Ableism is a Cyclical Problem: How Social Prejudice Perpetuates Structural Limitation

I looked out the window of the grocery store to see pouring rain. I nervously checked the uber prices, knowing they had undoubtedly gone up due to high demand. Sure enough, a $30 uber was 20 minutes away. The bus stop was a short distance from the store and I would be protected from the rain by the covered bench. I had enough quarters to get on and a quick internet search told me the bus would be arriving in ten minutes.  

40 minutes later, there was no bus in sight. It was getting dark out and I had been joined at the bus stop by two middle-aged men who were not-so-discreetly drinking from a bottle in a paper bag. “Hey,” one of them said. I turned my head in their direction. “Can you help us with something?” 

“No.” I replied as coldly as I could, looking around to find that there was no one else in the vicinity of the bus stop. My anxiety took over and I began walking in the direction of my apartment. I checked the uber app once again to find that there were apparently no available cars in my area. A long half hour later, I was home and dripping from the rain, bitterly thinking that all of that would have taken about seven minutes if I could drive. 

The next day I found myself (as I somehow often do) having conversation with a cashier who was using the time it took for my credit card to process to tell me her entire life story. “Here’s the thing about my sister,” she was saying. “I love her, but she’s not the best mother. I mean, she can’t even drive. How can you take care of your kids if you can’t drive?” my mind longingly jumped to the future children I’d love to have and wondered for a brief second if my learning disability was going to make me a bad mother. Thankfully, my disability activist brain took over and I bitterly rolled my eyes and left the store. Clearly the cashier had been wrong that you have to be able to drive to be a good parent, but as my mind worked through various scenarios, I wondered what it would be like to try to raise a kid without a drivers’ license. What would I have done if I’d had a young children with me the day before? I would probably have spent the money and waited inside for the uber but I began to wonder if I would be viewed as a bad parent for making my kids wait 25 minutes to go home. 

With all of the social judgement placed on adults who can’t drive with regard to our supposed lack of responsibility and maturity, one would think our alternate transportation options would be much more effective… (you know, seeing as people seem to care so much). The reality, however, shows quite the opposite. Rather than addressing the widespread discomfort with people who don’t fit into a pre-determined and outwardly visible cognitive box by working to provide everyone with the necessary resources, mainstream able-bodied society tends to opt instead for reinforcing the existing structures by solidifying the narratives implied by the lack of access through social stigma within community-based and familial units. This issue extends well beyond accessibility and affects many facets of our current culture because we live in a world where the most privileged groups would often rather preserve the existing hierarchies than accept the perceived “loss of status” that may come with equality. 

Social problems become structural problems because structures are designed by human beings with biases and limitations. If the dominant culture does not place high value on accessibility, that will be apparent through larger societal systems. In turn, structural barriers then re-enforce social stigma by existing as passive representations of a collective value system. For example, in a world in which public transportation doesn’t work, people who rely on it will be viewed as incompetent because they do not have a reliable way to get from place to place. The false narrative that public transportation doesn’t need further funding because “no one” uses it then comes about due to the reality that in many cases, it is actually less time-consuming to just walk. 

The other big problem is that there is simply an overall lack of care for marginalized groups who rely on public social services. If we compare places where public transportation is used by everyone to places where public transportation is only used by those who have no other choice, we see a huge discrepancy in quality and effectiveness. Going beyond this example, many structural barriers continue to exist because people can come up with endless reasons for why a system of inclusive access wouldn’t work. If we follow this logic, we will find that at the core, there is often an overarching narrative about who has and hasn’t “earned” the ease that comes with the supposed “accumulation” of social capital. In reality, social capital is directly tied to privilege in many cases- and we know that privilege usually exists as a result of prejudice and inequality. This is why the social and the structural are functionally intertwined when it comes to determining who has access and who does not, both in official policy and in community-based hierarchies. This is what must be dismantled in the creation of a world where everyone can thrive.