Perceptions of Disability in a Society Dominated by the Medical Model

This post is actually part of my exam for the Disability Studies course, which I translated. I got a ten out of ten for it, so I guess it's not that bad.

Just to clarify: the medical model is the treatment of people (e.g. people with diasabilites or elderly people) where people are made equal with their "defects" which need to be treated, cured or at least minimised so that people become as "normal" as possible.

The medical model, which, at least in my opinion, is currently dominant, places a great deal of emphasis on correcting bodies that do not conform to social norms. The implication is that someone with a disability wants to have their physical 'defect' corrected. Let's say, if someone is squinting, a whole hoard of doctors flock to help them correct this "defect" as early as possible. Especially if it is a child who is squinting, no one asks him if he wants to change it. He is not given the space to express his opinion. Because society has determined that his "defect" is a "defect" at all. Clearly, he wants to get rid of it. That way he won't be picked on by his classmates anymore and he'll be more popular. He will learn more easily and thus be more successful and useful to society. His parents will no longer feel uncomfortable because they will not have to answer questions like "what is wrong with him?". So we come to the inevitable conclusion that this strange child must be cured. Because otherwise he will not have a normal life. It is not wrong for a society to set standards of bodies that are acceptable, useful and beautiful at any given time and to punish or reward people on the basis of their bodies. It is not the parents of children, or the children themselves, who make fun of them, or the adults who look at them in disgust. Nor can we blame the school, because it is far from the school's responsibility to create a safe and accepting space for all youngsters, is it? And it is certainly not the fault of the parents of the child, who are ashamed of him and who are apologising for the child's 'shortcoming'. A child with a disability is wrong. In fact, the parents are some kind of superheroes who make the child's childhood wonderfully happy and normal by driving him from doctor to doctor, from hospital to hospital, from check-up to check-up, from medicine to medicine, from operation to operation, sacrificially giving their all just to fix their poor spoilt child, while the school is just doing its main job: to bring up a bunch of unproblematic, useful and good-looking workers.

We need to ask ourselves how we can change this mindset. The segregation needs to be ended and people with disabilities have to be given equal employment opportunities in "regular" jobs, with appropriate adjustments of course. Not just on paper, but also in practice. If people with disabilities are locked up in institutions where no one notices them, then society simply has the attitude that we can all be "normal". That all disabilities can be "fixed". And if they can't, then people with disabilities should just stay in institutions where they don't bother anyone. With proper inclusion in mainstream school curricula, people might begin to see disability as something perfectly normal and natural in society, rather than a burden. This would make them think in a more egalitarian way and enable people with disabilities to contribute much more to society.