Hostility to disabled people

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Hostility towards disabled people refers to the rejection, discrimination and marginalization of people with disabilities . A distinction must be made between a hostile-aggressive attitude of individual people or groups of people towards disabled people and social conditions that disadvantage people with disabilities. This effect is not intended in every case. A distinction is also between a ableism, referring to already-born people, and the willingness to a pregnancy "preventively" cancel if the resulting child will be handicapped likely.

Forms of discrimination against people with disabilities

There are different manifestations of discrimination against people with disabilities:

  • cultural (e.g. in the representation of disabilities and people with disabilities in the media),
  • institutional (e.g. barriers in buildings or means of transport),
  • interpersonal (e.g. paternalism , pitying looks, derogatory remarks, physical violence)
  • internalized (e.g. images of "superiority and inferiority")
  • economic (e.g. insurance against life risks)

Some theorists rate these manifestations as typical of oppressive relationships.

People whose thinking is characterized by hostility to disabled people rate people who conform to social norms of body / mind / behavior as being of higher quality and those who do not conform to them as being inferior.
The thinking of people with disabilities can also be shaped by hostility towards disabled people and have a corresponding effect on their self-image or their thinking about other people with (other) disabilities.

Dealing with the diagnosis of “disability” by parents-to-be and society

The social pressure to terminate a pregnancy if a possible disability is determined in prenatal examinations is perceived by many as a form of hostility towards the disabled.

Assumption of frailty and increased morbidity

People with an “intellectual disability” are often assumed to be frail and, because of their disability, at increased risk of dying early.

It is true that the average life expectancy of a person with cognitive impairment is twelve years shorter than that of the general public. But people with an "intellectual disability" usually only become frail in the second half of their lives. However, the assumption that a cognitively impaired person must be protected from the danger of SARS-CoV-2 with similar rigorous methods from infection with a pathogen as residents of a nursing home is lacking. While the risk of dying from COVID-19 is around 20% for people aged 75 and over , the death rate for adults with intellectual disabilities between the ages of 18 and 74 is 4.5% (2.7% in the general population ).

The Catholic University of North Rhine-Westphalia has therefore criticized the method used by politicians in the COVID-19 crisis to not differentiate between residents of old people's and nursing homes on the one hand and those in care for the disabled on the other.

History of persecution of people for their disability

In National Socialist Germany, on July 14, 1933, the government passed a law for the prevention of genetically ill offspring. By the end of the war there were 400,000 forced sterilizations and up to 200,000 kills of people who had been diagnosed as mentally and physically disabled. In 1941, by verbal order from Hitler: The "official end of euthanasia" was declared. A step that he had to take because the public pressure, especially from parents of disabled children, became too great. From February 1939 a draft law for the treatment of so-called “community aliens” was planned. The subgroup of "failures" was defined as follows:

For the purposes of this law, alien to the community is anyone who [...] shows, according to his personality and lifestyle, in particular as a result of exceptional deficiencies in understanding or character, that he is unable to meet the minimum requirements of the national community on his own (failure) [... ].

The police should refer “non-community members” to the state welfare associations, but should also be able to place them in police camps. Even before 1943, people classified as “disabled” were killed or forcibly sterilized as part of the T4 campaign . The above-cited draft law did not come into force primarily because the minorities to be persecuted were not sufficiently defined by what the leading National Socialists thought they were “pernicious genes”, but too much by their appearance. The “ableist” (see below) ideology on which the draft law is based can also be found among today's right-wing extremists.

In connection with modern biotechnology , curative education speaks of a new hostility to disabled people ( Georg Theunissen , 1989).

Causes of attitudes and structures that are hostile to disabled people

A possible social reaction to a deviating physique and / or deviating physical or mental possibilities is named as the cause of hostility towards the disabled in the sense of a hostile attitude of individual people or groups of people. This takes place against the background of the vision of a “perfect” body as the key to prosperity and happiness. The term is also used by its users in combination with racism , sexism and classicism and put in context.

One form of hostility towards disabled people is the paternalism of people who, from their own point of view, “only mean it well with disabled people” and therefore want to protect them and treat them with care . This attitude, which still exists even among professional carers, however, often leads to the patronizing of the "protégés". However, there are signs that the protection and care of disabled people are no longer the focus of many people's considerations, but their autonomy and “empowerment”. Disabled people should be enabled to lead an independent life “as normally as possible”. This is currently being negotiated with regard to the right to sexuality.

Language, which distinguishes between “disabled” and “non-disabled”, also plays an important role. Associated with this, according to Ralf Stoecker, is the misconception "that disabled people have deficiencies, non-disabled people [but] not". In fact, people are “fundamentally deficient beings”.

