An articulation about terminology

[kaberett]

I react to being described as "in" a wheelchair (as opposed to using a wheelchair) by snarling, and I've just (in response to a Sociological Images article The NYC subway to a person in a wheelchair) worked out some more of the why.

There's part the first, which is that it's inherently passive terminology that obfuscates or elides my agency. But the thing I've just noticed, the actual big deal, is that it makes it sound as though me being in a wheelchair is a permanent and unalterable state, and that in turn contributes to the idea that if I can stand or walk at all I shouldn't be using one, and that by using one I'm faking -- in a wheelchair precludes the possibility of being out of it. I'm pretty sure this framing contributes directly to strangers' horror if I stand up to reach something on a high shelf in a supermarket, or get up to carry my chair down a flight of stairs rather than taking a sloped half-mile detour, or what have you.

(There's other issues - who's surprised? - with that SocImages article, including the part where actually level and step-free access is important to all sorts of people. It's genuinely very important not to conflate "accessible" with "level access", or to conflate "level access" with "wheelchair accessible"; the former erases a very great many disabilities, and the latter assumes that all you need is flat surfaces and doesn't stop to think about whether aisles are wide enough or there's space set aside for wheelchair users to sit, or what have you. ... but there we go.)

Comments

[kaberett]

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, today I remembered (again) that there's an entire class of non-wheelchair-using non-wheelchair-professionals I don't mind talking wheelchairs with even if they start the conversation and they're strangers, and what it boils down to is "the kind of person who ends up with a job in an indie bike shop". Because fundamentally they just think the tech is super cool and are trying to work out points of overlap and divergence, and as far as I'm concerned that's great. (Yes, I did in fact go to one such today!)

[cosmolinguist]

Yep, I'm a person who benefits from step-free access for totally different accessibility reasons: steps are hazards for people with no depth perception! Eveb with my cane (and new skills in navigating stairs!), I'll totally choose ramps or lifts over stairs or escalators.

[untonuggan]

what I really want is some sort of service that will give me a route map letting me know the most accessible routes, or the common pitfalls.

like, "hi, i would like to go to this bus stop. but if I do that, will I then get stuck with an out of spoon error because there are no curb cuts and a fuck ton of stairs?"

i nearly cried with excitement at a couple places on the West Coast where not only were accessible ramps labeled, they actually labeled which ones had a grade that was too steep for safe use *and* labeled safe detour routes.

srsly, a big part (for me) of accessibility is wasted spoons of "plotting route ahead of time" or "crap my plans changed and now I am using precious energy trying to find a way that will conserve my energy."

[pipisafoat]

an amusing anecdote that I always think of when someone says "in a wheelchair" that takes me from the "I HATE THAT I HATE YOU I HATE EVERYTHING" spiral into "tee hee" land, if that might help you or even just provide temporary amusement:

There was this moment at my career-job when my boss was attempting to fix an ornery wheelchair. By ornery, I mean this particular chair had some kind of demon possession or something because any time you would fix one thing, someone else would immediately break, and it would be something that could in no way be related to the thing that you were just working on. So I had popped the tire back on and then tightened the suddenly-loose brake (on the OTHER side from the tire I was originally doing) but then the first brake just fell off. Like, fell off, and looking at it on the floor, nobody could understand how it fell off because it was still in one piece, including the part where it attaches to the frame of the chair? so baffling.
anyway so I passed it off to my boss, who is more skilled at chair-maintenance than I am, and she was trying to put that brake back on when a front wheel disconnected itself (seriously, this chair, I don't even know) and then the OTHER brake fell off, but the facility refused to just buy us another chair, so we're stuck trying to fix this horrid thing. So because of parts falling off and a complete lack of brakes at this point, my boss stepped into the little gap between the seat and the back to hold the damn chair still while she tried to reattach these mystery brakes etc. So every time someone says "in a wheelchair" I just picture my boss, extremely frustrated with accompanying frustrated-poofy-hair and yelling almost inarticulately about calling for a priest to exorcise the chair whilst standing literally inside a wheelchair.

and that mental image derails my hate-spiral 90% of the time, which is healthier for me and often makes actually engaging in discussion (should I choose to do so) about a thousand times easier to tolerate. and even if I don't choose to do so, it turns my irrationally spiraling hatred into a quiet little giggle about my boss and that evil, evil chair, which cheers me up.
(though if i'm just regular frustrated with people and words, it doesn't help me at all. only when i'm hate-spiraling. which is interesting i suppose but anyway.)

I hope you enjoyed this tale. I wish I could take a picture from my memory and send it to you so you could really appropriately appreciate the mental image I get.

[davidgillon]

Grr, 2nd time of writing, lost the first version to an unintentional dyspraxic finger swipe...

I think I agree on that nuanced understanding of 'user' versus 'in', particularly important given current hostility towards those of us perceived as 'scroungers' on account of our disability.

WRT 'level access', remember cobbles are technically level!

And absolutely on conflating 'accessible' with 'level' with 'wheelchair accessible'. Some of the worst access issues for me on crutches were on level ground that was supposedly accesss friendly - airports, stations etc. A flat surface may be easy to wheel across, but if you've got to get from one side of a huge terminal to the other in not a lot of time, then it isn't ideal if you have problems with distance and speed. I genuinely found rough terrain on a hill side more accessible than airports.

Of course now I get to see all of that from the opposite perspective!

Linguistic tangent

[403]

I take issue with describing someone as a "wheelchair user". We call people who drive "drivers", not "car users", and people who bicycle "cyclists", not "bicycle users". The only other place I'm aware of in (at least American) English where we call someone an 'X user'? "Drug users". (That said, I can't help but speculate about what a street drug called 'wheelchair' would do...)

So I try to use the phrase "wheelchair rider", in the same vein as "motorcycle/horseback rider", in hopes that it will catch on.

[cxcvi]

Sounds like you're likening "in a wheelchair" to "wheelchair-bound". Except with less rope.

Will work on this language thinking, a bit. It makes sense.

Also, slightly sideways slopes. Like... most pavements around here. Almost certainly wheelchair accessible, but hardly "level access". Also bloody uncomfortable. Am understanding now why this makes getting to and from the bus stop so unpleasant.

[silveradept]

I think some of that framing (in a wheelchair) is that, at least here in the States, we tend to hit the idea that disability is temporary and fixable a lot harder, and so the narrative believes that you don't tell people that they're disabled and going to stay that way, and if someone tells you that, you smile and express hope, however unlikely, for the end of the disability.

Work is discussing plans for new customer service points, and the most likely design will have the required ADA desk, but around the corner from the first visible desks, and I think I know why that's felt vaguely Not Quite Right, finally.

[(Anonymous)]

I hate the phrase "in a wheelchair" but had never examined why people use it or what it and alternative mean. I can stand, I can walk, though I can't lift or fold my chair. I was quite surprised at airport security recently to be asked if I could stand up and walk, it's always been assumed that I couldn't. At this point my shoes were already off and heading to the scanner, so I said it would be too hard, I only now realise that I'd never have managed the standing still in the fancy new fangled scanner things they have shoes or not.