Ableism

[SandYFan]

From The Oracle:

Ableism is a form of discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities.

A former coworker of mine introduced me to the term yesterday. She feels quite strongly that while American society has developed tolerance for those with physical disabilities, true acceptance is still a long way off, and both tolerance and acceptance for people with mental disabilities are missing entirely.

A large part of her argument is that the DSM is just society defining everything that is not "normal" as wrong, and in need of fixing. Schizophrenic? You don't need fixing. Bipolar? Society needs to be more accepting. Autistic? Teaching kids to not rock back and forth and cover their ears is repressing their true selves.

I responded that I can see how some diagnoses can cause more trouble than they help, but there are also other mental disorders that lead to violence and other dangers to society.

Anyway, has anyone ever heard of this before? I find it interesting, but taking it to the extent that even sociopaths should be embraced by society is a bridge too far.

[frank ryan]

From The Oracle:


A former coworker of mine introduced me to the term yesterday. She feels quite strongly that while American society has developed tolerance for those with physical disabilities, true acceptance is still a long way off, and both tolerance and acceptance for people with mental disabilities are missing entirely.

A large part of her argument is that the DSM is just society defining everything that is not "normal" as wrong, and in need of fixing. Schizophrenic? You don't need fixing. Bipolar? Society needs to be more accepting. Autistic? Teaching kids to not rock back and forth and cover their ears is repressing their true selves.

I responded that I can see how some diagnoses can cause more trouble than they help, but there are also other mental disorders that lead to violence and other dangers to society.

Anyway, has anyone ever heard of this before? I find it interesting, but taking it to the extent that even sociopaths should be embraced by society is a bridge too far.

I think she is right to a degree about the DSM. That book places a ton of emphasis on conformity. Too much in my opinion

[woot]

Ableism is a real thing, but it becomes as silly as any other -ism when folks try to deny the extant differences. But yeah it's not right to judge a thing by its extremists, so I'm all for it.

Regarding the DSM, the shocking news within the last couple weeks is that the NIH will no longer be using it. Crazy. I'm not sure if their alternative is any better (and my knowledge of such things is very limited), but that seems like a pretty huge event in the field.

[frank ryan]

Ableism is a real thing, but it becomes as silly as any other -ism when folks try to deny the extant differences. But yeah it's not right to judge a thing by its extremists, so I'm all for it.

Regarding the DSM, the shocking news within the last couple weeks is that the NIH will no longer be using it. Crazy. I'm not sure if their alternative is any better (and my knowledge of such things is very limited), but that seems like a pretty huge event in the field.

Woah, Woot I didn't hear that about the DSM. That is huge news.

[wuapinmon]

Have yall heard about this?

http://jme.bmj.com/content/28/5/283.full

A deaf lesbian couple in the US deliberately tried to create a deaf child. Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough hoped their child, conceived with the help of a sperm donor, would be deaf like the rest of the family. Their daughter, five year old Jehanne, is also deaf and was conceived with the same donor. News of the couple choosing to have a deaf child has only been revealed with the birth of their son Gauvin.^1–4
To increase their chance of having a deaf baby the women sought a deaf sperm donor from a sperm bank but were told that congenital deafness is “precisely the sort of condition” that disqualifies would-be donors. Rather than dismiss the idea they found their own sperm donor by asking a deaf friend who comes from a family with five generations of deafness.¹
The women, both professionals in the mental health field, insist that they would still love their child if it could hear: “A hearing baby would be a blessing. A deaf baby would be a special blessing”.¹
Like many others in the deaf community, the couple don’t view deafness as a disability. They see deafness as a cultural identity and the sophisticated sign language that enables them to communicate fully with other signers as the defining and unifying feature of their culture.¹
Both women were born deaf and want their children to share their culture. They each suffered from being raised to function primarily in the hearing world. Ms Duchesneau experienced “numbing isolation” at school without the benefit of sign language or exposure to other deaf people. She grew up feeling that she “was flawed”. Ms McCullough, the child of deaf parents, was brought up using sign language and attended a hearing high school with an interpreter. She also suffered isolation: “No teenage conversation can survive the intrusion of third-party interpretation”.¹
Both women later attended Gallaudet, the world’s only liberal arts university for the deaf. Gallaudet also nurtures a “lively deaf intelligentsia”. Ms Duchesneau took sign lessons and describes her time at the university and becoming part of the deaf community as “the best time. . . . People understood me. I didn’t have to explain myself. . . . It was a positive thing to be deaf at Gallaudet”.¹

[WashingtonCoug]

Have yall heard about this?

http://jme.bmj.com/content/28/5/283.full

In Russia we played a basketball game against a deaf college basketball team. We showed up thinking this would be more of a scrimmage than anything else. However, when we showed up they had refs and fans. They packed the gym. It was a fun experience. They beat us by 20. It really gave me a greater appreciation for the deaf. Up until that point, I hadn't really known any deaf people personally.