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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ableism | 5/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ableism | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T14:56:04.369561+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Environmental and outdoor recreation media === Disability has often been used as a short-hand in environmental literature for representing distance from nature, in what Sarah Jaquette Ray calls the "disability-equals-alienation-from-nature trope." An example of this trope can be seen in Moby Dick, as Captain Ahab's lost leg symbolizes his exploitative relationship with nature. Additionally, in canonical environmental thought, figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edward Abbey wrote using metaphors of disability to describe relationships between nature, technology, and the individual. Ableism in outdoor media can also be seen in promotional materials from the outdoor recreation industry: Alison Kafer highlighted a 2000 Nike advertisement, which ran in eleven outdoor magazines promoting a pair of running shoes. Kafer alleged that the advertisement depicted a person with a spinal cord injury and a wheelchair user as a "drooling, misshapen, non-extreme-trail-running husk of [their] former self", and said that the advertisement promised non-disabled runners and hikers the ability to protect their bodies against disability by purchasing the pair of shoes. The advertisement was withdrawn after the company received over six hundred complaints in the first two days after its publication, and Nike apologized.
== Types of ableism == Physical ableism is hate or discrimination based on physical disability. Sanism, or mental ableism, is discrimination based on mental health conditions and cognitive disabilities. Medical ableism exists both interpersonally (as healthcare providers can be ableist) and systemically, as decisions determined by medical institutions and caregivers may prevent the exercise of rights from disabled patients like autonomy and making decisions. The medical model of disability can be used to justify medical ableism. Structural ableism is failing to provide accessibility tools: ramps, wheelchairs, special education equipments, etc. (Which is often also an example of Hostile architecture.) Cultural ableism is behavioural, cultural, attitudinal and social patterns that may discriminate against disabled people, including by denying, dismissing or invisibilising disabled people, and by making accessibility and support unattainable. Internalised ableism is a disabled person discriminating against themself and other disabled people by holding the view that disability is something to be ashamed of or something to hide or by refusing accessibility or support. Internalised ableism may be a result of mistreatment of disabled individuals. Hostile ableism is a cultural or social kind of ableism where people are hostile towards symptoms of a disability or phenotypes of the disabled person. Benevolent ableism is when people treat the disabled person well but like a child (infantilization), instead of considering them full grown adults. Examples include ignoring disabilities (such as the RNIB's "See the person" campaign), not respecting the life experiences of the disabled person, microaggression, not considering the opinion of the disabled person in important decision making, invasion of privacy or personal boundaries, forced corrective measures, unwanted help, not listening to the disabled person, etc. Ambivalent ableism can be characterized as somewhere in between hostile and benevolent ableism. Eco-ableism refers to the forms of ableism that arise within environmental movements, policies, and discourses, leading to the exclusion, marginalisation, or misrepresentation of disabled people.
== Causes of ableism == Ableism may have evolutionary and existential origins (fear of contagion, fear of death). It may also be rooted in belief systems (social Darwinism, meritocracy), language (such as "suffering from" disability), or unconscious biases.
== See also ==
Conscription of people with disabilities Disability abuse Disability and poverty Disability hate crime Disability rights movement Epistemic injustice Inclusion (disability rights) Mentalism (discrimination) Medical industrial complex Violent behavior in autistic people Violence against people with disabilities Mortality of autistic individuals
== References ==