Kirsty: Hello, and welcome to Enabled, the podcast where we talk about, normalise and celebrate disability and mental health.
And today we are also celebrating that Colin is back.
Colin: Yay, everybody's happy.
Kirsty: We are. How was your trip?
Colin: My trip was fantastic. It's good to get away.
Kirsty: Yeah. Any stories you want to share with the group?
Colin: What stories? Our son broke his leg.
Kirsty: Disaster.
Colin: First night we were in Melbourne. Yep.
Kirsty: Motorbikes, man.
Colin: Well, it was a scooter.
Kirsty: What's the, what's the difference? Other than a scooter doesn't sound as cool. Not that motorbikes are cool. They are not, they are death machines.
Colin: Vespas are cool.
Kirsty: What's a Vespa?
Colin: A scooter.
Kirsty: Okay.
Colin: Scooters are generally automatic. And they don't have any foot pedals, so it's like, you know, accelerator, brake, that's it.
Kirsty: What are foot pedals on a motorbike?
Colin: You need foot pedals because you've got to change gears and put your foot on the brake.
Kirsty: I didn't know, there's foot stuff.
Colin: Right foot is brake, left foot is changing gears.
Kirsty: I did not know there was foot stuff.
Anyway, let's actually talk about what we're here to talk
about. Let's jump into it. I'm super excited about today's episode because we are talking about Stella Young, who I think of as a bit of a legend in terms of disability advocacy. Because I kind of feel like everything that I know about disability culture, I learned from Stella Young.
So Colin, would it be fair to say that you're a newer convert to the world of Stella Young?
Colin: Yes.
Kirsty: What do you think?
Colin: I had not heard about her before you told me about her.
Kirsty: Are you a fan?
Colin: Yes. Yeah. It's made me re-evaluate. Yeah. The way I think.
Kirsty: Hey, awesome. So we should say we are talking about her and not to her.
I'd like to think that she would have maybe come on the show, but because she very sadly died in 2014 at the age of 32. So she had a disability called osteogenesis imperfecta and she was a wheelchair user as a result. And she was also a comedian, a TV host, a journalist. She was pretty prolific in the media actually.
And she used her position to champion disability rights, including the introduction of the NDIS, which she spoke about as being a step towards leveling the playing field. Because in her words, disability should not equal disadvantage. Which I think is fantastic. And she's been in the news again lately. Colin, can you tell us about, about that?
Colin: The statue in Stawell. Yeah. Is that how you pronounce it? Stawell. In Stawell, isn't it?
Kirsty: Yeah. Beautiful part of the world.
Colin: In, in Western Victoria. And she had a, a statue erected and it is a people friendly. Yeah. So you can, you know, it's, it's accessible for everyone in community in wheelchairs, whatever.
Kirsty: Yeah. Which I mean, I almost don't want to admit this, but to even think about like making a statue, that had not occurred to me that you would have to think about accessibility with a statue. But how cool is it? I mean, that's such a Stella Young thing that, that they did. And so they should.
Colin: Yeah. So it's got braille writing and QR codes so you can look up videos and.
Kirsty: Yeah. And it's low to the ground.
Colin: And stuff. Yeah. I think it's a great idea.
Kirsty: So it's her hometown. They memorialised her, I suppose, in her hometown. And we want to talk about two things, I guess, that Stella sort of particularly promoted and pioneered, and they are something that's known as the social model of disability.
And then this idea of inspiration porn, which is this deliberately provocative phrase that Stella coined back in 2014. And she doesn't mean it in a good way, in case you're listening and you think maybe that sounds like it's a good thing. It is not. So let's get started. Let's talk about the social model of disability because that for me anyway was a massive paradigm shift in terms of how I, my default way, I guess, of viewing disability.
And it's a real pushback against the medical model of disability. We probably can't understand the social model without first talking about the medical model? So what's, what's the medical model of disability Colin?
Colin: That would be my question to you.
Kirsty: Darn, ok, alright.
Colin: I'll bail on that one.
Kirsty: Ok, alright, well, so the medical model of disability is this idea that disability is seen as a defect, basically, that it's not the way your body or your brain is supposed to be, it's an imperfection or an obstacle to overcome, even a tragedy.
There's this real idea of wrongness, almost, with the medical model of disability. And I mean, tell me if you agree, Colin, but I would say that the medical model of disability is the default way that society views disability.
Colin: I, I think so. Yeah.. I would say that we probably have all thought that and that's what's promoted in, in society. Yeah.
Kirsty: Yeah. And the impact of that I think is, I mean it cultivates ableism.
Colin: Definitely. Yeah.
Kirsty: Because it promotes the sense that disabled people are less than able bodied people, that their existence is unfortunate or tragic, and that disability isn't normal.
So that's the medical model. So what's the social model of disability?
Colin: My understanding, and I hadn't thought about this until listening to Stella, she talks about the social model as being more disabled by society and society's reaction to disabled people and opinions than actually their bodies at all.
Kirsty: Exactly.
Colin: So it's more about the, the way society sees it than it is about the actual disability.
Kirsty: Yeah. And I suppose the practical impact of the way society views disability, which is that we live in a world that's inaccessible for a lot of disabled people. So Stella talks about the realization that she had, I think she said she was about 17 when she had this, when she learned about the social model of disability.
And as she said, she learned that she was not wrong for the world. The world was just not yet right for her. That's such a powerful change in perspective, right?
Colin: Yes. Super.
Kirsty: It's interesting to hear her talk about the impact in that of her, because I don't know if you came across - she wrote a letter to her 80 year old self that was published.
Did you read that?
Colin: No, I didn't see that.
Kirsty: It's great. And I suppose all the more poignant, unfortunately, because she didn't, she didn't make it there, you know because she did die when she was so young. But she speaks about, in this letter, she speaks about her time as a young person when she didn't even want to identify as part of the disability community.
