Handicapism
Handicapism is a concept of sociological jargon refers to a theory and a set of practices that unequal and unfair treatment, discrimination and oppression promote people with disabilities. People are categorized according to the type of apparent or assumed physical or mental disability and, on this basis, certain common abilities, skills and / or character traits are assigned or denied to each of the groups . These stereotypes serve as a justification for handicapism practices and influence attitudes and behavior towards the people of the respective group. The concept is comparable to that of racism , homophobia or sexism .
The labeling also has an impact on the person in each category. Your options for action are limited, your identity changes.
Assumptions, myths (selection)
Handicapism implies that people with disabilities
- dependent (eternal child)
- Recipient (the picture of the disabled person with the cap in hand, begging)
- Deficient, deficient, dysfunctional and therefore inferior beings
- especially with a view to the labor market, less productive, incapable or poor quality workforce
- tormented, unfortunate
are and
- prefer to be with their own kind ("They feel safer where they don't compete with normal people.")
- have certain qualities (for example, "She has such a good memory." "This is how blind people are.")
Effects
Personal behaviors
- personal distance, avoidance of contact.
- it is spoken for them and at the same time about them as if they were not present,
- When communicating, the first name is used instead of Mr. or Mrs. named ...
- frequent exaggerated praise for people with disabilities as if they were still children, the achievement is described as extraordinary, unbelievable because of the disability.
- A woman who smiles a lot is said, "It's so good you can still smile. Heaven knows, you really have no reason to be happy."
The label "disabled" results in a no win situation. If a person fulfills the cliché, he is a poor, sad person with a heart of gold, one expects gratitude and a need for compassion and charity. If one succeeds in breaking out of the stereotype, it is considered unusual, a rare case, astonishing.
society
- Barriers, for example difficult access to transport and buildings for people with disabilities
- Mass media
- Not only are ugliness and beauty arbitrarily defined, they also serve as indicators of good and bad. Ugliness is equated with violence and fear, a popular topic in horror films. In contrast, characters like Captain Hook stir up children's fears of disabled adults.
- Disabled people as helpless objects of charity, compassion, disability presented as a cost factor to collect donations + the resulting services are called privilege.
- Charity pretends to want to remove disability, traditionally uses degrading images (as early as the 17th and 18th centuries, for example, citizens could visit work, penitentiary or madhouses for admission to gaze at "the raging lunatics" there were chained in cages.)
- Institutionalization
People who are believed to be less capable than others and therefore suffer (and because of their constitution in general) must be helped - given in concrete terms - (time, attention, educational effort, care, financial support ...) are seen as inefficient and useless and expected to be patient and thankful. You are not allowed to formulate claims or criticism.
Handicapism not only presupposes incompetence, it develops it, and denial of decent work creates dependency. The ascribed incapacity of the recipient is thus confirmed in a circular
manner . Each person is assigned several roles in society. Handicapism has the effect that other role expectations are superimposed, as well as the gender role, so that people with handicap are often perceived as genderless beings.
See also
- Ableism
- Audism
- Disability Movement
- Disability mainstreaming
- Social criticism
- Inclusive education , social inclusion
- Intersectionality
- UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
literature
- Walter Fandrey: Krüppel, Idioten, Irre: on the social history of disabled people in Germany ISBN 978-3925344718
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ernst Wüllenweber: Pedagogy in the case of intellectual disabilities: a manual for study and practice p. 149, accessed on January 17, 2012
- ↑ Speck's attribution theory , accessed on January 17, 2012.
- ↑ Handicapism ( Memento of the original from December 26, 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. (en), Retrieved January 17, 2012
- ↑ Rebecca Maskos: Are you disabled or what ?! ( Memento of the original from October 3, 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. (PDF; 55 kB) accessed on January 18, 2012
- ↑ Performance principle and social positioning of disabled people accessed on
