Disability: Whether physical, mental or learning, it's usually our society that makes individual circumstances disabling

Photograph: Wheelchair Parking from Pixabay (License) (Cropped)

It isn't radical to acknowledge that our society, our infrastructure and the way we work, is built around the lives of non-disabled men. The experiences of women are testament to that: basic biology is often treated as an impediment to society's orderly functioning.

The same kind of exclusion is experienced by people with disabilities. This is even reflected in the language of disability, which has clear markers of being written from the point of view of 'able-bodied' men, complete with assumptions made based on the uncritical acceptance of how society is shaped. There are, of course, cultural and historical reasons for the way these things have developed.

However, change has been slow and inclusion still feels far away. And it's that failure to build otherness into our society that defines disability. The report this week into the government's failure to adequately fund school places for those children with special educational needs just exposes how much of an afterthought disability still is in societal decision-making. That's a sorry state of affairs.

This government has made big promises on inclusion but obstacles remain. It is easy to see the barriers to people with physical disabilities just by looking around you. Some of them are very literal. Steps are a big factor. Ramps and lifts still look like add-ons - with issues like the need for manual assistance, space for manoeuvring and limited access all the result of physical disability access being an afterthought.

For people with mental illness and learning difficulties, the impediments are often harder to see - less obvious than the conflict between wheels and stairs which is, nonetheless, still far too often overlooked. The needs of people with mental health problems are various, but often include things like quiet, routine and structure. In a working world growing increasingly loud and irregular, making accommodation for these needs is treated like a drag on efficiency.

A 'flexible' working environment is the buzzword of the moment, but all of the flexibility must come from the employee. Compassionate support is hard to find in a system of precarious work, that keeps people on edge, scrambling for uncertain shifts.

The public sector is not free from criticism. Funding for disability has taken a hit under austerity, with a harsh welfare regime, and even funding for school places for students with special educational needs has been critically inadequate.

All people, disabled or not, want independence. To get around without assistance. To be confident and seen as capable. To that end, successive governments have promised an 'independence revolution', to radically improve social inclusion. That project has not been completed. There is so much more work to do.

We must think carefully about our society: how we frame work and making a contribution; how we approach inclusion. People can live full lives with a full spectrum of conditions and circumstances. But only if the society they live in does not disable them, by failing to built support and inclusion into their framework.

References

Hannah Richardson's 'Special needs cash shortfall 'leaves thousands of pupils unplaced''; on the BBC; 1 April 2018.

Simon Calder's 'BBC reporter stuck on empty plane for 90 minutes at Heathrow after wheelchair lost'; in The Independent; 24 March 2018.

'Disabled doctor left 'stranded' on London train'; on the BBC; 30 March 2018.

Ellis Palmer & Suzanne Vanhooymissen's 'When step-free on London's Tube isn't actually step-free'; on the BBC; 8 March 2018.

Frances Ryan's 'Benefit sanctions are punishing disabled people for the sake of it: The government’s cruel rhetoric is that with enough ‘tough love’, people too ill to get out of bed can hold down a job. Sanctions don’t work'; in The Guardian; 20 February 2018.

Frances Ryan's 'Disabled people should be seen as individuals, not as a drain on the taxpayer: The Conservatives claim the UK is a world leader in disability rights while penalising disabled people and failing to act on its own promises to help them into work'; in The Guardian; 12 December 2017.