Dissertation en anglais sur le handicap

Stella Jane Young, an Australian journalist and disability rights activist, said: “My disability exists not because I use a wheelchair, but because the broader environment isn't accessible.”

Someone with a disability faces many difficulties every day, from physical obstacles to social and attitudinal barriers. Indeed, for a lot of people, the word “disability” immediately conjures up the idea of someone incapable of accomplishing a task. Yet, the biggest and most difficult obstacle to surmount is often the way other people behave towards people with disabilities. These attitudes, whether they are born from fear, ignorance, misunderstanding, prevent handicapped people to develop their full potential and integrate in society.

Society is an additional barrier that people with disabilities face and have to overcome.

Physical barriers are the most obvious and apparent obstacles: stairs, curbs, steep streets, narrow doors... These structures are a real problem for people in wheelchairs because it prevents them from entering certain places or going about their way. Nowadays, more and more buildings are equipped with facilities for disabled people, but it is important to upgrade to an upper level. Indeed, some amenities essential to be autonomous, such as ATMs and shopping carts, are still not designed to meet the needs of disabled people.

Moreover, facilities for disabled people are often used by able-bodied people. For instance, people who park illegally in handicap spots deny a very important mean of access to the people who legitimately need it. In the same vein, everyone has, even once, used accessible restroom facilities. But the fact that some people tend to use these toilets, even when the others are available, shows that, in the collective mind, handicapped people are not as likely to be out in public as non-disabled people.

Social and attitudinal barriers hold people with disabilities back from getting involved in society. Indeed, a lot of stereotypes depicts them as dependent. This is a very big obstacle when a disabled person wants to find a job as many employers will adopt a negative attitude, focusing on his disability rather than on his abilities and expertise. That is why, for instance, disabled people's employment rates remain around 50%, compared with more than 75% for the overall working population.^[1] They have fewer opportunities to develop their skills and gain experience, which forms a vicious cycle. Following the same idea, when disabled people are hired, they are usually relegated to low-skill jobs or set to lower job standards. This tends to create a division between them and their co-workers, but also strengthen the clichés according to which disabled people are less skillful.  In addition, they are often expected to only appreciate the opportunity that they are given but they should not demand equal pay, benefits or opportunities…

People with disabilities are still not enough pushed to the forefront. Indeed, even if mentalities are evolving, we can see that handicapped people are under-represented in the public sphere, and especially in the media. For instance, we can see a great injustice when comparing the coverage of parasport events with that of an able-bodied event. Most of the time, it is even near impossible to find coverage of disabled sports. Parasports are only broadcasted during The Paralympics, and even then, they are seen by many as secondary to the Olympics. Indeed, except in a handful of European countries, The Paralympics has not been able to maintain media attention. For example, in the United States, the national television broadcasted The Olympics for 250 hours and 5 488 articles were published on the subject. The coverage of the Paralympics was less than 10% of the Olympics and no channel broadcasted any of the games live. ^[2]

...