The existence of obstructive barriers , on the other hand, is seldom based on open hostility towards disabled people, but rather is an expression of indifference or thoughtlessness; Often thinking in economic categories (barrier-free solutions are often relatively expensive) prevents barriers from being removed. The Austrian organization “BIZEPS - Center for Self-Determined Living” contradicts this point of view: “We should not indulge ourselves in any deception, even buses that cannot be used are violence just like a telephone system that cannot be used by the deaf. But also disregarding the civil rights of disabled people or not taking ourselves seriously, which we encounter every step of the way in our everyday life. "

Disability and Ableism

Starting from the English-speaking area, the term Ableism or Ableism (from English able : able) has also become established in the German-speaking area . Ableism is defined as “a bundle of beliefs, processes and practices”, “which, based on one's own abilities, generates a special kind of understanding of the self, the body and relationships with conspecifics, other species and one's own environment.” Ableism is based on a preference for certain abilities that are projected as essential, while at the same time the real or perceived deviation or lack of these essential abilities is labeled as a diminished state of being, which often leads to the accompanying "Disableism", the discriminatory, suppressive or insulting behavior that from the belief that people without these "essential" skills are inferior to others.

Disabled hostility would therefore only be a variant of the ability to link statements about a person's performance with value judgments about the person concerned: The more effective a person is, the “more valuable” they appear to be, the less they can achieve, the “more worthless ". The conclusion that comes to mind for a man who does it, even if it is not always drawn explicitly, is that people at the lower end of their value scale are “life unworthy of life”.

Effects of Disability Discrimination

Effects on the discriminated

According to Birgit Rommelspacher, discrimination does not necessarily have to lead to a lower level of self-confidence among those who are discriminated against. It is important that people with disabilities recognize what objectively obstructs them, name them and take action against it (“the wheelchair is not too wide, the door is too narrow”). Another problem is the so-called attribution ambivalence . This means that it is not easy for a person who has been discriminated against to interpret a sentence or a gesture as benevolent or as hostile if the sentence or gesture can express both ( ambivalence ), which often occurs (for example: if someone for a blind person Farewell says: "See you tomorrow", the person leaving could make fun of the other; but it could also be that he does not think about not being able to see, so just treats the blind person like everyone else). Conditions for rejecting discrimination are:

  • that the discrimination is identified and recognized
  • that the correct causes are assigned to it and
  • that there are support options to defend against.

Effects on the discriminator

The privilege is the opposite of the discrimination: the effect of the discrimination is the privilege for the non-discriminated. However, as a rule, non-discriminated persons would not recognize these privileges, while discriminated persons would see these privileges very clearly.

In the case of open hostility towards disabled people, these privileges are deliberately defended. This is done through:

  • Confirmation of hierarchies : when people with disabilities appear self-confident and demanding, many often stop having fun and try to put them in their place . This can occur, among other things, when disabled people are trained in a regular school and perform as well as non-disabled students and / or perform better.
  • Functionalizations : own insecurities and fears are transferred to disabled people - if they reject them, they often have to expect aggression.
  • Reversal of power : right-wing extremist circles in particular believe that people with disabilities are in a position of power due to their so-called victim status , which must be restricted.

Measures against disability

The alternative to an "anti-handicap", i. H. Coexistence that is not suitable for handicapped people forms an inclusive coexistence in which people with functional restrictions are not assessed as having deficiencies, i.e. as "deficient". Inclusion not only requires a change in thinking, but also the creation of framework conditions that make the “deficits” appear irrelevant. Christian Fürchtegott Gellert provided a prime example of this paradigm shift as early as the 18th century : in his poem The Blind and the Lame , the blind carries the paralyzed man on his back. The paralyzed man shows the blind man the way and warns him of obstacles, and the paralyzed man becomes mobile. “So this couple works together, which was not possible individually”, is Gellert's comment (as a quasi “ symbiotic ” couple, both “disabled” people lose their need for help).

Self help

At the beginning of the 1970s a movement of people with disabilities was formed, inspired by the Afro-American civil rights movement in the USA, who resorted to self-help and raised awareness of their discrimination with campaigns and stickers (“anti-disability rating”). Quote from Dortmund activist Gusti Steiner, who died in 2004 :

“Against this background, in May 1974 in Frankfurt with our self-help group from the Frankfurt Adult Education Center, the first spectacular tram blockade by the disabled took place. We had awarded structural barriers and structural handicaps in direct confrontation with the “disability-friendly” rating, and we were targeted by two war victims' associations, the social welfare office, the general health insurance company and the Frankfurt city health department. The next day we held a wheelchair training session in the center of Frankfurt, during which we blocked a tram. A wheelchair user tried to get on the tram. Steps and a central pole blocked his entry. In the meantime, I rolled onto the rails, stood in front of the tram and explained over a megaphone that buses, trams and subways were not designed for the disabled. "

Since then, many organizations for the disabled have been founded with a political self-image.

