Disability Notes
Equality Act 2010:
- The Equality Act stipulates that a disability is a physical or mental impairment which has a
substantial and long-term adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day- to- day
activities
- ‘Substantial’ is more than minor or trivial, e.g. it takes much longer than it usually would to
complete a daily task like getting dressed
- ‘Long-term’ means 12 months or more, eg a breathing condition that develops as a result of a
lung infection
Defining disability: disability is an umbrella term, encompassing impairments, activity limitations and
participation restrictions
An impairment is a problem in body function or structure. For example, the loss of legs would be
an impairment
An activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action
(e.g., walking or speaking). For example, the inability to walk is activity limitation
A participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life
situations (working, parenting). For example, exclusion from employment is a participation
restriction
The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (Elizabeth Barnes)
Barnes begins by questioning whether disability is a coherent category; the conditions that we classify as
disability are “strikingly heterogeneous” as they differ greatly in cause, visibility and impact. For
example, as Barnes articulates “deafness is very different from Multiple Sclerosis”:
- As these conditions vary greatly, Barnes question whether it makes sense to ask questions about
“disability per se” – as a single kind of thing – rather than speaking about individual disabilities
Disability should not be defined as inherently bad:
- Barnes strongly resists definitions of disability that characterise it as bad, such as the dual model
of disability provided by Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu
- Kahane and Savulescu argue that the concept of disability has both descriptive and evaluative
elements. Descriptively, disability involves certain physical/cognitive features that lead to the
loss of some function that most people possess; evaluatively, disability constitutes a misfortune
or makes a person worse off
, The Social Model of Disability:
- According to this model, “disability is the disadvantage produced by social prejudice against
certain types of persons (persons with impairments)”
- In this view, “disability just is the negative net effects of having an impairment in a society that
discriminates against those with impairments”. This implies that impairments only become
disabilities when society fails to accommodate to or discriminates against those with the
impairments (ableism)
- From this perspective, a society without ableism would still contain people with impairments,
however no one be disabled, as disability is rooted in the social prejudice against those with
impairments
Barne’s criticism of the social model:
- The social model seems to suggest that all the bad effects of impairments are caused by social
prejudice and ableism. However, even in a society without ableism that is fully inclusive, some
impairments would still have “bad effects”; for example, not being able to see your loved ones
would still be a bad effect of blindness in an ableism-free society
- Thus, Barnes rejects the social model of disability as she believes that impairments can still have
bad effects in the absence of ableism
Social Construction and Identity
- One conception of disability is that “disability, one view, is important insofar as people self-
identify as disabled”
- Barnes makes a comparison to gender identity; in this case, she argues that if someone self-
identifies as a woman, then she is a woman, even if she was assigned male at birth or previously
treated as a man. This trans woman not only wants to say that she is a woman, but also that
“she has been a woman for as long as she has self-identified as one”. Barnes questions whether
a similar identity-based model can be applied to disability
Barnes argues that this identity-based model does not work for disability for two reasons:
(1) Some people with clear impairments do not identify as disabled
For example, high-achieving individuals such as Paralympians with missing limbs may say “I’ve
never thought of myself as disabled”. In addition, members of the Deaf pride movement claim
“deafness is not a disability
Equality Act 2010:
- The Equality Act stipulates that a disability is a physical or mental impairment which has a
substantial and long-term adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day- to- day
activities
- ‘Substantial’ is more than minor or trivial, e.g. it takes much longer than it usually would to
complete a daily task like getting dressed
- ‘Long-term’ means 12 months or more, eg a breathing condition that develops as a result of a
lung infection
Defining disability: disability is an umbrella term, encompassing impairments, activity limitations and
participation restrictions
An impairment is a problem in body function or structure. For example, the loss of legs would be
an impairment
An activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action
(e.g., walking or speaking). For example, the inability to walk is activity limitation
A participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life
situations (working, parenting). For example, exclusion from employment is a participation
restriction
The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (Elizabeth Barnes)
Barnes begins by questioning whether disability is a coherent category; the conditions that we classify as
disability are “strikingly heterogeneous” as they differ greatly in cause, visibility and impact. For
example, as Barnes articulates “deafness is very different from Multiple Sclerosis”:
- As these conditions vary greatly, Barnes question whether it makes sense to ask questions about
“disability per se” – as a single kind of thing – rather than speaking about individual disabilities
Disability should not be defined as inherently bad:
- Barnes strongly resists definitions of disability that characterise it as bad, such as the dual model
of disability provided by Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu
- Kahane and Savulescu argue that the concept of disability has both descriptive and evaluative
elements. Descriptively, disability involves certain physical/cognitive features that lead to the
loss of some function that most people possess; evaluatively, disability constitutes a misfortune
or makes a person worse off
, The Social Model of Disability:
- According to this model, “disability is the disadvantage produced by social prejudice against
certain types of persons (persons with impairments)”
- In this view, “disability just is the negative net effects of having an impairment in a society that
discriminates against those with impairments”. This implies that impairments only become
disabilities when society fails to accommodate to or discriminates against those with the
impairments (ableism)
- From this perspective, a society without ableism would still contain people with impairments,
however no one be disabled, as disability is rooted in the social prejudice against those with
impairments
Barne’s criticism of the social model:
- The social model seems to suggest that all the bad effects of impairments are caused by social
prejudice and ableism. However, even in a society without ableism that is fully inclusive, some
impairments would still have “bad effects”; for example, not being able to see your loved ones
would still be a bad effect of blindness in an ableism-free society
- Thus, Barnes rejects the social model of disability as she believes that impairments can still have
bad effects in the absence of ableism
Social Construction and Identity
- One conception of disability is that “disability, one view, is important insofar as people self-
identify as disabled”
- Barnes makes a comparison to gender identity; in this case, she argues that if someone self-
identifies as a woman, then she is a woman, even if she was assigned male at birth or previously
treated as a man. This trans woman not only wants to say that she is a woman, but also that
“she has been a woman for as long as she has self-identified as one”. Barnes questions whether
a similar identity-based model can be applied to disability
Barnes argues that this identity-based model does not work for disability for two reasons:
(1) Some people with clear impairments do not identify as disabled
For example, high-achieving individuals such as Paralympians with missing limbs may say “I’ve
never thought of myself as disabled”. In addition, members of the Deaf pride movement claim
“deafness is not a disability
