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Reviews tagging 'Ableism'
Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally by Emily Ladau
20 reviews
novella42's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I bought and loved Demystifying Disability as I started a new job in disability access work at a university. It helped me to feel seen, to better witness others with disabilities different than mine, and to improve my outreach and PR work communicating about disability. I recommended it to all my coworkers as a tool to help fill in our gaps and stay up to date with a diverse collection of perspectives.
I'm grateful that it's short and approachable enough that busy, stressed people can still page through it as a reference and come away with valuable, actionable knowledge. Ladau also included a section with books, films, online videos, and hashtags to follow if you learn better in other formats. (A great example of universal design in education!)
I learned quite a lot of things from this book. For context, I'm a two-time Paralympian and my years of community with international adaptive sports led me to assume I knew more about this topic than the average person. That might be true, but I also have big gaps in my knowledge that came from being born with an orthopedic disability that meant I grew up in a wheelchair. These days, I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, and sometimes go out on crutches instead. People have assumed for a long time that I'm an expert on disability, but a childhood in a wheelchair framed my understanding of disability as something you could see, some tangible and obvious difference.
Because of that, I have absolutely done ableist things like accuse people of faking their need for an accessible parking spot because I couldn't see a disability. It wasn't until a brave friend pointed out her own invisible disability that I stopped doing that. Eventually I had personal experience with invisible acquired disabilities (like migraines, C-PTSD, and depression) and understood on a deeper level the harm I had done.
Few of my own specific experiences prepared me to join the wider disability community the way Ladau's book prepared me. I went into my first Paralympic Games at age 19 with no clue how to be an ally to people with visual disabilities, or how best to talk to someone with stutters or slurred speech. (I'm reminded of the time that certain athletes with Cerebral Palsy had gone sightseeing and come back to the Athlete's Village inebriated. Your secret is safe with me!) We learned as we went, messy and chaotic, trying to find the energy to educate each other—not to mention coaches, staff, and volunteers—and learn from our mistakes at a time when the word "ableist" didn't even exist yet. (Ableism itself is timeless and has been a force my whole life, long before I had language to talk about it, or understand how I was capable of ableism too.) It would have been a huge relief to have a book like this to help guide me through it.
This book isn't perfect. I disagree on a couple of items that are a matter of opinion, and I wish she'd had the space to go more in depth on some topics, or cover them at all (like how many Deaf people don't consider themselves disabled, and have more in common with cultures and communities that face linguistic barriers). But I understand brevity is crucially important in a resource like this. And our different outlooks are more evidence that disability is not a monolith! It's possibly the most diverse marginalized identity of all, because anyone from any background can become disabled at any moment. Of course we're going to have different outlooks on some things.
How I wish I could send Demystifying Disability back in time to my teenage self. I might have made different choices, said different things. And felt less broken. Less alone.
It's amazing how isolating it can feel to have a disablility, especially since, according to the CDC, 26% (one in 4) of adults in the United States have some type of disability. Those numbers come from 2018, prior to the mass-disabling event of the pandemic.
Whether or not you are one of the 61 million adults in America with a disability, or you know folks with disabilities in your circles, or you want to be a better ally, this book will give you more insight and better words to approach the topic.
Maybe you're here because you've hired a disabled employee and want to make sure your office is accessible and your team knows how to be welcoming. This is a great way to get started.
Maybe you're here because you recently became disabled and you're overwhelmed by all the work it takes to be disabled. Maybe you just want some hashtags to follow so you can find your people. Maybe you don't know how to deal with the way everyone either pretends nothing has changed or assumes you're now an expert. This book might be the lighthouse that will help you get your bearings.
Maybe you're here because you just want to flirt with that hot disabled person you met and ask them out for coffee with less anxiety. This book will totally help you feel more confident doing that. Honestly I can think of numerous people I wish had read it before sliding into my DMs. It's not a guidebook for dating and disability (try the short, funny comic book A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability by A. Andrews). But read this book and you'll have more to talk about with less stress. Seriously, if an able-bodied person quoted Alice Wong or Imani Barbarin to me on a date, I would swoon on the spot. If nothing else, reading a book like this may help you connect more easily because they can spend less energy on educating you and more on the flirting. Win-win, if you ask me!
