as small as a world and as large as alone

12:40am July 24, 2014

clatterbane:

youneedacat:

madeofpatterns:

youneedacat:

femmefixe:

it’s “disablism”, not “ableism”

the second word presumes that disabled people are oppressed due to (not having) the ability to do something, not that the entire world is designed to make sure that they don’t have the ability to do something relevant to their survival

like, everyone who is alive has an “able body” because it is able to keep them alive, and everyone in the world is unable to do certain things relevant to their survival completely on their own, so trust me when I say again that “ability” is not the problem

and the more and more i hear enabled people use the word “ableism” the more i think that they also think that disabled people’s oppression stems mostly from their own inability to achieve something in the context of a neutral-slightly inconvenient world..

“ableism” is an inappropriate word for disabling oppression and it’s rubbing me the wrong way more and more

Disambiguation Post: On Language Dickery

This is written for the sake of anyone who might be reading the above post who has a language disability, more than it’s written for the sake of the original poster.  Amorpha&’s post explains what’s going on here better than I could right now.

But basically this entire post is ableist.  If you have a language disability of any kind, and are panicking right now trying to figure out whether you’re going to have to make a complete vocabulary change because “ableism” supposedly implies an entire philosophy… it doesn’t.  Most people use the first word they have heard for disability oppression.  Some such words are: disablism, ableism, ablism, handicapism, and disphobia.  They all mean basically the same thing and most people who use them mean basically the same thing by them.  People are not analyzing the structure of the words and forming entire philosophies of life based on them.  People may have different preferences, some people find some of these very offensive, some of them think they imply different things, but just use whichever one you have to use.  It is not worth it to twist your brain into knots to satisfy every person who comes along with an inaccurate analysis of why you’re using the words you’re using.

I usually use ableist, sometimes disablist pops out, and they both mean the exact same thing to me.  Exact same thing.  It doesn’t matter that someone can analyze them so that they mean different things.  When I use them, they mean the exact, exact same thing.  And the same is true of most people. 

I thought it was mostly that Americans usually say ableism and British people usually say disablism?

saying one is correct is bizarre

Yes, yes that’s exactly what it is.  Some people have chosen to read a lot more into it than is actually there, in both directions.  I’ve heard Americans say that disablism is somehow a more snooty or academic word, which… not really?  And I’ve heard all sorts of arguments in both directions that basically amount to “I’m analyzing this word way too much and picking my favorite and finding reasons why it’s my favorite and then telling everyone else to use my favorite word.”

And there’s usually quite a lot of language dickery involved.

Exactly. Plus, I have to suspect an element of “if there are usage differences, the usage favored in US English is WRONG”. Rather than just, you know, different and sometimes developed in parallel like in this case.

Yeah there’s a lot of that in both directions, as I said.

With people who follow the UK usage, they often find ways to tie it to the social model of disability, even though the “dis” at the front doesn’t actually tie it to anything except for the fact that this is how they formed the word initially, and Americans didn’t.

Of course, I don’t do social-model, because I don’t do models.  I recognize the importance of the social model in terms of bringing a new understanding of disability to a lot of people.  But I can understand that aspect of disability without adopting the precise language used by the social model, or the rigidity of the social model.

Like, I don’t have to use ‘impairment’ for the differences between our bodies, and 'disability’ for the way we are discriminated against and oppressed and shut out of society, in order to differentiate between the two things.  I can say disability and mean physical differences between our bodies, and still differentiate between 'impairment’ and 'disability’.  I can use the word disability for both impairment and disability, and still understand the difference.  Because the difference doesn’t lie in what words you use.

There was a time when I actually switched to using disablism because I thought that a lot of people were misusing the word ableism (mostly to declare any and all language that could be traced back to disability, and some that couldn’t even be traced back to disability, to be ableist) and I wanted to get away from the word entirely.  So I used disablism for awhile just because every time someone said ableist they were talking about language, and it irritated me sufficiently that I chose a different word.  But I never told them that “ableist only refers to the way you do it and I’m using a different better word than you”.  It was just a silent act of protest, that’s all.

(And now I have a 15-year-old kitty on my lap.  Who is purring and letting me nuzzle her face.  Actually by lap I mean she’s using my chest as a cat shelf.  Even though I’m wearing a tight sports bra that should compress my chest down to pretty close to nothing.  Hmm.  At any rate, elderly kitty lovin’ here.)

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