Reinterpreting the Social Model of Disability to be More Inclusive and Less Confusing

There are two main models that people use to understand disability and its place in society.

The most common is the medical model of disability (AKA the individual model) which positions disability as a solely individual medical experience and puts emphasis on treatment or cure. The overall goal is to have the person with the disability become non-disabled or its closest approximation.

It can lead to situations where the individuals desires and comforts are ignored or even undermined by the strict demands of the medical and rehabilitation establishments. The attainment of normalcy can come at the expense of quality of life for the disabled person.

In his memoir Standing Tall. Spencer West talks about how he was encouraged to use bulky and uncomfortable prosthesis even though he could get around much more easily using a wheelchair or walking on his hands.

The push for prosthesis also required him to sleep in a painful back brace to get his spine aligned so he could use them properly.

Ultimately, he rejects the use of prosthesis because they don’t actually help him or enrich his life in any way.

Disabled people have been challenging the supremacy of the medical establishment by trying to shift the conversation away from being seen as patients but rather consumers of medical services. This would allow them to get the medical interventions they need without being forced into those they don’t. Unfortunately due to the popularity of the medical model, people are often forced to receive treatments and therapies they don’t want in order to receive services. Treatments are often tied to disability supports or workers compensation. Failure to comply could mean the loss of necessary funding.

Disabled people have therefor created a new way of looking at disability that is self-defined and a direct challenge to the prescriptive power of the medical model.

The Social Model as imagined by its original creators goes like this

Disability is the social oppression experienced by people with impairments and can be alleviated by a social shift which eradicates the social prejudices and physical barriers that keep people with impairments from full social and public inclusion.

Well that was confusing so lets break it down

Disability no longer refers to a medical diagnosis. It is actually a social oppression like racism, homophobia or sexism.

Instead those diagnoses are now referred to as impairments

The solution to all the problems of people with impairments is physical accessibility like ramps, sign language and braille. and for people to stop discriminating. Then everything will be perfect right?

Probably not.

There are two main criticisms of the social model

1.) It denies the individual lived experience. Some people do suffer from more than socially created expressions of bigotry. Not everyone’s problems will be fixed by ramps or braille. Some people live with actual barriers caused by their conditions like chronic pain or fatigue.

2.) It completely ignores intersectionality. The model is often criticized because it was invented by white, male wheelchair users and therefor is tailored to meet their needs while overlooking the needs of people of colour, women, the LGBTQ community and any other marginalized group.

Not everyone’s problems are fixed by a ramp and the language of the model is so academic it has no real meaning in social usage.

It does however have a point social and physical barriers are a major problem that create additional problems for disabled people.

I don’t find any value in the semantic gymnastics the model uses Disability vs. impairment. There are already words to describe the social oppression of disabled people; ableism (my preference) and disableism. Both are already in use and neither can be used to deny the lived experience of a disabled person.

There is a lot of value in the spirit of the social model in that, the inclusion of disabled people in society cannot be attained without dismantling the physical and social barriers that exist to exclude us.

It just needs to be removed from the bastion of academia in which it was created and currently resides so that it can evolve into something that people can understand and apply in their lives.