SF and ablism (or: a not-as-such brief thought)

[megwrites]

I'm having sort of a genre related thought about ablism.

Right now I'm considering sci-fi, particularly SF set in the far future when humanity is far more technologically developed and there's sort of a theme that follows in this subset of the genre that bothers me a lot when I come across it, and that's the idea that nobody in the future will ever be disabled. Disease have been erased! Genetic abnormalities sorted out! There's a pill or treatment or medi-pod for anything that ails you!

It seems as though when science fiction envisions a better, or at least more advanced, version of humanity it is one without disability, and thus one without disabled people. When you imagine a future without disability, it is a future in which you imagine that there are no disabled people.

I'm sure someone will rush to say, "No! No! They'll exist, they just won't be disabled, that's all! They'll be cured in the future, isn't that great?"

Not so great, actually.

First, because we are not in the future, thus when you say such statements, you're impacting actual people in here and now. You're saying, "Wow, won't it be great when you're not like that anymore. When you're different?" Which is saying, "The way you are now is not okay."

Second, because your idea of "great" is finding ways to make disabled people "normal". I put scare quotes around normal because, well, normal is about the most oppressive, offensive, evil word in my vocabulary.

More people have suffered more evil and oppression on this Earth because they didn't fit somebody else's idea of "normal" than any other single thing I can think of. "Oh, look, people of a different culture and race! They're not normal! Let's shoot them with these nifty guns we have and take over their lands and then tell complete lies about them!" or "Oh, look, those other people there are having sexual relations with the wrong people. They're not normal. Let make nasty laws and beat them up!"

A gross oversimplification, of course, because oppression is ever so much more complex, layered, and insidious than all that. But I hope that it makes the point. People in general value "normal" without stopping in many instances to wonder if it's worth valuing - both here and in the future and the literature of the fantastic and the future.

This future we imagine, this disability-free ideal place is not one in which we've decided to stop narrowing the definition of normal and able, in which we've decided to stop shoehorning based on ability and disability decided to expand what we consider to be just another part of the wide spectrum of collective human ability. This future is one in which we (for the value of "we" which is society/humanity) pick the limitations of ability, of normal, and finally manage squeeze everyone into it ability-wise. And often, it seems, these same stories tell of a future in which we've finally squeezed everyone into the same culture and same gender definitions and sexuality. At long last, homogeneity!

This future is not one in which we have better definitions, just better medicine. In those worlds, our science evolves, our compassion and tolerance and understanding do not.

I do not like this future. It scares me and it erases so, so many people.

Why do so many writers assume that disability wouldn't follow us to the stars? What disabilities that don't even exist today would exist tomorrow? What would be reclassified as a disability or not a disability?

It seems to me that there is some confusion due to ignorance and stereotypes about disability between "normal" and "functioning".

Function is, in my own Meg-specific definition, being able to do what you want/need to do in a way that works for you. If that means using an assistive device or taking a bit longer or using different methods, that all fits under "functioning". You can have levels of functioning - because some stuff works better than others - but function is relative. It all depends on what works for you, what gets the job done for you.

Then there's normal. Normal is being able to do what others want you to do in a way that other people expect you to do it, and it often is the opposite of functional. Normal is an ever moving goal post of other people's expectations. It's the cry of "but you can walk, why are you using a wheelchair?" to a person with a pain disorder or spinal injury or some other invisible disability. It's the cry of "why can't you just get over it?" to someone who has depression or "that's not that bad, at least you didn't go to war!" to someone with PTSD. It's insisting that meatspace/offline activities count for more than, say, online ones even though online activities (academic classes, activism work, creative endeavors) are often more accessible (thus granting more function).

Alas, society values normal over functional and so does sci-fi many times.

Lose a limb? We'll regrow it! Get paralyzed in a space accident? We'll fix that, hop in a medical pod/chamber/box o' insta-healing! Blind? Here, have some nanobots. Deaf? Oh, there's a pill for that. You, too, can be made Normal.

Never you mind that you don't see a lot of mental disabilities/disorders. I can't remember the last time I read about main characters who have, say, ADHD or autism spectrum disorder or Down syndrome or an eating disorder. Because apparently these people won't be with us in the future, and they certainly won't be allowed aboard Spaceship Normal.

What's worse? Sci-fi can be the kind of genre that could really inspire others to imagine a different course of events, a different society.

I can see the value in imagining a future with better ways to help people have greater function. I can see the value in imagining sidewalks that automatically adjust themselves to better suit use of assistive devices or the value of imagining classrooms where there are computer/laptop screens made for those students who may be dyslexic or dyscalculic to help them better read and do math.

