Course navigation: List of modules | List of units for this module | <<previous - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - next>> |
There are numerous myths and misconceptions about people with disabilities. Most of these are based on inadequate or inaccurate information about the issue of disability. These misconceptions can cause fear and confusion and can make us uncomfortable in our dealings with people with disabilities. Western culture places great value on physical fitness and attractiveness and the lives of people with disabilities are considered by some to have less value than those of people without disabilities.
People with disabilities are often viewed as objects of pity or revulsion and are considered to be sick, childlike or special. They are frequently assumed to be unable to do the same sort of things as other people. Some people express the view that people with disabilities place an unnecessary burden on families and society. Many of the myths surrounding disability are rooted in how people with disabilities have historically been treated in society.
People with disabilities have, in the past been treated with a great deal of cruelty and superstition. In the Middle Ages, physical deformities were considered to be a punishment for sin and those suffering from them were subjected to persecution. Disability was frequently associated with witchcraft and evil. During Victorian times, most people with disabilities were housed in institutions such as Bedlam where they were treated as objects of amusement and ridicule. Prior to the Second World war, there was a growth in discourse and thinking in relation to eugenics and as recently as the nineteen fifties, proposals to sterilise people with disabilities were enacted in the USA and Sweden. (Marks, 1999) Only ‘lately have people with learning difficulties been allowed to receive some sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church '. (Barnes 1994:12)
The First and Second World wars saw many young men become disabled and there was a gradual movement towards treating people with disabilities as objects of care. Medical and allied professionals increasingly became involved in defining and managing the issue of disability and the growing number of specialised services and schools effectively segregated people with disabilities from the rest of the community.
Hopefully we have become more enlightened and people with disabilities are now generally treated with a greater degree of dignity and respect than in the past. The sixties Civil Rights movement in the USA encouraged people with disabilities to view disability as a rights issue and disability groups have gradually become more organised and vocal. Since the 1980s, people with disabilities have become increasingly more visible and disability is now firmly considered to be a social and human rights issue.
The emphasis in the disability movement now rests on human rights such as:
Course navigation: List of modules | List of units for this module | <<previous - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - next>> |
