"disability isn't a social construct because I'd still be dis-" Hey maybe before you poo-poo the entire foundation of critical disability studies learn the difference between "socially constructed" and "not real". You can't pride yourself on being "pro Disabled" and not have any actual interest in Disabled theory or liberation.
My understanding is that the social model of disability says the world can change to accommodate people and the barriers of disability will be fully removed. Two clear examples that come to mind are: 1) when Deaf people are able to communicate with everybody and have non-auditory accommodations like visual doorbells, they have no disadvantages in daily life and 2) if there’s wheelchair accessibility everywhere, this allows someone who uses a wheelchair to go everywhere an able-bodied person can. (I won’t get into that many Deaf people don’t consider themselves disabled.)
I feel like the criticisms of the social model, like the quote you have above, are someone pointing out that many people don’t fit under the social model. They’re using themself as an example because thoughts, actions, and accessibility features changing would not remove the speaker’s limitations. I turn towards the physical model of disability when it comes to myself because no amount of social change will allow me to work a job, for example. I will always be in pain and be fatigued to the level of being unable to do tasks of daily living. I will always feel disabled.
Many people are unable to do certain things more due to the inaccessibility of the world and due to the ways others treat them. I’m not one of those people. I’m one of many who I believe don’t fit into the social model. I feel like it’s a valid argument to say not all disability is due to social factors and that the disabled person making the argument would still feel disabled if society changed.
I’m fully willing to discuss this though! I am interested in disability theory and feel like a discussion would allow me to better understand others’ viewpoints.
"My understanding is that the social model of disability says the world can change to accommodate people and the barriers of disability will be fully removed."... "No amount of social change will allow me to work a job, for example." Notice how you've assumed the existence of our current economic systems and the reliance on employment as a default, instead of something that is also included in the social change that can be made?
The problem is you (and many others) underestimate how much world-changing Disabled theorists are talking about when discussing removing societal barriers. When people think "societal barriers", they only think of very obvious, very evident barriers to Disabled peoples, such as visual doorbells and ramps. But our entire economic system is included when we talk about barriers to Disabled people. The fact that we need to have jobs to support ourselves and participate in society is in of itself a socially constructed barrier that does not need to exist, a barrier that many Disabled theorists, especially Marxist Disabled theorists, are interested in removing.
If you only include things like doorbells and stairs as barriers to Disabled people, then of course the social model of disability makes less sense, because you aren't fully encompassing the scope of barriers to Disabled people in your analysis. You end up accepting the existence of the most fundamental and pervasive barriers to our freedom because you aren't factoring in that a world without those barriers is possible.
"I feel like the criticisms of the social model, like the quote you have above, are someone pointing out that many people don’t fit under the social model. They’re using themself as an example because thoughts, actions, and accessibility features changing would not remove the speaker’s limitations."
Exactly, because thoughts actions and (lack of) accessibility features are not and never have been the full extent of barriers to Disabled people. If you don't account for barriers to Disabled people that are built into hour our system works and functions you will sorely underestimate how much change people mean when they say "societal change".
Another thing to remember is that disability studies makes a distinction between impairment (the limitation itself) and disability (the interaction between the impairment and the societal context). The category of objective impairment has been contested by many Disabled peoples, particularly by Autistic, Deaf and Blind people, but the bottom line is that disability refers to the interaction between the Disabled person and the disabling society. You need to take this into account when considering how the term disability is used in critical disability studies because it is not the same as how it is used in medicine.
"Many people are unable to do certain things more due to the inaccessibility of the world and due to the ways others treat them. I’m not one of those people." And yet, despite differences, both they and you are Disabled. There is another factor that makes both of these groups Disabled, and it is our shared sociopolitical status as Disabled people, as a members of a socially constructed and maintained class of people who are marginalised by the same system. Recognising Disablement as socially constructed is essential in understanding how our oppression is connected, and how the second-class status of Disabled people is maintained by, and in turn maintains, global capitalism.
Here's a quote from Capitalism and Disability which I think is relevant here: 'Disability scholars such as Victor Finkelstein, Michael Oliver, Colin Barnes, Paul Abberley, Nirmala Erevelles, Lennard Davis, Brendan Gleeson, and others have advanced the position that the capitalist system—particularly the commodification of labor—is a crucial contributing factor to the lack of economic advancement of disabled people. Going back to Marx’s theory of absolute impoverishment, Ernest Mandel clarifies Marx’s observation that capitalism “throws out of the production process” a section of the proletariat: unemployed, old people, disabled persons, the sick, etc. Marx calls these groups a part of the poorest stratum, “bearing the stigmata of wage labor.” As Mandel says, '"This analysis retains its full value, even under the ‘welfare’ capitalism of today.'
Tl;Dr:
"The social model of disability can't apply to me because social change cannot make me capable of working a job"
I'm not the person you replied to, but you're focusing a lot on the job part and not on the "unable to do tasks of daily living" part. The social model of disability will not give me the energy to take a shower. It might help me get a home healthcare worker, but even with assistance the necessary tasks of being alive are painful and exhausting. Only medical advancements have a hope of changing that.
"some Disabled people need medicine" is not in conflict with the social model of disability and it is not what the medical model is. Lack of access to medical treatment or support with living is often not presented as a "barrier", but it absolutely is. Access to these things is a human right for Disabled people, and whose needs, medical or otherwise, are considered fundamental enough to be human rights is inseparable from that sociopolitical context. E.g: ozempic being prioritised for weight loss instead of keeping diabetics alive. Because diabetics are Disabled, part of a socially constructed category, their medical needs are secondary to that of the nondisabled majority. If you want to critically examine how and why Disabled people's right to medicine is denied you need critical disability theory.
Tl;Dr: "disability is a social construct" does not mean "disabled people can't/don't need medicine".
You didn't read what I said. There is no medicine for me. I don't lack access my life just sucks and it will continue to suck because of my disabilities even under the social model of disability.
That experience of disability can and does coexist with an acknowledgement that disability, as a concept, is a social construct. Disabled people all have wildly different conditions, variations, impairments and wildly different lived experiences of them, but the thing that makes all of these wildly different groups of people all part of the Disabled community despite our vast differences is our shared sociopolitical categorisation as Disabled, and the systemic barriers and exclusion from society.
I personally don't disagree that disability is a social construct because I have a wide view of what constitutes a social construct. Time is a social construct but that doesn't mean it isn't a real thing that exists. I just disagree that the social model of disability is enough for people like me and it bothers me when it's advocates try to talk over (and talk down) to people with disabilities like mine. So I was speaking specifically about the social model part and not the construct part.