Legal process

In constitutional states, it is possible to have decisions made by authorities, but also by private bodies that discriminate against people with disabilities, for judicial review.

So that made the Federal Court of Switzerland , a decision of the municipal council of a municipality in the canton of Zurich reversed that had rejected the request of a resident in Switzerland foreigner with an intellectual disability to naturalization to Switzerland on the grounds that the woman lacked the ability to "economic self-preservation ". By refusing naturalization, the municipality wanted to avoid having to pay for 100,000 francs in welfare benefits every year . Until then, these were provided by the Federal Asylum Service . After naturalization, corresponding payments must be made by the municipality. The cantonal administrative court supported the municipality's financial argument. However, the Federal Supreme Court sees the denial of naturalization due to a lack of economic self-preservation as a form of discrimination. Because of her mental handicap, the young woman is permanently prevented from being naturalized at all. On the other hand, it is a disregard for human dignity if the woman is not naturalized simply because of the question of the budget from which the support due to her is provided.

Empirical research on the extent of discrimination against people with disabilities

Surveys show that there are anti-disability attitudes in parts of the population of Germany and Europe. There is no evidence that these are spreading and increasing in intensity. "Die Zeit" pointed out in 2002 that, on the contrary, the proportion of those who advocate simple institutional accommodation for children with Down syndrome without any special effort fell to zero between 1969 and 2000. At the same time, the proportion of supporters of special individual support measures has risen from 59 to 90 percent. In 1969, only 18 percent thought it was right to look after the affected children at home; in 2000 it was 90 percent.

The thesis that the hostility to disabled people is increasing in Germany can only be further defended if one assumes that surveys predominantly reveal socially desirable answers but not the true opinions and that there is a widespread among the population beneath the surface of the official culture Resentment against disabled people.

Wocken 2000

In order to investigate the extent of attitudes hostile to disabled people in Germany, Hans Wocken from the "Institute for Disabled Education" at the University of Hamburg carried out a survey in 2000 with the following questions:

  • "Would it bother you somehow if a disabled person lives in your neighborhood and you meet him every day?" ("Neighborhood question")
  • "They go on holiday. A group of mentally handicapped people also live in your hotel. Would that bother you? "(" Vacation question ")
  • "Would you put your child in a class with disabled children?" ("Integration question")
  • "Do you think it is okay (okay) that the mentally or physically handicapped are allowed to have their own children?" ("Parenthood question")
  • “If a severely disabled child is born, wouldn't it be better for everyone if this child were allowed to die?” (“Euthanasia question”).

The neighborhood question was hardly answered negatively, while a quarter of the respondents answered the parenting question with “no”. 60 percent answered the question of euthanasia (although formulated suggestively ).

"Eurobarometer" 2008

In spring 2008, citizens of all member states of the European Union were asked for their opinion on the subject of “discrimination”. 35 percent of Europeans said that discrimination against people with disabilities was “fairly widespread” in their country, 10 percent said it was “very widespread”. (Germany: both answers together 37 percent; Austria: both answers together 38 percent).

67 percent of Europeans said that in 2008 discrimination against disabled people was less widespread in their country than in 2003 (Germany: 70 percent; Austria: 68 percent).

On a “wellbeing scale” of 1–10, Europeans give an average of 9.1 when asked how they feel about the thought of a disabled neighbor, and 8.0 when asked about one disabled people in the highest political office in the country.

In the same survey, 83 percent of Europeans said they were “in favor of implementing specific measures to ensure equal employment opportunities for everyone” when it comes to disabled people.

The survey results show that the majority of the EU countries do not see discrimination against people with disabilities as the worst form of discrimination, and that many even describe themselves as being extremely disabled-friendly.

