A Salutary Gift

Although my impairment has been referred to laughingly (by those who get the joke) as progressive, its extent still takes me by surprise. My formative years were spent without it so old habits of the expectation of a "normal" life (whatever that is!) cling on, however irrational that may seem.

When in the 1980s as the self employed designer on an R & D team, I would be sat with men in suits round a table in the outer reaches of a European Commission sub-department, I would invariably find myself the only woman in the room apart from the young lady who brought us coffee. Roll on 30 increasingly isolated years, and at a boiler-room event with a 54 hour timespan over two and a half days I still managed to hold my own, with appropriate assistance and equipment to enable me to survive such a punishing schedule. Nevertheless I was shocked to find, among over 100 participants, I was not only one of very few women, I was also the only participant with a discernible impairment. Over a third participating were either university undergraduates or post graduate students. In an industry which is easily adaptable to disabled workers, and inherently gender neutral, these are not impressive statistics.

I have the feeling that I'm going to be saying this an awful lot in the next weeks and months. 2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the arrival on the statute book of the Disability Discrimination Act, the 45th anniversary Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act and the 40th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act, and there are times when I still wonder how far we actually have come in terms of society’s attitude and awareness. A new generation of women seems to have no notion of what hard-won ground they are in danger of losing. Regarding disability, a number of well-meaning initiatives have backfired in my view, notably the ubiquitous wheelchair symbol which gives the impression that so long as “we’ve got a ramp” then everything’s hunky dory for everyone, including those with visual or cognitive or hearing impairment… and so on across the diverse 20% of humanity who find themselves disabled by the environment in which they have to operate.

Another mistaken notion is for non-disabled people to “see the person, not the disability”. No. We need you to acknowledge both. Both the person, unique as everyone, every one, is unique; and also the disability – imposed on us by barriers in the environment, and especially by perceptions of us.

What wiped me out for a week after this exciting event was not the long hours – I’m used to them. It takes the expenditure of a great deal of time and energy to live the life I have, not just my time and energy either. No, what really floored me, emotionally and psychologically – was when people started to “get it”. As my contribution to the event I had thrown down a challenge: to answer the question “What are the barriers that prevent non-disabled people from engaging with the access needs of disabled people?” Through observing and listening closely during that event, a couple of people in particular began to understand just how debilitating is the process for someone like me to do the most trivial of physical things that we all (thank goodness!) take for granted - until we come face to face with impairment.

It was the look in their eyes that hit me hardest: the glimpse for them of what life is like for me, and by extension, what it might be like for other people of their acquaintance; what it might have been like for me in other circumstances.

Perhaps one day I shall manage to enable them to see beyond that too; to help them see me as I see myself. Perhaps it will be something that they feel able to tell others about. Other people may have similar encounters, maybe it will become contagious, go viral… and just maybe (you never know) some more of the barriers that prevent disabled people – and women too – from fulfilling their potential might get dismantled.

“To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.” Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception.