The language of abelism

I’ve thought a lot about language over the years. I’m especially interested in how language shapes the way we think, how we see reality. For instance, if a place is called a ‘city,’ we expect it to be a certain size and have certain amenities that we don’t expect if it's called a ‘town.’ When we call a task ‘challenging,’ we approach it differently from when we call it ‘impossible.’ This applies to how we see people, too. Like, when we call grown males ‘men’ and grown females ‘girls,’ we’re implying that males become adults, while females remain children. How could we not think of women as weak, dependent, emotional, and incapable if we think of them as children?

Language also shapes how we see ourselves. If you hear a hostile label often enough, you can’t help but absorb the negativity of it. Get called ‘ugly’ often enough, and you’re likely to believe you’re ugly. Get called ‘clumsy’ often enough and you’re likely to avoid all the activities that might embarrass you. Some of this is simple self-fulfilling prophecy. But there’s more. The subtle, non-obvious internalization of this sort of label can eat away at your soul.

Not surprisingly, I’ve thought about this especially in terms of how language has been used to demean and dismiss me—as a woman, as a lesbian, as old. But I’ve also learned enough about it over the years to be sensitive to the impact of other forms of debasing language—the language used toward racial and ethnic groups, for instance, or toward poor people, religious minorities, people with disabilities. Most of us are learning these things on the fly, trying to keep up with changing norms for what’s viewed as respectful language. But it seems like we all have areas where our vision is fuzzy, our ear is ill tuned, where we miss the hurtful messages that our language conveys. When I do that, I’m always happy if someone helps me realize it and correct it. (OK, I’m not initially happy. I’m embarrassed, even ashamed. But on reflection, I’m happy and appreciative.)

I mention this for two reasons. First, I had one of those moments just the other day. I said something to my partner about ‘foreign students.’ As soon as the word came out of my mouth, I regretted it. I know better. The word ‘foreign,’ while totally correct as a vocabulary term, carries a boatload of extraneous meaning. We use it to mean odd, frightening, out of place, something (or someone) that makes us uncomfortable. So using it to describe international students effectively describes them as ‘other,’ like they don’t belong. That’s not at all the message I want to convey, and it really isn’t what I meant. But it is what I said. My partner often talks about the difference between intent and impact. When we’re trying to be kind and respectful, it’s important to think of impact and not just intent.

And the second, related reason I mention this issue is that I just attended a conference that gave me an opportunity to focus some thought on an area of diversity where I’ve not done much work—namely disabilities. I’ve known that our culture has a lot of work to do around disabilities, and I’ve made an effort to include this issue when I enumerate the many groups whose rights and contributions need to be honored. I’m aware of some nuances of disability-related language that matter (e.g., ‘having a disability’ vs. ‘being disabled’). But in truth, I’ve not had much exposure to this issue. I recently heard one disability activist call disability “the caboose of the diversity train”—the topic that’s added on as an afterthought, but that just doesn’t garner much attention. So this conference would be a chance for me to move the caboose forward in my own consciousness by immersing myself in several days’ exposure to disability-related discussions. And given my interest in how language shapes the world, one thing I wanted to think more about was the language of abelism.

In case this ‘diversity caboose’ term is new to you, abelist language presumes that everyone is (or should be) able-bodied and that disabilities are at best unimportant and at worst, worthy of contempt. This sort of language has become something of an issue for me in recent years because two people close to me have disabilities. One is an adult who has helped me learn and continues to teach me about this issue. The other is a young child who can do none of that. This child, especially, has sensitized me to abelist language—the language that demeans or dismisses her, knowingly or not. As I've paid more attention, I’ve come to realize how much abelist language we tend to use without thinking about it. Consider examples like these: ‘Clumsy as a one-armed paper-hanger’; ‘Dumb as a stump’; ‘What are you, deaf/blind/crippled/retarded?’ Each of these uses a term that refers to people with disabilities as a slur—‘one-armed’ means clumsy; ‘dumb’ means unable to communicate: ‘deaf/blind/crippled’ means incapable of participating effectively in life as we live it. We also casually use lots of language that simply ignores the possibility of disability (and thereby the reality of people with disabilities): ‘Everyone please stand.’ ‘Please memorize the words on the board.’ ‘Listen carefully.’ ‘Look at this!’ ‘Hold this for me.’ ‘Press here to open.’ ‘Pull tab to remove.’

These days, the most common form of this unintentionally hurtful language seems to be the word ‘lame.’ Used in everyday language, ‘lame’ means, roughly, stupid or feeble, inferior or useless, ineffectual or inept. It’s reminiscent of the recent use of the comment ‘That’s so gay!’ It’s everywhere. I recently heard a radio ad for a cellphone whose tag line was ‘I used to have a lame phone, now I have a cool phone.’ Some columnists at the New York Times use it. Now, I know that when people use ‘lame’ this way, they don’t mean to be hurtful. That’s not their intent. But when I hear it, that is the impact. I think of this child who is, in a very literal sense, lame. And I realize that her condition is being used to identify something as useless. 

It’s these very personal experiences of the hurtfulness of ableism that have raised my sensitivity to it and made me want to learn more. So, I was happy to learn that the theme of this conference was disabilities, the very topic I wanted to pursue. But just what I learned makes for a longer story than I want to tack on here, so I’ll save it for my next post.

For now, I invite you to notice—just notice—how easily those of us who are (temporarily) able-bodied slide into abelist language without thinking about its impact. For me, at least, that’s been a big enough challenge to begin.