“Identifying [ableism] by name is only the beginning of the process of counteracting it,” says Lisa Diedrich, professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Stony Brook University.1
When many of us, including me, were younger, we knew we were being treated a certain way because of our disabilities. For me, it was the countless times I was picked last for sports teams during gym class. Jamie Shields, a self-described “Registered Blind AuDHD Rhino” (after being told his whole life how he could or couldn’t identify),2 shared a similar early experience from his childhood, which, much like my own, involved feeling othered without having the language to express it:
Being Disabled embarrassed me. It made me feel like I was less than. I was treated differently, and not in a good way. I learned that being Disabled was a bad thing. It indicated to others I was not “normal,” and that I was an easy target for their aggression. Adults also seemed to want to wrap me in cotton wool or talk about my Disability like it was a bad thing to be discussing.3
These experiences led him to “binge drinking, skipping class, and feelings of being worthless” while at university, where he continued to struggle with internalized as well as institutional ableism. “But still, I didn’t know how or what ableism was, nor that my internalized ableism had me self-sabotaging and self-destructing.”4
So what is ableism?
Let’s start with the dictionary again. According to Merriam-Webster, ableism is “discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities.”5 I, too, used to see my negative experiences from navigating the world solely as a result of others discriminating against me because of my disability. However, the truth is that ableism is much more than just prejudice on the basis of disability.
Ableism is an entire system of oppression, with nuanced meanings and a complex history.
The earliest known use of the word ableism was in 1981, when it appeared in Yvonne Duffy’s All Things Are Possible, a text on disability and sexuality. The term appears only once in the book, during an interview with a disabled lesbian woman who remarked that she had experienced “ableism” in both lesbian and straight communities.6 Since then, disability advocates and scholars have increasingly used ableism, especially in 2020 during a period of renewed consciousness, when people were starting to grapple with their understanding of racism. In 2022, the term gained more widespread media coverage through John Fetterman’s US Senate campaign: a stroke left Fetterman with an auditory processing disorder right before a debate, prompting a national conversation on what ableism is, how it affects our interactions, and how it is represented in our culture.7 Although the term is fairly modern, it is important to note that ableism has always existed, even in antiquity, as we have seen in Chapter 5: A Brief History of the Disability Rights Movement.
Today, I use the working definition of ableism from abolitionist and disability advocate Talila Lewis:
[Ableism is] a system of assigning value to people’s bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence, and fitness… [that] are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-Blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism. This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people’s value based on their culture, age, language, appearance, religion, birth or living place, “health/wellness,” and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, “excel,” and “behave.” You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism.8
Ableism can also affect people who are not disabled, such as in the way the media has dissected women’s bodies for years (ableism and sexism) or our mistreatment of Black bodies throughout history (ableism and racism). This is where intersectionality comes in: ableism, racism, sexism, and other systems of oppression all operate together.
Other definitions of ableism point out that our society assumes that there is a “default” or “norm” that is superior to any experience that falls outside it. According to the Disability & Philanthropy Forum, ableism “is a set of stereotypes and practices that… [assume] that the bodies and minds of non-disabled people are the ‘default,’ placing value on them based on society’s perceptions of what’s considered ‘normal.’”9 In its definition, Salem State University adds the idea of power and privilege: “Ableism is prejudice plus power.… In North America (and globally), societally enabled or non-disabled people have the institutional power.”
Today, as I look back on my past understanding of ableism, my takeaway is that disability is not the problem that needs to be fixed; ableism is.
So what does ableism actually look like in practice? What are some examples of an ableist society in action?
Systemic or institutional ableism is a form of ableism that is often overt and structural. It manifests as “the physical barriers, policies, laws, regulations, and practices that exclude disabled people from full participation and equal opportunity.”10 This includes a lack of accessibility in public spaces, for example, no wheelchair-accessible entrances, a broken elevator, no braille on signs, or a lack of sign-language interpreters or closed-captioning technology. This lack of accessibility creates barriers to participation for people with certain types of disabilities. This type of ableism also includes limited health care coverage for people with “pre-existing” conditions or the fact that it’s still legal for employers to pay disabled people below minimum wage through the FLSA.
Systemic or institutional ableism also harms disabled people, damaging our quality of life and even killing us. For example, in June 2020, Michael Hickson died when he was denied treatment for COVID because doctors determined that he had a “lower quality of life.”11 And in November 2021, disability activist Engracia Figueroa died from complications of injuries sustained when an airline destroyed her custom wheelchair.12
Then we have ableist microaggressions. This form of ableism is indirect and subtle but just as harmful. In later chapters, we will address some common ableist microaggressions and what we can do to interrupt them. Microaggressions, as defined by Kevin Nadal, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, are “the everyday, subtle, intentional—and oftentimes unintentional—interactions or behaviors that communicate some sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups. The difference between microaggressions and overt discrimination or macroaggressions is that people who commit microaggressions might not even be aware of them.”13
Ableist microaggressions occur in our interpersonal relationships and how we interact with one another. The three types of interpersonal ableist microaggressions are microinsults, microinvalidations, and microassaults.14 Microinsults are insensitive remarks or backhanded compliments that are often made unconsciously, such as “You’re so inspiring because you’re disabled,” offering unsolicited prayers or advice to disabled people, or doing what you think is best rather than asking a disabled person what we need.
