Image description: A photo of The Hobbs Consultancy consultant, Will Pike.
Over to our consultant, Will Pike, this Disability Pride month:
"As Disability Pride 2023 draws to a close, it’s worth reflecting on what has been an eventful month in the lives of disabled people. In an ideal world, I would bring you uplifting stories that elevate the disabled community and paint an optimistic picture of things-to-come. Unfortunately, while there has been positive action, there have also been a myriad of backward steps that are negatively impacting our lives. They serve as a poignant reminder that we still have lots of work to do if we are to effectively change attitudes toward disability.
Railway ticket office closures
When we think of modernisation, we think of progress. But when Transport Secretary Mark Harper decided to roll out nationwide ticket office closures, he wasn’t thinking about the experiences of disabled travellers. Indeed, his claim that only ‘12% of travellers use ticket offices’ was designed to invoke an apathy toward their functionality. But when you consider that 15% of the UK population is disabled, his spurious line of reasoning actually provides hard-evidence that ticket offices are still vitally important to particular travellers. What’s more, a quick scrawl through disabled Twitter reveals a number of issues with the automated machines that make it nigh on impossible for disabled travellers to purchase the correct ticket. The overall impact of this plan to ‘modernise’ has not yet been calculated, but the feeling amongst disability organisations is that this will massively hinder our movement and curtail our freedom.
Rights on flights + Sophie Morgan
2023 is proving to be a very big year for Sophie Morgan. She has already been announced as the first ever wheelchair-using contestant on Strictly Come Dancing; and her biography, ‘Driving Forwards’ was also published earlier this year to much aplomb. However, when she looks back on this period, I suspect the work she’s doing to make air travel more inclusive will generate the biggest feeling of pride. For too long, disabled travellers have been treated as second class citizens. So, for Sophie to meet with key leaders within the airline industry earlier this month, as well as senior politicians at home and abroad, is a really positive sign. In fact, following a meeting at The White House, the US announced that it would reauthorise the Federal Aviation Act (FAA), which includes ‘the most transformative air travel accessibility reform since the 1980s’. Amazing work, Sophie!
The R-Word
When comedian Rosie Jones decided to call her programme tacking disability hate crimes ‘Rosie Jones: Am I a R*tard?’, I don’t think her intention was to divide the disabled community. But that’s exactly what has happened. Even before the programme aired on Channel 4 last Thursday, it came to light that a handful of disabled contributors had withdrawn from the documentary in protest against the proposed title. The message coming from these quarters was that the use of the R-word in the title would actually legitimise the slur, as well as triggering those who have experienced such verbal abuse throughout their lives. I spoke with fellow Taskforce member, Carly Ashdown, about the documentary, who, like Jones has Cerebral Palsy. Her views echoed that of the protestors, while adding that for people with Cerebral Palsy, the R-word isn’t theirs to reclaim, as it was originally designated for those with learning disabilities. One thing is for certain, the documentary has certainly generated a great deal of interest in disability hate crime.
Scope’s new research - ‘Changing attitudes towards disability: What works’
Following on from such campaigns as, ‘End The Awkward’, Scope have produced a piece of research to better understand how disabled people are perceived in society, and consider what we can do to improve that perception. With a survey of over 5000 participants, they found the following principles to be effective proponents of attitudinal change:
- Raising the status of disabled people: Depict scenes in which disabled people make positive contributions to society, without making that person exceptional for ‘overcoming’ their disability.
- Share stories and personal experiences: Building on research that found that personal stories had more impact than generic ones, Scope furthered this by testing specific emotional reactions to successfully generate purposeful empathy.
- Looking from another person’s perspective: In opposition to ‘disability simulation’, Scope deems that ‘imagining the perspective of someone else’ to be an effective tool when generating empathy. Encouraging participants to think about ‘how they would feel’ in certain situations increased their perception of disabled people’s competence and sense of injustice.
Of course, there is more to read on Scope’s website, but these findings are useful in that they corroborate our Disability Taskforce’s approach to disability inclusion.
As this snapshot of the past month has shown, disabled people are fighting on all fronts. Whether we’re looking at hate crime, transport or perceptions of disability, there is still so much to do before we can say that disabled people are treated equally. For an activist and consultant such as myself, the battle is attritional. But with The Disability Taskforce on hand to back me up, I know we’ve got an opportunity to affect real change and provide even more reasons to celebrate Disability Pride in years to come."
~Will Pike
------------
If you would like to speak with disability consultant, Will Pike about raising the bar for your disabled clients, colleagues and service users, then please get in touch for a free Zoom consultation.