12 months or more or likely to last 12 months or more
a physical or mental impairment impacts on ability to do normal day to day activities and must be judged without the impact of assistive devices, medication, or treatment.
UKDHM adheres to the social model of disability in which the barriers of attitude, environment, and organisation cause most of the disabilism we face. Such thinking did not exist in most of the past with individuals and their impairments held responsible for the disadvantage and worse. Disabled people experienced being seen as bewitched, evil, or punished by God. Disabled people were often viewed as perpetual children incapable of adult relationships.
However, in this era of Universal Human Rights we can look back and reinterpret the mistreatment, resulting from our systematic oppression caused by negative attitudes, ignorance, and barriers. Such an examination of the past allows us to recognise what must actively change for disabled people to achieve equality.
Many disabled people have an invisible/hidden impairment now and in the past, they have been not viewed as disabled people but still been mistreated. Equally because of the negativity associated with impairment, many who can pass as non-disabled have chosen not to identify, even though this has caused them many difficulties. More than half the 13.5 million people currently identified as disabled in the UK have hidden impairments.
History has often viewed disabled people as asexual, perpetual children incapable of adult relationships. More recently in the last 150 years the false science of Eugenics was ranged against us, sterilising us, segregating us in single sex institutions, denying us the right to married life and sexual relations and taking any children away from us as we were deemed not capable of being parents. The emotional pain and injustice of all this has been largely hidden from history. Within a few miles, wherever you live in the UK, there will be multiple examples to be uncovered in family trees, public records, public libraries where the records of asylums, long stay hospitals and social services can be found in archives.
I’m not incapable of having an adult relationship…Of course some were more serious than others. That’s all part of growing up. However, like many of you reading this I have loved and lost but in my view that’s far better that than to have never loved at all. Should I be denied the chance to experience love like that just because I have to use wheels to get around? Should I shield from the prospect of building relationships, friendships or otherwise just in case I get hurt? Of course not, this is all part of being human and being treated with dignity and respect.
In my view, although we have moved on significantly from the historical perceptions outlined above, today’s media coverage and also the content of various social media channels does not help our society form positive views of disabled people as equal members of our society who want to have the same access to opportunities and the same life experiences as their non-disabled peers. I previously wrote a blog which you can also view on Y.O.U’s website entitled the “Undateables “ and what I outlined in that blog is relevant here too. I know that it might spark some debate or be viewed as controversial, and I do realise programs like channel 4’s “Undateables” or Netflix “love on the spectrum” these programs have their place to a certain degree and are useful in helping people to build friendships/relationships.
However, as a disabled person myself I can also reliably tell you that these programs can have and do have a negative impact on the opinions of non-disabled people regarding how disabled people can build relationships. For me I can often be heard saying “ it’s only my legs that don’t work” this does not mean I can’t have a relationship or have the same aspirations for future relationships as a non-disabled person. I’m not saying that having a disability doesn’t make the prospect of having new relationships more challenging, because it does. What I am saying is that we need to start having a positive impact on the U.K’s history of disability so that by the year 2041 we can highlight how our society embraces disabled people and equality as part of Disability History month that year.
Comments