From recent film releases to sporting triumphs at the Paralympics, there has been more celebrated exposure of people with disability this year, but advocates say misrepresentation remains a problem and outcomes for those in the community are progressing too slowly.
Still, it’s insulting and discriminatory to grill a disabled person on their personal life, treat them like a potential con artist, or prevent their equal access — just because you’re a little suspicious of them, or because you have certain views about disability claims in general.
Although we’ve had to grieve my past self and career plans, you’ve freed me from the weight of my own expectations about who and what I should be. You’ve helped me become braver than I ever imagined. I’ve faced down institutional discrimination while fighting for the disability supports I desperately need. These battles have taught me more about advocacy than law school ever did.
The moment Britney was placed under that conservatorship, she was considered disabled by the law, allowing her to be dehumanised and commodified.
This research report provides historic insights into the experiences of people with disability in Australia. It looks at different cultural and social factors that have impacted the lives of people with disability over time. It explains how, for hundreds of years, society viewed people with disability as different and told them they didn’t fit in. This influenced the way the community and government treated people with disability regarding access and needs. The 21st century has marked a more inclusive approach towards people with disability in Australia, but attitudes such as racism, stigma and exclusion are still common experiences that people with disability struggle against
I have had the opportunity to access a wide variety of services during my life. The quality that differentiates the best from the rest is the provider’s ability to empower me to make my own choices and not assume that they should take on that responsibility.
Sutherland said normalising disability and seeing more people with disability participating in society was vital to changing people’s attitudes and getting rid of stereotypes. People with disability often face difficulties in the mainstream workforce, and Sutherland noted this was an area where Australia needs to make inroads.
People with disabilities can be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change — so why shouldn’t they be at the forefront of climate activism?
Closing date: October 30, 2021
In a ground-breaking new documentary series, SBS seeks to explore how stigma and prejudice impact the lives of millions of Australians, by getting to the heart of what people really think about disability, old people and obesity. Three-part series What Does Australia Really Think About… hosted by Kurt Fearnley, Noni Hazlehurst and Casey Donovan, premieres … Continued
The Paralympic Games turn the world’s eyes to the achievements of the superhuman athletes that take part, but the reality is that the vast majority of the millions of disabled people are distinctly ordinary. That recognition – and the desire to have the ordinariness of disability acknowledged by the public – lies behind Adam & Eve DDB’s ’We The 15’ campaign, the name of which references the 15% of the global population who are disabled.
This hilarious skit was created for the Where To From Here (WTFH) conference hosted by DSC in July 2021. Alistair Baldwin had the audience not knowing whether to laugh or cry.! Hmm, starting to think we may have got rid of Its too soon. Who would have thought they could be this much fun?
“We grow up learning that ‘disabled’ is a bad thing. It’s something you don’t want to be, that to call yourself that is somehow defeatist, that you should be trying to overcome it rather than embracing it,” Britt says. “And so I think it’s really, really cool to have people sharing the things that they love about being disabled or celebrating their bodies or talking about the unique perspectives that it gives them on the world.”
Doctors believed hours of auditory therapy a week and a cochlear implant would allow Oliver to learn to hear and speak. “We were told by the majority of our specialists we couldn’t sign with him because it would affect his ability to listen with his ears,” said Mrs Robertson.
Whether it’s true for us or not, we all know it’s true; some people are still afraid to interact with disabled people. And being more “aware” of disability and living and working with more disabled people doesn’t always mean being comfortable with disabled people. In fact, knowing more about disability discrimination and ableism can actually raise anxiety for some of us.
The NDIS is designed to cut through the barriers faced by many with disabilities when moving through daily life, but instead, it seems to have created an even bigger and more intractable one. And if there are those who describe the system as dehumanising, or exhausting, or disheartening, or disempowering, the government should be listening and responding.