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More handpicked essays just for you.
How media shape public perceptions
Describing the medical and social models of disability
The issue of discrimination against disabled people in our society
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An estimated one billion people are living with disabilities around the world, that is approximately 15 percent of all people on earth (United Nations, n.d.). Furthermore, in the United States, almost 57 million people, 19 percent, have some type of disability (United States Census Bureau, 2012). It is apparent that disabilities are prominent in life today, and unfortunately, the world views disability as individuals who are not abled. Eli Clare, author of "Stolen Bodies, Reclaimed Bodies: Disability and Queerness", acknowledges that there is a vast majority of people living with disabilities and in light of this, he advises the world to accept irrevocable differences. In this case, Clare argues that irrevocable differences are bodily differences …show more content…
Clare provides different paradigms of disability in order to demonstrate the wide variety of views concerning disabilities. He states that the paradigms of disability "all turn disability into problems faced by individual people, locate those problems in our bodies, and define those bodies as wrong," (Clare, 2001, p. 360). The first paradigm model Clare explains is the medical model which defines disability as a disease or a condition that is treatable. Next, he explains that the charity model defines disability as a tragedy and the supercrip model defines disability as a tough challenge that individuals overcome; the supercrip model makes individuals with disabilities out to be superheroes. Lastly, Clare explains that the moral model defines disability as a weakness. In order to demonstrate the paradigms and how they overlap, Clare cleverly uses an array of popular examples. One significant example is Jerry Lewis' telethon. During this time, Jerry Lewis attempts to raise money in order to find a cure for a condition. Overall, his Labor Day telethon raises money to end a disability by finding a cure for the broken bodies. This telethon employs the medical model because it demonstrates disability as a condition that needs to be treated. In addition, the telethon employs the charity model because it shows disability as a misfortune. All four disability paradigms are known as the social model because they are the ideas that society has about certain bodies. When society creates these ideas about disabilities, they create unnatural
The two essays “On Being a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs and “A Plague of Tics” by David Sedaris are excellent pieces of work that share many similarities. This paper would reflect on these similarities particularly in terms of the author, message and the targeted audience. On an everyday basis, people view those with disabilities in a different light and make them conscious at every step. This may be done without a conscious realisation but then it is probably human nature to observe and notice things that deviate from the normal in a society. In a way people are conditioned to look negatively at those individuals who are different in the conventional
The Moving Beyond Pity & Inspiration: Disability as a social Justice Issue by Eli Clare took place on April 16, 2014. Thinking about disability before this lecture I feel like I had a general idea of the things Eli spoke about. I attended a school were more than half of the students had a disability. The terms and stereotypes he mentioned I ha heard since sixth grade.
Gender has been broadly used within the humanities and social sciences as both a means to categories dissimilarities, and as a logical concept to give details differences. In both the humanities and social sciences. Disability studies has appeared partly as a result of challenges to give details gendered experience of disability and partly as a challenge to contemporary feminist theory on gender which fails to take description of disability. Disabled people have frequently been standing for as without gender, as asexual creatures, as freaks of nature, hideous, the ‘Other’ to the social norm. In this way it may be taking for granted that for disabled people gender has little bearing. However, the image of disability may be make physically powerful by gender - for women a sense of intensified passivity and helplessness, for men a dishonesties masculinity make by put into effected dependence. Moreover these images have real consequences in terms of
The memoir My Body Politic is an inspirational first person framework by Simi Linton. Her powerful stories give the reader a strong understanding on disability studies as well as the challenges Simi endured as she lived through a difficult time period for someone having a disability. When she became disabled in the 70’s, Simi’s life drastically changed. After spending months in the hospital and rehabilitation centers, Simi decided to take the opportunity to move to New York and attend college there. While living in Berkeley, she discovered that her neighborhood was more accommodating for people with wheelchairs, making it a welcoming space to live in. It was there where she discovered the political disability movement which inspired her to go back to university to get her bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Disability is a ‘complex issue’ (Alperstein, M., Atkins, S., Bately, K., Coetzee, D., Duncan, M., Ferguson, G., Geiger, M. Hewett, G., et al.., 2009: 239) which affects a large percentage of the world’s population. Due to it being complex, one can say that disability depends on one’s perspective (Alperstein et al., 2009: 239). In this essay, I will draw on Dylan Alcott’s disability and use his story to further explain the four models of disability being The Traditional Model, The Medical Model, The Social Model and The Integrated Model of Disability. Through this, I will reflect on my thoughts and feelings in response to Dylan’s story as well as to draw on this task and my new found knowledge of disability in aiding me to become
Not only does Georgiana’s rhetoric depict how she subscribes to the opinion of “better off dead than disabled” but also shows how she falls victim to the medical model of disability. Georgiana refers to her imperfection as potentially “cureless” and demands he “remove” the flaw. Under the medical model, disability is seen as a pathology. If it is simply a pathology, disability not only has the potential to be cured but also must be cured. Additionally, the medical model’s goal of excising disability from society overlooks associated costs such as money and even
Nancy Mairs, born in 1943, described herself as a radical feminist, pacifist, and cripple. She is crippled because she has multiple sclerosis (MS), which is a chronic disease involving damage to the nerve cells and spinal cord. In her essay Disability, Mairs’ focus is on how disabled people are portrayed, or rather un-portrayed in the media. There is more than one audience that Mairs could have been trying to reach out to with this piece. The less-obvious audience would be disabled people who can connect to her writing because they can relate to it. The more obvious audience would be physically-able people who have yet to notice the lack of disabled people being portrayed by the media. Her purpose is to persuade the audience that disabled people should be shown in the media more often, to help society better cope with and realize the presence of handicapped people. Mairs starts off by saying “For months now I’ve been consciously searching for representation of myself in the media, especially television. I know I’d recognize this self becaus...