As a disabled person herself. She did not want to be part of it, she wanted to be quote unquote normal, didn't want to be different, mourned the fact that she wasn't able bodied… Which is really that, what that really shows us is, it's an example of that internalised ableism, that, I mean, I don't, I can't speak for the disability community, but I feel like it would be impossible not to have internalised ableism in a world that's saturated with that medical model of disability and the ableism that that generates.
Colin: That's a good question. I think that needs to be asked.
Kirsty: Yeah, but I love the fact that this social model of disability really kind of pushes back against that. And it says, well, actually, we're not the problem. Disabled people are not the problem. They are entirely worthy of visibility and respect and celebration. And the world needs to wise up to that and fix itself because the world isn't right yet for disabled people. And that's not something that - I suppose the weight of that shouldn't be borne by disabled people, it should be borne by the rest of us and we need to, we need to do better.
Colin: Definitely.
Kirsty: And I guess that kind of is a good segue into the next thing that we wanted to talk about, which is inspiration porn. Because I think that the reality and the existence of what Stella calls inspiration porn is indicative of… well it comes out of this medical model of disability and how it makes us feel about disabled people. So let's talk about inspiration porn. Do you want to take that one, Colin?
Colin: I had not heard it until again, I listened to Stella, but the way she talks about it is that it's inspiration porn is really objectifying one group of people for the benefit of another group. I mean, she refers it to the disabled community, but that's generally, I think what it, what it is.
Kirsty: And so it's specifically where images or stories of disabled people are put out there as these sort of heartwarming or inspirational ideas. So she uses some examples as like, you know, there might be a picture of a disabled person participating in just like everyday activities like sports maybe, or there might be a child with a limb difference who's adapted to that so that they might write or draw using another part of their body instead of their hands. And it's typically accompanied by phrases designed to motivate or inspire you like, “the only disability in life is a bad attitude” or “what's your excuse” or things like that.
These are, are the examples that-
Colin: You see them all the time.
Kirsty: Yeah, exactly. But as Stella puts it, the idea of it is - it's objectifying disabled people for the benefit of able bodied people to motivate them so that you can sort of look at this person and say, you know, however bad my life is, it could be worse. Like I could be that person-
Colin: Which is just a terrible thing to say, but I can think of seeing these things, these pictures and this inspiration porn and thinking, oh yeah. I understand that. But then when you actually think about what you're saying and thinking, that's terrible. Yeah. I'd be really interested to hear from someone who has a disability, what they think of what Stella says.
Kirsty: And their experience of it, because where I suppose she, so she coined the phrase back in 2014, so we're almost 10 years on, is it any different? That would be really interesting to, to sort of hear that lived experience of what has changed, if anything. Cause I feel like those images are still around.
Colin: Oh yeah. I think so. Yeah.
Kirsty: All right. So Stella did a TED talk back in 2014. It's great. Right.
Colin: Yeah. Fantastic.
Kirsty: Worth listening to. And I suppose just to give another example of the impact of this inspiration porn or more so. I guess the impact of the medical model and how that, how that can generate inspiration porn.
She gives an example of something that occurred in her own life as a young person. Her parents are approached by a member of the community in her hometown, who says to her parents that he wants to nominate Stella for a community achievement award. Which sounds great.
Colin: Sounds great.
Kirsty: Sounds like a lovely thing to do, but her parents response was, “Well, why? Because she hasn't achieved anything.”
And initially when I first heard that, I was like, Oh, that's a bit rough.
Colin: I know. How would you feel if you were the person that did it thinking that you were doing the right thing? But again, that's the perception that we're talking about.
Kirsty: Yeah. It stems from this idea that people found Stella so inspiring because they thought that it took some sort of extra bravery for her to just exist in public spaces. To leave her home, to go to school, to, you know, have a job, to do those sorts of fairly basic things, that somehow she was brave for daring to live publicly.
Colin: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kirsty: And so when you really kind of test the assumption behind these things that, you know, previously, I thought, well, that sounds lovely.
But it's really not. Yeah. And imagine the impact it must have on you. She has spoken about how she's lost count of the number of times that people have approached her to say that they find her inspiring when she's not doing anything inspiring at all. Yeah. Really interesting kind of concept. Pretty challenging I think for most of us who have never had to consider ableism or never had to navigate ableism.
Colin: Very challenging. Yes.
Kirsty: So yeah, big concepts. What's the takeaway?
Colin: What's the takeaway? That we have to, as a community, reach the point where we see everyone equal.
Kirsty: Yeah. And, and I guess, I guess probably like the immediate challenge for us, because that sounds hard to do.
Colin: It sounds impossible to do at times.
Kirsty: I guess the immediate challenge is: All of us should ask ourselves, do you see disability as a bad thing?
Colin: Yes. Yeah.
Kirsty: And if you do, how do we change that? Because the able-bodied community is part of what makes the world inaccessible for people with disability and our terrible views on it.
So how do we, how do you and I just independently, personally change our perception of disability so that we don't think it's bad or tragic. We just see it as normal. One in five Australians are disabled. It is just part of the normal, beautiful variety of the human condition.
Let's wrap it up. So, you know, big concepts, challenging concepts. Super important for us to talk about, I think.
Colin: And I think super important that we hear other people's opinions. I would love to hear what other people thought of what Stella says. Yeah. And what we talk about.
Kirsty: Yeah, let us know. Hit us up.
Colin: Hit us up. That's really good. I like that, Agent K.
Kirsty: And, yeah, just keep, keep talking about it. Keep discussing it. Keep challenging yourself. And we will see you next time.
Colin: Okay. No, we won't see you next time. We're not on video.
Kirsty: Alright.