Microinvalidations deny or exclude real experiences, such as “I don’t see you as disabled” or “But you don’t look disabled.” What this actually sounds like to disabled people is “You don’t see me—my identity makes me invisible,” “You don’t hear me—my thoughts and opinions don’t matter,” or “You accept me only because my disability doesn’t always make me visibly different.”15
Finally, microassaults are explicit verbal attacks intended to hurt. They aren’t ambiguous. Examples are mocking someone’s disability, belittling someone’s need to use assistive devices or mobility aids, complaining about accessible parking spots inconveniencing your ability to park, or deciding not to hire a qualified candidate because we are disabled.
A type of ableist microaggression is known as everyday, minor, or casual ableism. Casual ableism is “subtle ableism, usually hidden in seemingly innocent phrases, conversations, and actions.”16 Examples are when someone chooses an inaccessible venue to plan an event, posts a video without closed captions, uses an accessible parking space or bathroom stall when they are able to use non-accessible spaces without pain or risk of injury, or calls someone “psycho” or “crazy” in a casual or pejorative manner.
Black disabled advocate Eric Harris told me about the numerous occurrences of ableism that he experiences on a day-to-day basis, “including the regular occurrence of having taxi cabs pass me up for either my skin color or wheelchair, entering restaurants through the back or kitchen because the main entrance was not accessible or having to sit in the corner, and especially in school when teachers would crack jokes and make light of my disability.” He reminds us that these examples “hurt deeply.”17
Underlying casual ableism is someone’s privilege to not think further about making accommodations for disabled people. As diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) consultant Becca Lory Hector puts it, “It is one of the most painful parts of my job to have to silently process a microaggression, carefully educate surrounding it, and continue to remain professional all at the same time. And yet, when it happens, it reminds me of exactly how much work I have to do.”18
Catarina Rivera, creator of @BlindishLatina, a disability advocacy platform, has Usher syndrome, which means she has both hearing and vision disabilities; she wears hearing aids and uses a white cane to navigate the world. Rivera told me about an experience she had while on a walking tour in Amsterdam. Carrying her white cane to make her way around, she struggled to understand the tour guide, who spoke without eye contact amid the ambient noise from the street. She approached him and asked, “Can you please face me when you’re speaking so I can read your lips?” He didn’t skip a beat when he looked at her—and her cane—and quickly replied, “How can you read lips?” Looking back on that experience, Rivera said, “I couldn’t believe that I expressed what I needed and that he questioned it instead of listening to me. I don’t have time to explain how my disability works to everyone I interact with, and I shouldn’t have to. He put me in a position where he held the power to decide whether to accommodate me or not, and it was like he was asking me to prove my need.”19
This, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg. Many other firsthand experiences of ableism have been submitted by different users on the Instagram page @CasualAbleism.
Ableist microaggressions are harmful because they assign “inferior worth to people with disabilities, limiting their potential”20 and lead to a lack of psychological safety that has a lasting damaging effect on the mental state of disabled people. They are both the symptoms and causes of larger structural inequities—remarks or behaviors that are subtle or unconscious can easily develop into more overt forms of systemic ableism over time.
Living in an ableist world also creates internalized ableism, a form of internalized oppression. Internalized oppression is defined as the “internalization of negative messages and beliefs about oneself and one’s group that are perpetuated by a society or system that oppresses them. It can manifest as self-hatred, low self-esteem, self-doubt, and a lack of self-worth, and can lead to individuals internalizing negative stereotypes and biases about their own group and accepting the dominant narrative about their own worth and value.… It can be a significant barrier to self-empowerment and the ability to challenge and resist oppression.”21 For example, it means thinking that we should lower our standards for romantic relationships because “who would want to be with someone with a disability?” or not asking for accommodations, accessibility, or the support we’re entitled to because we believe we are a burden.
Finally, lateral ableism is when certain disabled people do not consider or fight for the rights of all disabled people. More simply, it is when a disabled person is ableist toward another disabled person. Andrew Pulrang, a contributor at Forbes, uses the example of “people with physical disabilities bolstering their own social status and acceptance by emphasizing that they don’t have mental impairments, with assertions like, ‘My legs are disabled, not my brain!’ or, ‘At least there’s nothing wrong with my mind!’”22 Statements like this reinforce harm toward people who have mental disabilities. Another example is when we label someone “high functioning,” such as “high-functioning autism” or “high-functioning anxiety,” ultimately denying us the support that we might need. At the same time, those who are labeled “low functioning” are seen as not being capable of doing anything. Tackling lateral ableism is necessary to our collective liberation because, as Fannie Lou Hamer said, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”23
Once we know what ableism looks like, and once we recognize the ways that we might personally be contributing to an ableist society, then we can work on the ways to dismantle it through an anti-ableist practice.