Re: Lynn's posting of March 9 @ 11:53, and Alex's prior posting appended
below it:
Lynn's message began:
"I accept that the social model was intended as a means of highlighting
the problems of the built environment for many disabled people.....
....the environments themselves are concrete expressions of disabling
attitudes...(later mentioned...... the question of -- are "fat people"
"disabled", and are Learning Disabilities in the Social Model...)
As the 'social model' is coming through to me in various DR writings in
the past 5 or 10 years (though I tend to read things where writers are
attempting to apply their theories, not "pure theory" books)...and in
the impression gained reading this list-serv..... I had not noticed any
heavy tilt towards the barriers of the built environment, over the
not-built kind. (Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books & essays?)
I do often find that if the "built environment" is mentioned at all,
it's rather quick, perhaps as the "easy place to start" a longer
presentation that then quickly moves on, to non-environmental kinds of
barriers.
2 things seem to get confused or conflated-- alleged overemphasis on
barriers in "built environment", and does the scope of the Social Model
or original version of it, sufficiently deal with disabilities other
than mobility ones, such as access for people using wheelchairs.
But aspects of the built environment's design that may function as
"barriers" to PWD's, is a more broad discussion than just "barriers to
people with mobility disabilities". Designs can create problems for
people with many other kinds of disabilites -- cognitive disabilities,
learning disabilities, brain injuries, for blind and low vision people,
and for the Deaf. Some of those designs may be examples of "disabling
attitudes" or bias, or may be examples of something less -- neglecting
to consider the needs of all of the users of the space.
The cases where the designs more clearly represent designer bias (as
opposed to societal bias as represented by building Codes that do not
require fully equal access, or which are not enforced) , are the newer
ones, where the designers & site owners surely are by now, way past any
possibility of claiming any sort of excuses, of ignorance of the fact
that many PWD's with certain needs exist; and the clearest cases of all
are the ones where the designers and site owners have obviously tried to
do the absolute minimum to comply with "the letter" (but not the
"intent" or spirit) of access codes (even if the built result obviously
falls short of fully getting the job done), or worse, cases in which
such codes or laws are obviously violated. Perhaps the most
outstanding case -- is the one in which the biggest design firm in the
world that designs stadiums, actually argued in a response to lawsuits,
(the "sight lines" issue) that the A.D.A. isn't something that
architects have to obey (the law mentions only building "owners"),
unless their clients tell them to obey it. (The case was settled by
Justice Dept. before going to Court; a good thing, since the ADA is so
weak, the it appears that the defendant could have won.)
===
Just to look at 2 of the biggest public spaces in New York, in terms of
environmental barriers to NON-mobility-type disabilities--
1.-- Grand Central Station is, even after it's major renovation, still
so dark in the giant main room, that unless you have perfect eyesight,
perfect coordination, and move at the same speed as the fastest people
walking across in the space.... it is nearly impossible to get across
that huge waiting room without bumping into another person. Also, that
main space "disables" nearly all sighted people, in effect temporarily
making them "low vision", by being too dimly lighted for the reading of
a printed Train Schedule.
2. -- NYC's other big train station, Penn Station, is currently such an
eccentrically cobbled-together maze of spaces at various levels, that it
makes many many people, in effect temporarily "learning disabled", even
if they' are may not be LD in other situations. Due to the many
different levels and other complexities, this station almost defies the
effective making of any Directory Maps. It took this very
design-conscious person, actually over 2,000 visits, before I could
understand where every part of the station is located, and how to get
from any part to any other part.
===
If mentioning or even emphasizing "Built Environment" is perceived as
narrowing a discussion to only mobility disabilities, (or the
oft-mentioned "entrances & bathrooms" subject) - - - it shouldn't be.
The mere existence of that kind of misconception, I think, shows that DS
interest in barriers of the built-type, isn't genuinely dominating the
field at all If anything, such interest seems rather shallow.....
isolated in another field & specialty (universal design). I don't mean
"shallow" in intent, I mean in terms of how deeply it's been studied in
DS. Otherwise, how could this misunderstanding have occurred?
===
Is being "fat" a disability? This is a question where Tom's "continuum"
is needed. Until perhaps recently, the 24" wide bathroom door was
considered "standard" in residences. If that's too narrow for you, then
this environmental barrier is disabling you, And stigma may ensue, from
that situation, and other social areas.
But if the degree of "fatness" is small enough that it does not involve
any functional impairment, then the barrier of stigma exists alone, not
as a barrier being being added to impairment. In those instances,
wouldn't "stigmatised body image" be a sufficient term? The flip-side
of saying, let's enlarge "disability" to include all body image issues,
is what I sense as the implied idea that the category or label of
'disability" confers some legitimacy on "body image stigma", which it
otherwise doesn't have.
"Stigmatised body image" questions certainly can occur, combined with
"disability" or the experience of "ableism".... in many individuals
But certainly all body-image issues are not "disabilities", unless we
are going to enlarge "disabled" to include somewhere between half and
99% of the world's population.
Example -- when Elizabeth Taylor, at the peak of what was considered to
be her "ravishing beauty" (I am told that her movies were photographed,
(this is when she was an adult) so that her "beauty" was "the center of
every shot", and I don't mean literally).... was interviewed on
television in the early 70's, and looked right into the camera and said:
"I have never considered myself to be beautiful" and claimed to be
baffled as to what "beauty" others were referring to...... that was
evidence of a "body image" question all right - - - but not one that
overlaps with the category of "disability", according to any definition
that I know of.
In a lecture last year, I said something like: "Disability and
'stigmatised body image' obviously overlap in many individuals, (perhaps
more in the direction that ablesm often has a component of body-image
stigma, than the other way around), but even when these two categories
of stigma do not overlap, they are both obviously TWO HALVES OF SOME
LARGER WHOLE".
======
(Well, again, I've provided many words, for the potential making of
straw man arguments. Sigh.
Hopefully, the more thoughtful readers, when they read the bashing that
may ensue.... will check back here, to verify what I actually said (It's
amazing how the pre-internet habit of misrepresenting others' spoken
words -- persists -- even when a list-serv archive preserves one's exact
words, for anyone to check!)... and I hope the more thoughtful and
honest readers will not feel afraid to post their more constructive
words, which often seem to get confined to direct E-Mails...)
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