Ableism


 * This article deals primarily with discrimination faced by those with physical disabilities. For details on the types of discrimination faced by those with emotional issues and the like, see Mentalism (discrimination).

Ableism or Disablism is discrimination based on the physical ability of their body. An "ableist" society is said to be one that assumes non-disabled individuals to be the standard of ‘normal living’, a historic practice in human existence that even today, with the increased participation in many societies of individuals with disabilities, has not always changed.

Continued ableism results in public and private architectural structures, places, and even services, including education and social work, that are built to serve 'standard' (i.e. ambulatory) people, thereby inherently excluding those with disabilities.

Inclusion, comparatively, means that all products, services, and societal opportunities and resources are fully accessible, welcoming, functional and usable for as many different types of abilities as reasonably possible. An ableist society tends towards isolation, pity, paternalism and low self-esteem among people with disabilities, whereas an inclusive society tends toward sociability and interdependency between the able-bodied and disabled.

The United Kingdom favours the term 'Disablism' over 'Ableism' out of a perspective driven by the Social model of disability which regards 'disability' as discrimination experienced by a person as a response to their impairment, making 'disablist' or 'disablism' the logical terms to describe discrimination on the grounds of disability. Other English-speaking nations may use either term or both.

Discrimination
The presumption that everyone (or at least everyone who matters) is non-disabled is said to encourage environments that are inaccessible to disabled people. It is also a system by which mainstream society denigrates, devalues, and thus oppresses those with disabilities, while by their very basis privileging those without disabilities, according to those who describe ableist circumstances. For example, a building may be built with stairs but no lift or wheelchair accessible ramps. Even if a disabled person who is ambulatory can and does use stairs, the stairs may not have railings to hold on to, making the process of climbing and descending them either impossible or with serious risk of injury. Such practices can also make getting into public transportation such as metro systems difficult because many of these systems also do not have lifts, unless they are relatively newly-constructed or have had a major refurbishment.

In extreme cases, morality, worth and intelligence may even be equated to being able-bodied or able-minded, while disability is conflated with immorality, stupidity, and worthlessness, and disabled lives may be devalued to the point that many in the society believe that one is better off dead than living with disability. The eugenics movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, which took its most extreme form in Nazi Germany with Action T4, was a product of this belief, and some believe the ‘right to die’ movement is also an outgrowth of ableist beliefs.

Laws against discrimination
In the U.S., Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) enacted into law certain civil penalties for failing to make a public places comply with access codes known as the ADA Access Guidelines (ADAAG); this law also helped expand the use of certain adaptive devices, such as TTYs (phone systems for the deaf/speech impaired), some computer-related hardware and software, and ramps or lifts on public transportation buses and private automobiles. In the UK, meanwhile, the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act and Disability Discrimination Act 2005 attempt the same.

However, none of these laws requires all buildings constructed before the date of the Act to be modified to fit the physical directives of the Act. Government administration buildings regardless of age are required to do so, but generally, only newly-constructed or newly-refurbished buildings have these requirements according to the Act.

Sometimes, under their own power and for their own reasons, a business or service that does not have to modify its building structure to fit the accessibility requirements will modify it anyway. But other times, this does not happen, and any attempts to access the building by disabled individuals are ignored and shunned.

In response, political activists advocating inclusive and especially universal design structures and services — groups quite often themselves composed of disabled people — agitate and protest in a manner similar to anti-racist and anti-sexist activist movements.