Maybe you're here searching for a book to reduce the mental and emotional labor of educating your friends, family, coworkers, partners, or dates. It's exhausting, right? And demoralizing when someone says that you talk too much about disability. (It's almost as if it affects all parts of our lives!) Save your spoons and send them this book. It will help. And it will still be worthwhile for you to read it, too. Trust me.
Demystifying Disability will answer questions you didn't even know you had, about topics you never considered, and will do it in a clear, easy, empathetic and—how else?—accessible way.
I'm grateful that it's short and approachable enough that busy, stressed people can still page through it as a reference and come away with valuable, actionable knowledge. Ladau also included a section with books, films, online videos, and hashtags to follow if you learn better in other formats. (A great example of universal design in education!)
I learned quite a lot of things from this book. For context, I'm a two-time Paralympian and my years of community with international adaptive sports led me to assume I knew more about this topic than the average person. That might be true, but I also have big gaps in my knowledge that came from being born with an orthopedic disability that meant I grew up in a wheelchair. These days, I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user, and sometimes go out on crutches instead. People have assumed for a long time that I'm an expert on disability, but a childhood in a wheelchair framed my understanding of disability as something you could see, some tangible and obvious difference.
Because of that, I have absolutely done ableist things like accuse people of faking their need for an accessible parking spot because I couldn't see a disability. It wasn't until a brave friend pointed out her own invisible disability that I stopped doing that. Eventually I had personal experience with invisible acquired disabilities (like migraines, C-PTSD, and depression) and understood on a deeper level the harm I had done.
Few of my own specific experiences prepared me to join the wider disability community the way Ladau's book prepared me. I went into my first Paralympic Games at age 19 with no clue how to be an ally to people with visual disabilities, or how best to talk to someone with stutters or slurred speech. (I'm reminded of the time that certain athletes with Cerebral Palsy had gone sightseeing and come back to the Athlete's Village inebriated. Your secret is safe with me!) We learned as we went, messy and chaotic, trying to find the energy to educate each other—not to mention coaches, staff, and volunteers—and learn from our mistakes at a time when the word "ableist" didn't even exist yet. (Ableism itself is timeless and has been a force my whole life, long before I had language to talk about it, or understand how I was capable of ableism too.) It would have been a huge relief to have a book like this to help guide me through it.
This book isn't perfect. I disagree on a couple of items that are a matter of opinion, and I wish she'd had the space to go more in depth on some topics, or cover them at all (like how many Deaf people don't consider themselves disabled, and have more in common with cultures and communities that face linguistic barriers). But I understand brevity is crucially important in a resource like this. And our different outlooks are more evidence that disability is not a monolith! It's possibly the most diverse marginalized identity of all, because anyone from any background can become disabled at any moment. Of course we're going to have different outlooks on some things.
How I wish I could send Demystifying Disability back in time to my teenage self. I might have made different choices, said different things. And felt less broken. Less alone.
It's amazing how isolating it can feel to have a disablility, especially since, according to the CDC, 26% (one in 4) of adults in the United States have some type of disability. Those numbers come from 2018, prior to the mass-disabling event of the pandemic.
Whether or not you are one of the 61 million adults in America with a disability, or you know folks with disabilities in your circles, or you want to be a better ally, this book will give you more insight and better words to approach the topic.
Maybe you're here because you've hired a disabled employee and want to make sure your office is accessible and your team knows how to be welcoming. This is a great way to get started.
Maybe you're here because you recently became disabled and you're overwhelmed by all the work it takes to be disabled. Maybe you just want some hashtags to follow so you can find your people. Maybe you don't know how to deal with the way everyone either pretends nothing has changed or assumes you're now an expert. This book might be the lighthouse that will help you get your bearings.
Maybe you're here because you just want to flirt with that hot disabled person you met and ask them out for coffee with less anxiety. This book will totally help you feel more confident doing that. Honestly I can think of numerous people I wish had read it before sliding into my DMs. It's not a guidebook for dating and disability (try the short, funny comic book A Quick & Easy Guide to Sex & Disability by A. Andrews). But read this book and you'll have more to talk about with less stress. Seriously, if an able-bodied person quoted Alice Wong or Imani Barbarin to me on a date, I would swoon on the spot. If nothing else, reading a book like this may help you connect more easily because they can spend less energy on educating you and more on the flirting. Win-win, if you ask me!