The social model requires society to change the way it is structured rather then blaming the individual. In contrast, the individual model makes the costumer feel at fault hence lowers his confidence, but the social model insures the costumer that it was not his fault but rather those who built the doors without thinking about the disabled minorities (Oliver, 1990). The individual model fails to distinguish the difference between impairment and illness and it assumes all bodies with disabilities are in need of medical treatment (Oliver, 1990). Although the social model does distinguish the difference it often dismisses the individual and medical approaches and thus it can be interpreted as rejecting the medical prevention (Shakespeare,
As suggested earlier, however, the physiological component of disability is distinguished from disability under the motion of impairment. Tom Shakespeare explains that key to the Social Model of disability is a “series of dichotomies,” one where “impairment is distinguished from disability.” For example, the Social Model accepts that deafness is a physiological impairment that person’s participation in society is limited, to some physical extent. And, even assuming if society was to completely accept individuals with disabilities, without prejudice or categorization, there would nonetheless be physical limitations. Nevertheless, the crucial assertion under the Social Model is that “disability” is, by definition, a social
In” Disabling Imagery in the media “Barnes asserts,“Disabled people are rarely shown as integral and productive members of the community; as students, as teachers, as part of the work-force or as parents. “(11). Popular culture excludes women with disabilities because they are different. Through Joanne’s character, Nussbaum demonstrates how women with disabilities operate in their daily lives.Nussbaum description of Joanne’s daily routine shows that women with Nussbaum 's character Joanne also demonstrates how women with disabilities are not burdens on
It could be said that in modern industrial society, disability is still widely regarded as a tragic individual failing, in which its “victims” require care, sympathy and medical diagnosis. Whilst medical science has served to improve and enhance the quality of life for many, it could be argued that it has also led to further segregation and separation of many individuals. This could be caused by its insistence on labelling one as “sick”, “abnormal” or “mental”. Consequently, what this act of labelling and diagnosing has done, is enforce the societal view that a disability is an abnormality that requires treatment and that any of its “victims” should do what is required to be able to function in society as an able bodied individual. The social model of disability argues against this and instead holds the view that it is society, not the individual, that needs to change and do what is required, so that everyone can function in society.
The Medical Model is one of the approaches used to understand people with disabilities, and is ‘concerned with the origin, degree, type of loss and the onset’ of a certain disability (Munoz-Baell &Ruiz, 2000; 54:40-44). This approach views a disability as something no human being wants and should be avoided at all costs if possible (Models-Deafness, 2005). The Medical Model aims to treat people with disabilities, but before treatment can take place they need to study the disabilities and conduct experiments. In some cases the tests and investigations conducted violate the subject’s (disabled person/people being studied) fundamental human rights (Chenoweth, 1995; 36). As stated in the Integrated National Disability Strategy (INDS) : Models of Disability (1997) the Medical Model is made up of establishments that cater to people with disabilities in terms of ‘providing treatment or alternatives’ to their impairment. Although they have good intentions (to assist the disabled) this models interventions result in disabled people being dependent on these institutions and the government.
Disability: Any person who has a mental or physical deterioration that initially limits one or more major everyday life activities. Millions of people all over the world, are faced with discrimination, the con of being unprotected by the law, and are not able to participate in the human rights everyone is meant to have. For hundreds of years, humans with disabilities are constantly referred to as different, retarded, or weird. They have been stripped of their basic human rights; born free and are equal in dignity and rights, have the right to life, shall not be a victim of torture or cruelty, right to own property, free in opinion and expression, freedom of taking part in government, right in general education, and right of employment opportunities. Once the 20th century
In the essay “Disability,” Nancy Mairs discusses the lack of media attention for the disabled, writing: “To depict disabled people in the ordinary activities of life is to admit that there is something ordinary about disability itself, that it may enter anyone’s life.” An ordinary person has very little exposure to the disabled, and therefore can only draw conclusions from what is seen in the media. As soon as people can picture the disabled as regular people with a debilitating condition, they can begin to respect them and see to their needs without it seeming like an afterthought or a burden. As Mairs wrote: “The fact is that ours is the only minority you can join involuntarily, without warning, at any time.” Looking at the issue from this angle, it is easy to see that many disabled people were ordinary people prior to some sort of accident. Mairs develops this po...
...eglected social issues in recent history (Barlow). People with disabilities often face societal barriers and disability evokes negative perceptions and discrimination in society. As a result of the stigma associated with disability, persons with disabilities are generally excluded from education, employment, and community life which deprives them of opportunities essential to their social development, health and well-being (Stefan). It is such barriers and discrimination that actually set people apart from society, in many cases making them a burden to the community. The ideas and concepts of equality and full participation for persons with disabilities have been developed very far on paper, but not in reality (Wallace). The government can make numerous laws against discrimination, but this does not change the way that people with disabilities are judged in society.