Accessibility Fail

Welcome, BADD bloggers!

As someone who has one kid in a wheelchair, and, on occasion, one in a stroller too (I used to have one in the wheelchair and one in a sling!), I have a pretty good eye for accessibility.  Or should I say, the lack thereof.

Local footpath "options"... FAIL

Society's public spaces are just not accessible.  This is not just about the chair, or even just about disability.  It's about people with a disability, carers, children, young people, women, different cultures, different races.  It's about power.  All of our spaces are designed or function to satisfy the powerful, the status quo.  So, in Australia, that's about white, middle class men people who are invested in capitalism.  Our spaces are about celebrating that [or selling it to us].  Other people don't have things designed for them, we have things to "cater to" us, or to "accomodate" us.  We're a second thought.

In Sydney city: "ramp" to cross road - FAIL

I'm sick of it.  So I'm doing my bit, in a bloggy way, to point out Accessibility FAIL from my three main persepectives as a "second thought" in society:

1. As a carer for a child in a wheelchair.  This child is a tall, lanky 12 year old, with athetoid CP, very limited motor control, no independent walking, and who is incontinent.  Oh, and who has epilepsy.  Oh, so much potential here!  [I'm planning a whole post on the awesome that isn't 'the "disabled toilets" of the world, with their built-in assumptions that 1. you're in there alone, and 2. you're using the toilet, and 3. you're without any friggin bags, need for a rubbish bin, or have any kids/trolleys/cane's/dogs/etc with you.  That is, they're usually just a "normal" toilet with a friggin rail and more room.  FAIL.  More on this in future posts.../rant]  Here's the girl:

2. As a mother of a small child.  Who is 3, curious, enjoys running and exploring, and who is sometimes in a stroller (and who was in a sling).  So much of our public world excludes children, and (not by accident) their mothers carers.  Sometimes we are just ignored, rendered invisible, unwanted, excluded, and sometimes we are taken advantage of for the sake of the almighty dollar (lets just take the basics of paying for playgrounds, the display of sweets at checkouts, the goddam kiddie rides at the goddam shops.  Oh and none of those things are accessible for the chair anyway, so there's that). Here's the small girl:

3. As a woman.  Who finds it is just so awesome that she can't go any-friggin-where without being hit over the head with what she isn't, and what she should be, and that the world is set up and catered to the male gaze (trails off into feminist rant inducing much soap boxing and probably spittle...).  Here's me:

Welcome to Accessibility Fail.  I'm blogging the Accessiblity FAIL I see in my life, either in person or online.  Please join me!  Post a comment below, or add your own experiences on your blog and I'll link 'em (See Simply Link doohickey below!).  If I ever see Accessibility Wins, I'll post them too, but we all know those are few and far between!

The upshot of all this is:  Here is my basic bit of advice for all town planners, policy officers, architects, engineers, public officials, politicians, bureaucrats, and anyone having anything to do with public (and private) building, public (and private) space design, and public life in general NEED to do this BEFORE building or 'adapting' a space:

1.  Go there and push someone in a wheelchair.

2.  Go there and push themselves in a wheelchair.

3.  Go there and try any number of mobility "aids," vision "aids," and the innumerable ways and means with which some people with disability might access the world.

4.  Don't assume if you've done 1-4 that you've a) covered everything and everybody, and b) have any idea what it's really like. 

5.  Go there and push a kid in a stroller.

6.  Go there with with a small child who might behave unpredictably, or use the environment in ways adults won't.

7.  Which should really be numbers one to six: ASK.  Consult, converse, listen.  Don't add us on at the end like a PC nod to the outsiders.  We're not outsiders.  We're YOU.

Only then can you go design, fund, build and so on.

Grab a button and post a comment if you'd like to Play Along at Home [Fun for All the Family TM].  If we can't laugh we'll drown in a lake of unicorn tears.  Or something. 




<center><a href="http://memotoselfblogger.blogspot.com/p/accessibility-fail.html"><img border="0" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5224/5671385157_9ef2c3ca91_m.jpg" width="125" height="94" alt="Accessibility FAIL button"/></a></center>

This post is for Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011, from the fabulous Diary of a Goldfish.  My 2009 BADD post is here.  I blog about being a stepmum to a child with a disability (and a teenager!), my 3 year old, Montessori doings, and general parenthood, feminist awesome.  You might also want to check out my living with a wheelchair post here, and my post on being a stepmother here!  A final link, to my post On Epilepsy, here. 


Thanks for stopping by!  Leave me some comment luv!  If you feel like sharing your own experience of Accessibility FAIL, link yourself below, I'm making it a regular feature here.