Abelism
Ableism is the oppression of, or discrimination against disabled people. In other words, it’s roughly the equivalent of racism or sexism but for disability. It isn’t just individual people’s prejudices against disabled people, it’s also about social structures. It includes all the ways we set up our society in ways that don’t work for disabled people, such as designing buildings without wheelchair access and websites that don’t work with the technologies blind people use. It can also include common attitudes or ways disability tends to be portrayed in media, such as depictions of disabled people as tragic and in need of pity, or as fakers who are just trying to cheat the system and get benefits they don’t deserve.
defined by Lysette Chaproniere
Lysette Chaprioniere - she/her
Lysette Chaprioniere
Lysette Chaproniere has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Glasgow. In her thesis, she explored the relationship between disability and human enhancement technology, that is, the sorts of technologies we might use to significantly increase our physical, cognitive and other abilities, or lengthen the human lifespan. After her PhD, she worked as part of a research group that produced a policy paper on the use of virtual reality in education, where she was involved in researching the challenges and opportunities of VR for disabled students.