Month: April 2016

I sometimes fantasize about being able to shop at ikea… 

I didn’t really understand ableism for a long time, but then one day a very dear friend explained things to me in a way that really illuminated things, in a real “oh shit, I get it now” moment. What she told me was, everyone has limits. Everyone can only travel so far, or do so much before becoming exhausted, or lift/push/pull so much before reaching their limit. And things are already made with accessibility in mind. They are just made with only the limits of the “average” person in mind.

t4millennial:

Like, if stairsteps were each six feet tall, no one would climb them. If doors were 500lbs heavy, or only 2 feet tall, no one would go through them. If daily workdays were 20 hours long, no one would be able to work them. If conversations had to be held in iambic pentameter, no one would find talking so easy. If text was all 2pt size, no one would easily read. Etc, etc, etc. But society adjusts all these things to meet limits. They just forget to account for everyone, and that is ableism.

That’s actually a great way of explaining it, I’m probably going to steal that