Because that? Doesn't value normal over function, it doesn't seek to reform people so that nobody ever needs an assistive device or that nobody ever is dyslexic or dyscalculic. It doesn't value the way one group of people accomplishes certain tasks over the way others accomplish them. In fact, it values a society that broadens its ranges, that instead of telling these people to adapt to it decides to adapt to them by concerning itself with accessibility, with function over inflexible, rigid ideas of how something ought to be done, or what people ought to look like, or how they ought to live.

I'd like to find more SF (or even fantasy) that talks about different worlds, that talks differently about people with disabilities.

What things in SF/F bother you from an ablism standpoint, readers? What things do you encounter over and over and wish would stop? What things do you want to encounter (or encounter more of)?

If anyone has any book/story recommendations, that would be absolutely wonderful and I'd love to hear them! Which authors and works get it right in your opinion and why?

Comments

[megwrites]

I'm not sure I understand the question quite right because I'm not sure how you're defining a biological assistive device vs. the idea of completely removing that disability. That's something that bears discussing because I think it also involves what the definition of a disability is. I'm not sure how you identify, but I identify as non-disabled and therefore, there are a lot of things that my privileged POV would not pick up on or think of in an ablist way. So I'll be answering with caution to check my own ablism.

I'd say it depends on what you mean by "removing the disability" and how it's done in the story. I think there'd be a difference between a biological assistive device and complete erasure of that particular disability. Let's say one had nanobots injected as a treatment to give function to a person - but one would lose that function without these nanobots, I don't know if I would consider that erasing the disability.

And there might still be issues, such as - if you bleed too much would you lose too many nanobots? Would you need to take supplements or some other kind of treatment so your body didn't reject them? Would you need to eat more food for energy requirements or do certain things to maintain these nanobots?

Where as if the nanobots completely "restored" or "healed" the disability so that it no longer existed and they offered no additional functioning to them after that, I personally would think differently. But that's me personally and issues I am not even beginning to pick up on.

I should clarify that what brought up this post was a book I've recently read that was SF and featured a main character who was, through most of the book, disabled and not evil and generally quite awesome and ass kicking and made of win and a hero among his people and, oh yeah, he was saving his whole damn planet.

But then? Like, five chapters from the end, he finds a spaceship, steps in a medical pod and comes out completely "restored". And I kind of felt like it was a way for the writer to QUIT having to write about a person with disabilities, to QUIT having to think about things and just make shit blow up and finish the book. It just really upset/disappointed me. In that instance, I thought it was hurtful. I didn't see why that disability needed to be suddenly "healed" and it didn't even make that much sense in the context of the book for the character to have done it.

In that instance, yeah, I was not happy with the way that played out and find things like that to be part of the way SF erases disabled people.

but there's definitely far too little mental disabilities in speculative fiction!

This right here x 10000.

[yukinojou]

That's about what I was asking - for myopia, this would be the difference between glasses (technical assistive device) and Lasik (correcting the biology). I think it's unrealistic to assume that medicine won't progress. A lot of physical disabilities that are now a major factor in a person's life will probably, in the future, be a minor annoyance or therapies will exist to give people full functionality. There may be people who choose not to have such therapies, but in many cases in the future the decisions will be made by (able-bodied) parents or by people who became disabled after being able-bodied - both of these subsets of people, I believe, will be much more likely to choose administering the therapy rather than preserving the disability. Myopia's actually a good example, since before glasses were invented it impacted people severely, then moderately, and now laser surgery's improving in leaps and bounds, clearing the way to eventually having, say, 99% of myopic people correcting it as soon as their eyes stop growing. (Mind you, I'm saying that as a myopic person who is waiting for the surgery techniques to improve in reliability.) Even if there are people on whom these therapies do not work, it will translate into a much smaller portion of the population with a given disability. I believe this is already at work in the deaf population, with a subset refusing hearing aids, but a lot of people opting for implants, especially when deaf children are born to hearing parents?

What I would like to see in SF would be new disabilities. There are bound to be traits that do not impede functionality now, but will impede it in the future, like the inability to see 3D images. New mental disorders, quite possibly, maybe something else entirely?

[megwrites]

Myopia's actually a good example, since before glasses were invented it impacted people severely, then moderately, and now laser surgery's improving in leaps and bounds, clearing the way to eventually having, say, 99% of myopic people correcting it as soon as their eyes stop growing. (Mind you, I'm saying that as a myopic person who is waiting for the surgery techniques to improve in reliability.)

Fellow myopic person here. I mentioned in another comment that availability is an issue in how severe myopia is as a disability, but re: the surgery thing. I wouldn't consider surgery even though I'm pretty damn myopic because the cost and what it would mean (I have lots of fear/anxiety issues surrounding doctors and medical treatment. I've had anger and panic attacks), so for me? Glasses are actually a far better option than surgery.

That said, I totally get why surgery would be a better option for other people. And I do think it's reasonable to think/hope that technology will allow for better options available to PWD. I'm all about giving people options and not being judge-y when they decide what's best for them.

