Author Narrative:
- Joanne Limburg is a poet, memoirist and novelist. She teaches creative writing at the Institute of Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge, and her books include the poetry collections Femenismo (2000) and The Autistic Alice (2017), the novel A Want of Kindness (2015) and the memoirs The Woman Who Thought Too Much (2010) and Small Pieces (2017). She lives in Cambridge, UK.
Notes
- There are – to my mind – two issues raised by this essay:-
- What is the scope of “disability”, and is it a univocal term?
- What assistance should society afford to the “disabled” and should the same assistance be supplied to all those so labelled?
- My views are that
- “Disability” has become too general a term, and that not all those categorised as “disabled” are in fact so, or at least not so as to need extra assistance. If we’re trying too hard to provide a level playing field, we’d need to add a “handicap” to those who we might label “gifted” in one way or another.
- Giving everyone labelled “disabled” a “blue badge” is inappropriate, given the reason these were created in the first place.
- So, our author has Asperger’s syndrome (or at least has found a psychiatrist to label her as such). It seems this entitles her (in the UK) to classify herself as “disabled” and she wonders whether she should, given that she didn’t realise she had “the condition” until age 42 (she’s now aged 50). She eventually decides that she will. She “bigs up” the condition by describing it as “autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)”.
- The author cites a book - Disability Theory (2008) by Tobin Siebers (see Siebers - Disability Theory). I’ve looked at it on Amazon, but couldn’t bring myself to buy it. It gets good reviews by students needing it for course reading, but looking at the Abstract and other books linked with it filled me with gloom.
“Intelligent, provocative, and challenging, Disability Theory revolutionizes the terrain of theory by providing indisputable evidence of the value and utility that a disability studies perspective can bring to key critical and cultural questions. Tobin Siebers persuasively argues that disability studies transfigures basic assumptions about identity, ideology, language, politics, social oppression, and the body. At the same time, he advances the emerging field of disability studies by putting its core issues into contact with signal thinkers in cultural studies, literary theory, queer theory, gender studies, and critical race theory.”
- This whole issue has been caught up in the diversity and identity politics debates, not to mention the neurodiversity debate. The author cites Rosqvist, Etc - Neurodiversity Studies: A New Critical Paradigm, from which I have "Stenning (Anna) - Understanding empathy through a study of autistic life writing".
- This has been discussed in other papers on Aeon:-
→ Gupta - Is crip the new queer?,
→ Costandi - Against neurodiversity,
→ Evans - The autism paradox.
- The author says that she hadn’t considered her “condition” as a disability because this didn’t fit in with her mental image of a disabled person as associated with “the wheelchair symbol, the guide dog, the white stick, the prosthetic limb, the accessible toilet”. Well, indeed.
- I’d not realised that the availability of “blue badges” had been widened to include “non visible” disabilities. There’s an article on the BBC Website (BBC - Blue badge permit 'shocking disparity' revealed) that points out “shocking” disparities amongst local authorities in issuing badges to the newly qualified. In particular, “Anxiety Disorder” is included, and justified because people who are anxious about finding a parking space will tend not to go out. Well, indeed again. I have this anxiety, and therefore don’t go out when there are unlikely to be spaces.
- The trouble is that if the net is widened too far, the process will be self-defeating. If half the spaces in a supermarket car park were labelled “disabled”, people with serious mobility issues would not be able to park close enough to get relief, and half the able-bodied people wouldn’t be able to park at all. Similarly, if half the working population are categorised as “key workers” – and given the interconnectedness of society, whose job isn’t “key” if you consider the long-term consequences of it not being done – then lock-downs are ineffective.
- As for Asperger’s, many highly-skilled IT people (like myself) are borderline Asperger’s or beyond, but get on just fine – at least amongst similar types, and are just “a bit odd”. They aren’t disadvantaged on balance, so why should they be – or want to be – classed with those who are?
Comment:
For the full text, follow this link (Local website only): PDF File1.
- Sub-Title: "With my pen hovering over a form, there is no easy answer: better to provoke stigma with support, or resist classification?"
- For the full text see Aeon: Limburg - Am I disabled?
- Date: 2020
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)