“I’ve got it, but thank you”
A person’s ability status refers to how able-bodied someone is. The term “able-bodied” associates any physical (seen or unseen) disabilities a person may have. So, someone who does not have use of their legs and uses a wheelchair would be considered “a person with a disability”, while a person who has no known physical limitations would be considered “able-bodied”.
You may be wondering why I chose to use the term “a person with a disability” instead of “disabled”. The term disabled has a long history of negative connotations. The word disabled often makes people assume that a person is less than or not good enough. You may think that they need your help or aren’t able to function on their own when that is simply not true. Most people with a disability are self-sufficient and don’t enjoy the “talking down” behavior that can come with the label of being non-able-bodied. Chapter 7 of Subtle Acts of Exclusion covers this topic in detail. But for now, let’s dive into a scenario to better explain why language and actions around ability are so important.
Picture yourself as a person who uses a wheelchair. Let’s say that you have never had use of your legs, so you have only known life in a wheelchair and have adapted the way you live your life to accommodate your situation. Your actual disability does not impede on your daily life.
You’ve just finished another week at your job and decide to go shopping to get a new outfit for an event you have coming up. You arrive at the store and go through the racks of clothes; you notice people watching you and when you make eye contact they offer an awkward smile and sometimes ask if you need help getting something down from the hanger. You understand that they are well-intentioned and offer a smile back while responding with an, “It’s okay, I can handle it”. A few more minutes go by and an employee comes up to ask if you would like her to help you get any clothes or find something specific. You politely decline, but a few minutes later she returns and asks again. Again, you politely decline.
This kind of second-guessing your “no thank you’s” or “I’ve got it’s” is something you often experience when you go shopping. People assume that you aren’t able to navigate stores on your own or that you can’t reach things, even if they are at hip level.
Once you’ve found a few outfit choices, you go to the fitting rooms. Here, the same employee asks if you will be needing any assistance trying on the clothes. You’re shocked. This woman is asking if you need help dressing yourself. She crouches down, as if talking to a child, and tells you she doesn’t mind helping. You take a few deep breaths to calm down. Although this woman is well-intentioned and wants to offer quality customer service, she is inadvertently treating you like a child and assuming that you can’t take care of yourself, despite being told numerous times that you can handle it.
How would you respond to this woman’s question?
There is no right or wrong way to respond. Getting angry would be justified, but it would not be productive. Politely declining seems not to have worked in the past, and you don’t want to risk her asking you again and having people hear and assume that you need a stranger’s help to put on your clothes. Making a joke of the situation could ease tension, but then she might not understand how offensive her question was.
Again, there is no right or wrong, but there is a middle ground: calmly educate. People don’t know what they don’t know. And the problem with SAEs is that they are often unconscious and not meant to be insulting. If you can manage to calmly explain that you are self-sufficient and that having a disability does not mean you are less than or childlike, while also noting that you appreciate her concern, then you will be informing this woman that her preconceived notions are false. With that being said, it is never the responsibility of the person experiencing the SAE to educate the perpetrator. However, it does often become their burden to bear, as most bystanders don’t speak up. It is on each of us to educate ourselves and to learn how people want to be treated, rather than we think they want to be treated.
There are many other ways to handle situations like these — as the recipient or as a witness. To learn more on how you can respond to situations like these, read Subtle Acts of Exclusion.