Maybe you're here searching for a book to reduce the mental and emotional labor of educating your friends, family, coworkers, partners, or dates. It's exhausting, right? And demoralizing when someone says that you talk too much about disability. (It's almost as if it affects all parts of our lives!) Save your spoons and send them this book. It will help. And it will still be worthwhile for you to read it, too. Trust me.
Demystifying Disability will answer questions you didn't even know you had, about topics you never considered, and will do it in a clear, easy, empathetic and—how else?—accessible way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Cancer, Ableism, Forced institutionalization, and Chronic illness
ellythequeen's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
5.0
Read it!!!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism
Moderate: Sexual content
caseythereader's review
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
- If you are an able-bodied person, DEMYSTIFYING DISABILITY is a great 101-level resource for everything from disability rights history to proper language to ensuring accessibility is always top of mind for any given event.
- Even if you think you have a handle on all thing disability, I'd still recommend checking it out. I realized when I got to the history section that I had little concept of disability rights activism before the Americans With Disabilities Act, and I learned a lot.
- The writing style of this book is friendly, a we're-in-this-together tone. It would be a great gift for a young reader given the tone and simplicity of the writing, since disability and accessibility issues are generally not taught in schools.
- Even if you think you have a handle on all thing disability, I'd still recommend checking it out. I realized when I got to the history section that I had little concept of disability rights activism before the Americans With Disabilities Act, and I learned a lot.
- The writing style of this book is friendly, a we're-in-this-together tone. It would be a great gift for a young reader given the tone and simplicity of the writing, since disability and accessibility issues are generally not taught in schools.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Forced institutionalization, and Mental illness
Moderate: Abortion, Sexual content, Medical content, Racism, and Suicide
trish1oo1's review against another edition
4.5
an informative introduction to disability activism and justice. I wish there was more history, I think that is important to get a comprehensive understanding, however, this is a good jumping off point
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism
emilily's review against another edition
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.25
A good short book to share with people who want to better ubderstand disability in its many forms. This book doesn't go into a lot of detail, but rather, acts as a quick 'crash-course' style reader. It's very easy to read, and suitable for all ages.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
theautumnalreader's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
“Nothing about us without us...so, please, don’t speak for us, about us, or over us. Speak to us and with us.”
Walking into this book as a disabled person, I came in with the completely wrong mindset that this book wasn’t written for me but it is. Yes, I’m continually and frustratingly being met with ableism, but I’ve also internalized it and have been ableist in different ways - I’m not off the hook for being in the community. I think that’s the beauty of Ladau’s book, both disabled and non-disabled people can benefit and gently be called in, and I wish I had the funds on my teacher budget to pass out her book as an invitation for a primer in Disability Justice. I’d especially recommend this book to anyone who would like to be in community with us but need examples of phrasing, ideas on what to look out for, and even just good rules of thumb. Ladau tells you herself that this is a primer and is inconclusive but points you to many resources that meet different intersections of marginalization.
My high praises aren’t singularly focused on helping people become better accomplices but on seeing the vulnerability Ladau shared that I’ve felt and wished I could have put into words myself. I remember crying when I read Ladau write, “My cheeks have burned red with embarrassment as I asked for help with certain physical tasks...I’ve lost sleep over fears that my disability makes me undeserving of being romantically loved...ableism takes a heavy toll. Too many disabled people have been led to believe that our lives are not worth living.” (75)
Ladau uses her platform to remind readers, just as the Disability Justice movement pushes, that disabled lives are worthy and worth living.
Content Warnings
Minor: Ableism
marae216's review
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism
courtneyfalling's review
hopeful
informative
3.0
I'll start by saying that I was in a disability-specific public speaking training with Emily Ladau about a year and a half ago, and I actually found her insights and tips very helpful as I was beginning my involvement in the wider disability community. And I think the best thing I can say about this book is that it's a well-designed, liberal introduction to current disability rights aims for those who are sympathetic but unaware.