literature

Book editions

  • Günther Cloerkes : How to be disabled. 2003, ISBN 3-8253-8305-9 .
  • S. v. Daniels, T. Degener, A. Jürgens, F. Krick, P. Mand, A. Mayer, B. Rothenberg, G. Steiner, O. Tolmein (eds.): Krüppel-Tribunal, human rights violations in the welfare state. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1983, ISBN 3-7609-0799-7 .
  • Rudolf Forster: From exclusion to violence: right-wing extremism and hostility to the disabled. 2002, ISBN 3-7815-1228-2 .
  • Erving Goffman : Asylums. About the social situation of psychiatric patients and other inmates. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-518-10678-3 .
  • Gisela Hermes , Eckhard Rohrmann : Nothing about us - without us! Disability Studies as a new approach to emancipatory and interdisciplinary research on disability. 2006, ISBN 3-930830-71-X .
  • Ernst Klee : Being disabled is nice. Documents for working with the disabled. Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1974, ISBN 3-491-00436-5 .
  • Ernst Klee: Disabled. About the expropriation of the body and consciousness. A critical manual. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-596-23860-9 .
  • Winfried Palmowski, Matthias Heuwinkel: Normally I am not disabled! Constructions of reality in people who are disabled. Differences that make worlds. Dortmund 2000, ISBN 3-86145-198-0 .
  • Adolf Ratzka : uprising of those in care. In: A. Mayer, J. Rütter: Farewell to the home. AG-SPAK, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-923126-53-0 , pp. 183-201.
  • Birgit Rommelspacher (Hrsg.): Disability hostility. Lamuv Verlag , Goettingen 1999, ISBN 3-88977-548-9 .
  • Gusti Steiner: Self-help as a political lobby group. In: E. Rohrmann, P. Günther: Social self-help. Alternative, complement or method of social work. Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 3-8253-8269-9 , pp. 127-143.
  • Gusti Steiner : Black Book Deutsche Bahn AG. AG SPAK Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-930830-36-1 .

Magazine articles

  • Rudolf Forster: "New hostility to disabled people" and right-wing extremist violence against the disabled. In: Disabled Education in Bavaria. 43, 2/2000.
  • Rudolf Forster: From Exclusion to Violence: Right-Wing Extremist Disability-Hostile Violence in the Free State of Law. In: Disabled Education in Bavaria. 44, 1/2001.
  • Rudolf Forster: Hostility to the disabled and right-wing extremist violence - a first sketch of current social phenomena. In: Bulletin of the working group teachers for the mentally disabled. 3/2002 (Bern / Switzerland).
  • Ernst Klee: Prejudices: The handicapped - a monster? In: The time . March 21, 1980, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed August 25, 2011]).
  • Georg Theunissen: On the new hostility to disabled people in the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Intellectual Disability. 4/1989 and magazine for curative education. 10/1989.
  • Peter Widmann: Prejudices against the socially weak and the disabled. In: Information on political education. 271 (subject: prejudices ). 2005. (online) .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sibylle Volz: Discrimination against people with disabilities in the context of pre-implantation and prenatal diagnosis . 2003. (online)
  2. ↑ First studies on people with intellectual disabilities and COVID-19: No higher death rate among people with intellectual disabilities . Catholic University of North Rhine-Westphalia. June 2020, accessed on August 25, 2020
  3. ↑ On the drafts for a community alien law cf. Wolfgang Ayaß (arrangement): "Community strangers". Sources on the persecution of "anti-social" 1933–1945 , Koblenz 1998.
  4. ↑ Rudolf Forster: From exclusion to violence. Right-wing extremism and hostility to disabled people - a sociological-special educational approach . 2002, p. 37 f.
  5. ↑ a b Procreation. In: Zeit Online. October 2, 2002, accessed May 26, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Ralf Stoecker: Ethics and Disability - Considerations on Tolerance, Acceptance and Difference. Sunday lecture, held on May 14, 2006 as part of the Potsdamer Köpfe series. P. 6. ( Memento of the original from June 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-potsdam.de
  7. ↑ bizeps.or.at
  8. ^ Gregor Wolbring: The convergence of the governance of science and technology with the governance of "Ableism". In: Technology Assessment - Theory and Practice. Editor: Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis - ITAS - Volume 18, No. 2, September 2009, pp. 29–35.
  9. ↑ a b "How does discrimination work?" - Lecture by Prof. Dr. Birgit Rommelspacher. In: imew.de. Institute for Humans, Ethics and Science, accessed on August 25, 2011 .
  10. ^ Wording: Christian Fürchtegott Gellert: Fables and Stories. Retrieved May 26, 2015 (First Book: The Blind and the Lame ).
  11. ↑ Federal court ruling on the naturalization of people with disabilities.
  12. ↑ Wolfgang van den Daele: Prenatal selection: is prenatal diagnosis hostile to disabled people? In: Leviathan. 23/2005. Biopolitics special issue . P. 112.
  13. ↑ Hans Wocken: The Zeitgeist: Disabled-hostile? Attitudes to the disabled at the turn of the millennium. ( Memento of the original from October 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hans-wocken.de
  14. ↑ Discrimination in the European Union: Perceptions, experiences and attitudes. (= Eurobarometer special 296). July 2008, pp. 48-55.
  15. ↑ Discrimination in the European Union: Perceptions, experiences and attitudes. (= Eurobarometer special 296). July 2008, p. 31.