I agree that the way they’re done usually is nothing short of horrific, but I’m not quite prepared to write off the entire idea as doomed.

I think one of the issues is that not all disabilities get the “oh my god, your life is so horrible and awful and I’d kill myself if I were you” treatment – some of us get the “you’re faking! You’re exaggerating! You’re making things up for the attention!” I know that there have been times I’ve sorely wished I could lend a person my hearing for a day! (Noise sensitivity not being something that commonly gets a lot of empathy.) It reminds me of how people decry the “brave cripple” trope, but how OTOH abled people will often dismiss things as nothings and person-being-fussy that actually do require quite a bit of bravery which I wish got recognised. Of course, since it’s the underlying ableist attitudes that are the problem people might easily flip straight into the “that’s so horrible! You’re so brave!” mentality so it’s a very delicate thing to play with.

But there’s another thing where I think disability simulations might be helpful, and that’s in recognising ableism.

I read a few blogs by people who stutter, including one by someone who also teaches students studying to be speech and language practitioners, and he talks about making his students do a pseudostuttering exercise annually and links to a study about this. I’m not so keen on the “learning about the lives and experiences of their clients” bit for reasons that have already been mentioned, but I think this could be a way to make such students realise both their own ableism – negative attitudes they hold about stuttering which become obvious when they’re engaging in it – *and*, quite importantly, ableism from their surroundings. I suspect that a day wandering around pseudostuttering could help fluent people realise what kind of stigma stutterers face and how that can influence the way people react to them. If I’m going to be really optimistic, maybe some of them will even realise that the whole “nervousness and anxiety causes stuttering!” thing has cause and effect backward…

So I wonder if a disability simulation that is framed a la social model would work, one where people are specifically instructed *not* to try and generalise to what a person’s life must be like and perhaps told some of the reasons why it’s simply not possible to accurately judge it from such an exercise, but instead told to watch out for things that might pop up in their mind (e.g. “god, I sound so stupid like this” or “everyone’s going to think I’m an idiot” for pseudostuttering – does that mean you think people who stutter sound stupid? Would you think a stutterer you met was an idiot?) and see whether people react to them differently.

Of course, this might still not work, I suspect people will need to have at least some background in disability 101 for it to even have a chance, and given the disability simulations I see described in the comments it might be best to just abandon the idea entirely.

I don’t need to understand what it’s like to be a full-time wheelchair user, or to have CFS. People with CFS or Autism, or who use wheelchairs, or who are blind have told me, and I believe them. I’ve read their books, blogs, editorials, whatever.

What, if I spend a day in a wheelchair I’ll suddenly be enlightened because my able legs will suddenly sort it all out?

Do neuro/physiotypical people really get anything out of these exercises except how fucking cool it is to not be us? To be able to take all that shit off and be healthy and normal and fully human?

So, what did you think of the 30 days episode where the football player (I think. he was a successful athlete with money) spent 30 days in a wheelchair?

Ah, the Spurlock thing? I reviewed that a while back, summing up thus:

Tl;dr:

“At first, I thought that if I ever had a spinal injury, I’d kill myself!

Then, I realised that people with disabilities are human after all.

Shit, am I glad to be out of that chair!”

Yeah, I really shouldn’t have expected “insightful” from Morgan Spurlock.

Spurlock’s “30 Days in a Wheelchair”: A curmudgeonly synopsis (or two)

Now THAT ought to be mandatory!

@ Genderbitch and Meloukhia, (and anyone else interested)
WordPress.com won’t let you use the WP plugins as far as I know, but compared to other blog hosts they have a ton of features and constantly improve and introduce new stuff, so I’m guessing they’ll develop something like this in the future. (Keeping my fingers crossed here…)
.-= Kowalski´s last blog ..YouTube Thursday =-.

If it’s ok, I’m going to paste and translate a bit from one of the other links here. (otherwise just delete that part of my comment, maybe it gets too long):
“Mensen met autisme hebben er recht op om deel uit te kunnen maken van de maatschappij. En daarvoor is het nodig dat de maatschappij autisme leert begrijpen. Hoe is het om een autisme spectrum stoornis te hebben, hoe voelt dat in je hoofd en in je hart? Tegen welke problemen lopen mensen met autisme aan?

Dit inzicht is nodig om de vertaling te kunnen maken naar wat mensen met autisme nodig hebben om er écht bij te kunnen horen.

Het Dr. Leo Kannerhuis heeft het idee uitgewerkt om buitenstaanders te laten ervaren wat mensen met autisme voelen, denken en meemaken. Het gaat er dan niet om hoe de buitenwereld naar mensen met autisme kijkt, maar om de beleving van henzelf, van binnenuit..

Samen met cliënten, ouders en behandelaars is een project opgezet waar bezoekers door middel van beeld en geluid kunnen ervaren wat er in hoofd én hart van mensen met autisme omgaat. Het hoofdkwartier wil bezoekers laten voelen wat mensen met autisme dagelijks ervaren.

Het hoofdkwartier is een multimediaal theater gevormd door een groot hoofd van stalen stroken. In het hoofd is plaats voor negen mensen die door middel van beeld en geluid mee worden genomen in de belevingswereld van een persoon met autisme.”

Translation (inserts [ ] are mine):
“People with autism deserve to be a part of society. To achieve that goal, society needs to understand autism. What is it like to have an autism spectrum disorder, what does that feel like in your head and heart? What problems do autistic people face?

We need these insights to be able to puzzle out what people with autism need to really belong.

The Dr. Leo Kanner house worked out a way to let outsiders experience the feelings, thoughts and experiences of people with autism. It is not about the way the outside world looks at people with autism, but about their experience from the inside..

Together with clients, parents and professionals [like psychiatrists or people in charge of group homes] we set up a project that lets visitors experience what goes on in the heads and hearts of people with autism, by means of visuals and audio. The Hoofdkwartier [Headquarters, a literal and very accurate translation] is intended to let people feel what people with autism go through daily.

The Hoofdkwartier is a multimedia theater shaped like a giant head made out of steel bars. There is room inside the head for 9 people, who will be carried into the world of the person with autism by means of sound and imagery.”

This sort of says it all, everything that’s wrong with it is right there.
.-= Norah´s last blog ..Identification =-.

Yes, this is snarky. Not sure if it’s coming across right, but my point is that “disability simulators” are ridiculous and demeaning.

That being said, it occurred to me later that she’s a very hands-on, “don’t tell me just let me try it” kind of learner, and doesn’t pick up on things as quickly or thoroughly if she’s trying to parse a verbal or written explanation, rather than just do it herself. I think that maybe, possibly, with some very careful guidance from someone who can cut through any ablist bullshit and realistic, meaningful parameters to the tasks (i.e., not just random difficult things designed to evoke pity and embarrassment, but real-life things like trying to get a wheelchair over “just one step”, or trying to read small signage in overly dim lighting), that kind of simulation approach might be helpful for that particular learning style in shifting one’s understanding about accessibility. But not as these emotionally-pornagraphic pity parties of wholesale ablist bullcrap that get touted as “progressive” and “challenging” and are just clueless.