The problem is that I think very few people actually belong to the "well-intentioned but misinformed allies" crowd that liberals like to imagine and preach to. This book constructs disability rights as an etiquette issue, but much bigger injustices are at play, especially for multiply marginalized disabled people. I don't want to "be the bigger person" so I can "change the hearts and minds" of my oppressors, I want to stop suffering the consequences of ableism and saneism every single moment with important, immediate structural changes, and I'm bitter at ableism even when people don't know they're being ableist because there are real and deep consequences, not because I have surface-level hurt feelings.
I wanted, for example, for this book to open with a definition of ableism and some basic history of disability organizing. Without that crucial context, the identity-first vs. person-first language section comes off as nit-picky, without addressing why these issues matter so much. (And I've absolutely seen better examples for this discussion elsewhere.) I also would've loved to see more diverse examples of disability history and community needs, including abolitionist organizing, DDOM and the failures of parent-only groups, and patient advocacy and the Affordable Care Act in particular (in my own opinion; there was a lot missing beyond these). The section on disability justice was also a wild misrepresentation of the actual principles of DJ (alone, DR + intersectionality =/= DJ) and made me frustrated with how much it boiled down and reappropriated DJ.
And fundamentally, this book views disability rights through an always-only-upward view of history, where things used to be really bad, and now they're still kind of bad but a lot better, and if we just wait long enough and make our gradual changes, every single thing will get fixed. But that's not how the complex cycles of history actually work and it ignores so much nuance about how types of oppression and injustice have morphed throughout time.
The problem is that I think very few people actually belong to the "well-intentioned but misinformed allies" crowd that liberals like to imagine and preach to. This book constructs disability rights as an etiquette issue, but much bigger injustices are at play, especially for multiply marginalized disabled people. I don't want to "be the bigger person" so I can "change the hearts and minds" of my oppressors, I want to stop suffering the consequences of ableism and saneism every single moment with important, immediate structural changes, and I'm bitter at ableism even when people don't know they're being ableist because there are real and deep consequences, not because I have surface-level hurt feelings.
I wanted, for example, for this book to open with a definition of ableism and some basic history of disability organizing. Without that crucial context, the identity-first vs. person-first language section comes off as nit-picky, without addressing why these issues matter so much. (And I've absolutely seen better examples for this discussion elsewhere.) I also would've loved to see more diverse examples of disability history and community needs, including abolitionist organizing, DDOM and the failures of parent-only groups, and patient advocacy and the Affordable Care Act in particular (in my own opinion; there was a lot missing beyond these). The section on disability justice was also a wild misrepresentation of the actual principles of DJ (alone, DR + intersectionality =/= DJ) and made me frustrated with how much it boiled down and reappropriated DJ.
And fundamentally, this book views disability rights through an always-only-upward view of history, where things used to be really bad, and now they're still kind of bad but a lot better, and if we just wait long enough and make our gradual changes, every single thing will get fixed. But that's not how the complex cycles of history actually work and it ignores so much nuance about how types of oppression and injustice have morphed throughout time.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
teacupsandfirereads's review
hopeful
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Having a disability myself, I have been on the hunt for more fiction and non-fiction that brings light to disability. I found out about this book through Instagram and knew I needed to read it, and was luck enough to receive an eARC.
The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is very readable. It is easy to understand and straightforward in how it approaches topics. As a person with a disability, none of the content was new to me, but I think it would be valuable for those wanting to learn. It covers a wide range of topics and in many ways, leaves no questions unanswered, or provides direction to resources.
This will be added to my own resources to share with others when they come to me with questions or asking for information and resources.
I appreciated how Ladau approached topics in a positive and hopeful way, providing guidance rather than reprimanding. Though I know many of us are tired of having to do the work for others.
Thanks you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is very readable. It is easy to understand and straightforward in how it approaches topics. As a person with a disability, none of the content was new to me, but I think it would be valuable for those wanting to learn. It covers a wide range of topics and in many ways, leaves no questions unanswered, or provides direction to resources.
This will be added to my own resources to share with others when they come to me with questions or asking for information and resources.
I appreciated how Ladau approached topics in a positive and hopeful way, providing guidance rather than reprimanding. Though I know many of us are tired of having to do the work for others.
Thanks you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism
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