Ancient ableism lives on
Have attitudes to disability really evolved?
Exclusive | 3 min read | Invisible Disabilities Week
For anyone born visibly disabled in ancient Rome, being stoned to death was a very real possibility.
According to the Twelve Tables – the foundation of Roman law – anyone with a ‘visible deformity’ was better off stoned to death before their life impacted the livelihood of other citizens.
Some disabled children were publicly persecuted, while others were reportedly thrown in the Tiber river.
Those with visible disabilities that were allowed to live were mutilated to increase their value as beggars.
Over two millennia later, how much has really changed in society’s limited view of disabled people? It’s something I come personally face to face with every day.
I have a complex combination of disabling conditions including localized scleroderma - an autoimmune disease affecting my skin - painful fibromyalgia, ulcerative colitis (inflammatory bowel disease) and polycystic ovarian syndrome.
On a daily basis, I find myself struggling with the most basic tasks, like getting out of bed in the morning, eating regular meals and managing housework. The fatigue I experience can be debilitating and I often find myself having to spend entire days in bed to ease it.
When I am able to go out, the sad truth is that accessibility - even today - is simply not guaranteed.
Access
I have faced access barriers in almost every conceivable situation – a lack of lift access at shopping centres, broken or blocked off disabled toilets, and in the complete ignorance of non-disabled people who push past me, even when I'm using a cane, to get to an entrance or counter first.
But is it any wonder that accessibility remains poor when ableism - prejudice against people with disabilities - is so rife in modern society?
Personally, I’ve been fighting for accommodations since high school. Simple things such as laptops for exams and flexible start times were never provided, leading to my attendance plummeting. Then, after very little support, my school decided in my final year to give me an award for achieving good results ‘against the odds’.
The award was tainted by this patronising ableism; an expectation of failure because of my disabilities.
At university, ableism was just as rife all around me, from the lack of accessible lecture rooms across campus to the casual use of ableist slurs such as ‘retard’ and ‘cripple.’
The more my ability to function like my non-disabled peers faltered, be it because of pain, fatigue or my mobility, the clearer it became to me that ancient ableism had never been resolved. It had simply mutated to suit modern sensibilities.
Instead of just denigrating disabled people for being born, our societies had started to celebrate them merely for showing up. To shrug off claims of discrimination, the world decided that making disability palatable was the best course of action.
perceived value
Today’s disabled person must fall into one of two stereotypes: the ‘good disabled person’ who never lets their condition hold them back, or the ‘bad disabled person’ who acquiesces to their status and becomes a drain on the state.
One of the most poisonous guises of ableism is ‘inspiration porn,’ the portrayal of disabled people as inspirational, solely or in part because of their disability.
In the UK, one in five people are disabled and 80 per cent have a hidden disability.
It was something I played a role in creating in my first media job. I wrote and produced stories that depicted disabled people as ‘overcoming’ their conditions, placing them on an inspirational pedestal simply for existing.
Recognising this distorted and unhelpful portrayal of disabled lives reminded me of the way historic soldiers’ disabilities were deemed acceptable in ancient society because they had ‘earned’ them honourably.
Whether we want to admit it or not, disabled people are usually only considered worthy if we function beyond our natural capabilities and achieve the same standards of non-disabled folks with my award at school being one example.
Disabled people are forced to either push the boundaries of their health to achieve, or give up - a choice I made after transitioning jobs for the first time. Whilst the first role accommodated my physical needs by allowing some remote and flexible work, my new job did not, forcing my health to deteriorate extremely quickly. I left within two months.
It left me feeling more like a burden than ever before, a sentiment I imagine disabled people in Ancient Rome may have felt. I began to believe my life was worthless unless I could meet non-disabled standards.
I distanced myself from the disabled community and stopped communicating my medical needs to friends and family. The self-denial of my identity fed a deep-rooted depression that I had been smothering since my initial diagnosis.
Eventually, my self-worth spiralled into a pit of self-loathing; I stopped seeing my value as a person because I could only see the words ‘disability’ and ‘worthless’ interlocking over and over again in my head.
isolated
This internalised ableism is fed by capitalist society which demoralises disabled people by equating worth with productivity. In turn, we deem ourselves unworthy if we cannot function like our non-disabled peers. So, ableism continues to thrive, living inside each of us, twisting its ancient roots into our psyche, one inaccessible doorstep or vile comment or missed deadline at a time.
The pandemic has toxically nourished ableism by repeatedly devaluing disabled lives with unlawful DNRs and dismissive claims of ‘acceptable losses.’ Disabled people are not just a few deaths in the pandemic; we make up 6 in 10.
If we trace ableism all the way back to ancient times, the origin in thinking is clear: a stronger society is one without burdens. For many non-disabled people, the disabled community remains synonymous with this image - a weight on society, dragging the uninhibited down with our needs and accommodations.
We all want to believe that we have evolved from the brutality of ancient culture but in many ways, disabled people remain a marginalised community.
I for one am exhausted by it and there are days when I question if a society free of ableism is even possible.
I doubt it.
The voices screaming ‘burden’ or ‘inspiration’ are still the loudest in the crowd and we remain entrapped by these unshakeable and unhelpful stereotypes.
There are one billion disabled people globally and equality is still a distant dream because society today refuses to recognise the ancient prejudices still snaking through it.
Until disabled people’s needs are centred and non-disabled people confront their own prejudices, the ableism we’ve adopted for millennia will never be cast out.
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