Disability discrimination in society

Disability discrimination in society

Ableism and disability discrimination in society is so much more common than anyone seems to realise. For anyone wondering what ableism is I can put it like this. Ableism is discrimination in favour of able-bodied people over people with disabilities. An example of ableism would be if an employer hired someone with no disability over someone with a disability for no other reason than that. It is now illegal to choose someone based on whether they are disabled or not but the problem is that employers find ways around it by mentioning qualifications or experience of that person.

In this blog, I will cover as much as I can regarding disability discrimination and my experiences of it. I will also include what I think of face coverings being compulsory as I put this out in a passionate Facebook status a few days ago. Let’s get right into the blog. I would also love to hear about your experiences of the issues discussed in this blog post so please comment with them if you feel comfortable.

Face coverings in Scotland

So face coverings being mandatory from July 10th was announced today and I have a lot I could say about this but I will keep it as short as possible.

This should have been done in March. I believe in using them but it makes zero sense to wait so long to do something that could have prevented the spread from being so bad in the first place. Before anyone thinks it’s political with me honestly it’s not. I’ve never voted anything other than SNP since I’ve been able to vote and I probably will next election.

The big problem for me is that a lot more people are exempt than anyone seems to realise so it creates this wave of public nastiness and judgement that isn’t remotely warranted. For example, you’d never know I had Asperger’s Syndrome without mentioning it and I’m exempt from wearing one because of it. I have only left the house 4 times since lockdown began and even at that 1 was for a wander right at the beginning, 2 were for interviews and the most recent was a walk on my birthday on the 30th May.

People will chance their luck with it and that’s allowed to happen because it’s not enforced anyway. Transport companies can’t enforce it so do you expect shops to? The other thing if they do enforce it what’s to stop someone with a genuine exemption being knocked back because some chancer tried their luck before they and staff assume the person is just another chancer?

It’s just such a messy situation that in my honest opinion will just cause more unnecessary nastiness than good. All I can say to be honest and it’s another flaw with a society where there’s a lot of ableism as it is. If people could just be kind it would obviously be fine but we’ve all seen the moaners out left, right and centre recently.

My experiences

Growing up I have experienced a lot of nastiness and horrible comments regarding my disability. When I was a school kid I had a support teacher in the classroom too to help with my learning as it took me a long time to grasp things compared to everyone else in my classroom. I was around 12 or 13 years old when the insults got too much and I asked to not have any assistance. It wasn’t easy but I eventually got used to it and started to pick things up more quickly on my own.

A lot of people still don’t understand my disability even as an adult even though I’m more comfortable now and able to explain more about it. There’s still this shock and strange reaction when I say there’s something that sounds so basic that I can’t do but anyone else can. For example, I grew up wearing a lot of Velcro shoes because it was easier as I have zero hands to eye coordination therefore I couldn’t tie laces. Even as a 26-year-old now I still struggle with this.

Another example of this is with swimming. I can’t do that either despite being good for a while when I was younger because I had done it so much. I feel like it’s something a lot of people can do well and some act shocked when I say that I can’t although part of it is me not being comfortable with my top off in front of strangers so I avoid it.

Job disasters

I have some absolute nightmares when it comes to the jobs I’ve had. I was never comfortable in my first one but I don’t feel like I was ready for it at all. I felt so overwhelmed by it for the 11 weeks I had that job and I always felt incredibly anxious. It didn’t help me that I was only in work on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so without the full 5 days it was so much harder to settle.

 I stayed near a few of my colleagues but other than that I barely had anything in common with anyone I worked with. It also didn’t help that my boss didn’t give me anywhere near enough work to do. I felt like if I was kept busy I’d maybe have felt better about the job but it was so stop-start.

My second job was a lot better in terms of the fact I lasted 10 months and left on my terms but at the same time, those terms only had to be enforced because I was being picked on and nothing was done about it whatsoever. The one time where something was done involving HR it was made out that it was my fault for reacting to being picked on and not the person who was being nasty. It also didn’t help that the girl was related to the chief executive of the company so I had no chance and eventually thought this isn’t worth it.

I hope that in my third job when it eventually comes that I have a manager that understands Asperger’s Syndrome and manages me properly. I am so capable of working hard and doing well but the chance has never come yet. I haven’t been working since March 2019 due to my mother’s death and then a lot of illness so things haven’t been in my favour yet.

The coronavirus also hasn’t helped because I stay in the largest city in Scotland so despite there being more jobs than anywhere else, there are also so many more people applying for them. I reckon there are probably around 1000 people per job and that will never be enough because I’ve not got much experience even though it’s completely out of my control.

My final thoughts

The main thing I want in the world is for everyone to see those invisible disabilities are more common than you’d think and to learn more about what they involve and how they affect a person. I am still learning about my one so if that’s the case then think how much there is to learn out there. Another thing is that we are equals and treated as such because some people still live in the dark ages and need to get with the programme.

Take time to make friends with people who have disabilities and eventually they’ll become comfortable enough with you to explain more about themselves and how it affects them. You’ll learn so much from every conversation and it will help you grow as a person too. It will also give us the confidence to see that someone understands how the world works for us and why it is a struggle.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog post and I’d love for you to learn more about the disabilities out there in the world. Thanks for reading and supporting my content. Have a great day.

If you have missed my previous content then please check it out below: