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Can we, as a community, please recognize that the social model of disability doesn& #39;t work for everyone?
Some disabled people aren& #39;t disabled by their bodies.
Some absolutely, 100% are. And there& #39;s no shame in that.
Some absolutely, 100% are. And there& #39;s no shame in that.
Social model in a nutshell: "The social model of disability proposes that what makes someone disabled is not their medical condition, but the attitudes and structures of society."
As someone with a progressive-type illness, I& #39;m always going to be disabled, in some way, by my body itself independent of accessibility features and attitudes of the world at large.
It gets even more complicated when I try to fit my mental illnesses into this model.
And it& #39;s not because I haven& #39;t "thought enough about it" or "don& #39;t know enough." I WANT the social model to be THE THING because I like how it sounds. But it& #39;s just not what represents my experience. And that& #39;s fine.
I think there& #39;s a problem when we see it as the BE ALL END ALL of models re: disability.
And this isn& #39;t to put the social model of disability down, either. It definitely works for certain people. But it& #39;s not the only model or experience of disability and we erase a LOTTTT of people& #39;s experiences when we act like it is.
Thank you @HijaDe2Madre https://twitter.com/HijaDe2Madre/status/1275551319466500096">https://twitter.com/HijaDe2Ma...
More useful info from @romluras https://twitter.com/romluras/status/1275555509098164224">https://twitter.com/romluras/...
Lemme just add that I don& #39;t believe there CAN be one, all encompassing model that truly reflects every possible experience within Disability. If one existed, it& #39;d have to be so watered down to the point where it& #39;d be worthless to anyone.
If there were one all encompassing model it& #39;d be pretty damn complex for it to truly work. Maybe it can be done I dunno.
Everyone, also, you can say it& #39;s reductionist (which is why I said "in a nutshell"), but you can& #39;t deny that the idea behind "I& #39;m not disabled by my body but by society" is the cornerstone of this idea and that doesn& #39;t resonate with everyone.
If it weren& #39;t the cornerstone I wouldn& #39;t be seeing it over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER again.
It& #39;s also worth mentioning that the disabled academics involved with the term itself "did not intend the social model of disability to be an all-encompassing theory of disability, but rather a starting point in reframing how society views disability."
So, no, it& #39;s not supposed to be all encompassing like a LOT of people pretend it is.
It& #39;s also been criticized for treating disabled people like a monolith as well as minimizing realities of "impairments." These are valid critiques. It serves no one to pretend they aren& #39;t.
Like I& #39;ve said, to death at this point, I don& #39;t HATE the social model. I don& #39;t HATE people for whom it resonates. I don& #39;t stand behind the medical or charity model (but it& #39;s cute that people assume I do?).
There are parts of it that have merit to me personally. I don& #39;t believe in throwing the whole thing out. Lol. But I think it& #39;s limited and as a community we deserve more than one model to explain our existence.
Like, I& #39;m sorry, but it shouldn& #39;t be controversial to say "one model of disability doesn& #39;t resonate with every disabled person."
tl;dr with this thread is basically "We need to stop acting like one model is the be all end all of disability and we need to listen to each other."
