# Beyond the Wheelchair ## Metadata title: Beyond the Wheelchair author:: Kelly Fritsch cite-key:: fritsch2014Wheelchair date:: 2014-03-10 keywords:: [[International Symbol of Access]] apa:: Fritsch, K. (2014, March 10). Beyond the Wheelchair. _Briarpatch_, _March/April 2014_. --- ## Notes - In September 2013, David Onley (lieutenant-governor of Ontario) created an international design challenge to address that the [[International Symbol of Access]] is itself a barrier about accessibility. The [[International Symbol of Access|ISA]] visual representation of a wheelchair ties accessibility to mobility disabilities, and is not inclusive of the broader community. > Left out of this image of accessibility is the majority of disabled people for whom accessibility is less about ramps and more about sign language interpreters, scent-free environments, auditory announcements on public transit, and a host of other requirements. - Fristch argues that the design challenge can’t address the deeper meanings and needs behind a symbol of accessibility, and that an icon limits the conversation within disability politics. - > Looking back, what activists must contend with is that while the wheelchair allowed some disabled people to live independent lives and attain employment with the support of the welfare state, the disability rights and independent living movements emerged alongside the rise of other neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization, and individualization. Thus the independent living movement gained momentum at the same time that the government began denying funding to unionized positions in nursing homes and other institutions while trumpeting the costs-effectiveness of using flexible labourers as personal attendants. > … > As a result of these measures, government responsibilities have been downloaded onto municipalities, non-government organizations, grassroots organizations and charities, or individual families. - Quote about the symbolic juxtaposition and marginalization of using the [[International Symbol of Access|ISA]] in the [[Built environment]]. - Fritsch argues that the use of the [[International Symbol of Access|ISA]] in the [[Built environment]] is against the principles of [[Universal design]]. > “Putting the access symbol on a door or a bathroom stall divides who is considered disabled from who is considered able-bodied,” says Toronto-based disability writer and activist Eliza Chandler. “People using wheelchairs are juxtaposed to everyone else. The image leaves no room for the complexity of disability, for the ways in which disability is context-dependent.” - Rethinking the binary concept of disabled versus able-bodied, and reframing the concept of disability as the “changing forms of embodiment and access that are part of the human condition itself” > In place of this binary between the disabled and able-bodied, activists like Chandler ask us to think about disability in terms of the changing forms of embodiment and access that are part of the human condition itself. - As it currently stands, the [[International Symbol of Access|ISA]] reduces the built environment to a problem for the individual instead of looking at broader social relations. > When access is thought to be an issue for abnormal people, disability becomes an individual problem.