You're frightening me

It started with a blog post, where David Gillon challenged 38 degrees about why, despite a disability benefit cuts campaign receiving lots of votes, it never reached the 'call to action' stage.

Then there was an article (now amended) which described an athlete's move from Paralympic to Olympic competition as a "move up".

I then read in Jezebel about a sex worker who is awesome because she works with disabled clients, which apparently makes her intriguing.

And I started to wonder, what do you think of us? Of me? In these three stages, the mainstream, and the left-wing, tell me that I am inferior, and I am other. So very, very other.

Then Lisa Egan wrote a post (trigger warning) about suicide, and her despair at the lack of support from even campaigning organisations, and I still, somehow, didn't cry.

Then, finally, the article that did make me cry, in which I learned that 2/3 of people avoid disabled people because they don't know how to act around us. In addition,

A third of those questioned demonstrated hardened negative attitudes towards the disabled. Reasons cited for this ranged from disabled people being seen as a burden on society (38%), ill feeling around the perceived extra support given to disabled people (28%), and the personal worries and sensitivities which rise to the fore during a recession (79%).

It went on,

Some 60% of Britons admit to staring at disabled people because they are different, with more than half of people (51%) admitting they feel uncomfortable when they meet a disabled person for the first time, with more men (54%) admitting to being uncomfortable compared to women (50%).

At a time when cuts are actually killing disabled people, we are also experiencing more negative attitudes, perceptions of being a burden, an additional cost, especially during a recession. How very inconsiderate of us to not wait to attain crippled status until the economy is fixed.

If you're questioning whether this is a feminist issue, then the point is being missed. I am a woman who 38% of people polled consider to be a burden. I am a woman who 2/3 of people polled admit to avoiding for reasons of prejudice. I am a woman who 50% of women polled admitted to being uncomfortable to meet. I am a woman who is witnessing her friends become more and more afraid to leave the house, for fear of government- and Daily Mail-inspired abuse in the street. I've experienced it myself.

There are so many issues at the moment which are putting us all into a state of crisis. This is one of many: people are starting to frighten me. Is the person I'm talking to one of the 38%? Or the 50% Or the 65%?

Given that women are the hardest hit by spending cuts, and disabled people are the hardest hit by spending cuts, disabled women are being overlooked, avoided, resented, marginalised and othered. It takes non-disabled people, at this stage, to make some of the changes that need to happen.

This post is cross-posted from The F-Word, so it was originally written for a feminist audience, from a feminist perspective. I don't underestimate, or mean to downplay, the impact of cuts on men. However, in the context in which this was written, I was focused on women. Also posted at incurable hippie blog.

[The image is a photograph of handmade print next to one of the stencils. They read "FEAR MORE HOPE LESS". The photograph and artwork are by Ben Murphy and are used under a Creative Commons Licence]

Red Tape Challenge

The government is currently running a "Red Tape Challenge" to "fight back and cut red tape."

On the about page of the "challenge" it says:

Good regulation is a good thing. It protects consumers, employees and the environment, it helps build a more fair society and can even save lives. But over the years, regulations – and the inspections and bureaucracy that go with them – have piled up and up. This has hurt business, doing real damage to our economy.

Yes. It's rules that ruined the economy, not this government's friends the bankers. Oh no. Not at all.

The ConDems - you know, the ones that want us off benefits and working - are consulting on whether or not to scrap the Equality Act 2010 as part of the "challenge"; the act that's vital to disabled people securing work.

Unsurprisingly the consultation has brought out the inner Daily Mail reader in most of the respondents so far. These people seem to think that the act is all about "positive discrimination" and don't seem to understand that the act protects men as well as women, straight people as well as gay people, and white people as well as non-white people. But I suppose that's the kind of misunderstanding people would get from reading right-wing rags.

There have been a few people standing up for equality, but sadly not nearly enough. Not that consultation really makes much of a difference, the government will still do exactly what they want just like with DLA reform, but I think us pro-equality, anti-discrimination types need to make our voices heard.

It is truly farcical that they think more disabled people will suddenly find jobs without anti-discrimination laws. Already the employment rates of disabled people are around 48%, compared with around 78% of non-disabled people (sure, some of that's to do with illness and inability to work, but discrimination in the job market is also a massive factor). The gap in the rate of employment between disabled and non-disabled people has shrunk since 2002 when it was 36% to the rate of around 29% in 2010. You can be sure that that's a direct result of the DDA getting stronger. (Stats from the ODI.)

Consulting on binning the Equality Act isn't the only thing being consulted on that may affect us. Every few weeks they're looking at a different sector and considering the regulations specific to that area. Currently they're consulting on the retail sector. From 23rd June to 6th July they're consulting on regulations around social care; when you can be sure that the rules that protect us from abusive carers and so forth (at least the ones that have been previously caught) will be threatened with those red tape snipping scissors.