There are bound to be traits that do not impede functionality now, but will impede it in the future, like the inability to see 3D images. New mental disorders, quite possibly, maybe something else entirely?

Myself, and being purely speculative and not at all EVEN a little bit an expert? I think we'll definitely see issues with using technology, and I think allergies to certain metals will become a MUCH bigger problem if nanotechnology gets to be a thing. I also think reactions to zero-gravity would become an issue, because so far we've only sent a very, very small group of human beings out of the 6 billion here on Earth up into space and none for a truly extended period of time (like, say, five years or longer), so there's bound to be a lot of issues that haven't come up yet.

[yukinojou]

The thing is, this is science fiction. This is the future, where the surgery/treatments/therapy have been perfected so that there is no more danger than with modern simple dental procedures like putting in a filling. Is it realistic to write someone in the twentieth century - in, say, an EU country with full public health coverage, because for some unfathomable reason SF writers don't seem to assume the US only-you-pay system will be operative among the stars ;) - as toothless by choice without implants or prosthetics, because they choose not to treat their tooth decay? This person would be very strange, and if you met them in a contemporary novel you'd expect that to be a plot point.

My point being, do you really think that if treatment for blindness or quadriplegia were reliable and available, after a generation or two there would be a significant amount of people choosing not to obtain such treatment?

[duskpeterson]

"My point being, do you really think that if treatment for blindness or quadriplegia were reliable and available, after a generation or two there would be a significant amount of people choosing not to obtain such treatment?"

Not to deny the important point you're making about the popularity of disability correction, but my answer is: It depends on whether the choice was being made at birth by the parents.

You see this issue with intersexuality: a lot of parents, when they have children with ambiguous genitalia, choose to have surgery on their child to "correct" the genitalia (sometimes because the doctor insists it's best for the child), and then you get children growing up and realizing that this wasn't actually what they wanted done to them.

One of these days I'll finish a story I planned to write about a world where everyone but a small minority are blind, and the sighted kids are "corrected" at birth by having this strange extra sense removed. Because, you know, when one lives in a world that's designed for blind people (no lights, etc.), those stupid sighted kids are going to be stumbling all the time, because they try to depend on this extra sense they have. It just makes medical sense to eliminate their handicap. :/

[yukinojou]

Which is something I brought up earlier in the discussion - that with sufficiently advanced medicine the decision to have treatment for many physical disabliies would be made by either parents or people who were fully functional until a very short time before the decision, both of whom would be much more likely to choose the treatment than someone who has been disabled for a significant amount of time and maybe has started to treat it as one of their defining traits. This, I think, is a logical extrapolation of what happens now with, say, many heart defects.

But what I'm considering here are physical disabilities that are not a difference (I firmly believe intersexuality is not a disability), but lack of functionality/ability available to others. Note that I'm only talking about such examples above - not, say, non-neurotypical mental function. In such cases I could see in the future the same pattern that is starting to emerge with intersexuality today, letting the people in question make the decision once they can make it in an informed manner, but it very much depends on the overall social attitude.

We have no idea if the current -ism discourse, including identifying and trying to combat ablism, is a permanent change in attitude, after all. Particular readers (like megwrites) may not find various speculative societies personally appealing, but that does not make them invalid speculation. What I would like to see is that point get addressed, like in your proposed story, but not necessarily by making each speculative world be a perfect place.

[duskpeterson]

"But what I'm considering here are physical disabilities that are not a difference (I firmly believe intersexuality is not a disability), but lack of functionality/ability available to others."

Speaking as a partially sighted, androgynous, hormone-"imbalanced" person, the doctors who cared for these various aspects of me never made the distinction you're making. (Incidentally, intersexuality, which I don't have, does sometimes - not invariably, of course - come with functionality difficulties, as I'm sure you'll recall, since you seem to be up to speed on this topic.) The doctors treated both my hormone difference and my partial sightedness as medical conditions that needed to be treated.

I think that there is a difference between people who have functional problems and people who don't . . . but determining where the line is drawn is awfully difficult. I have functional problems as a partially sighted person, simply because I live in a world that's set up for sighted people. If I lived in a world where everyone had my eye condition, I would have no functional problems (other than the functional problems shared by the rest of the human race). So, from that perspective, what I have is a difference, not a disability.

In practice, of course, blind folk usually call themselves disabled and intersexed folk usually don't. I just don't want us to lose sight of the fact that those labels are social constructions, reflecting society's view on what is or isn't a disabling condition.

"Particular readers (like megwrites) may not find various speculative societies personally appealing, but that does not make them invalid speculation."

I think I'm only bothered when it's clear that the author just hasn't given thought to the topic they're writing about - such as themantically trumpeting the future elimination of all disabilities, when it's clear that they haven't actually considered whether this is possible or good. If the trumpeting is done by the characters alone, or if it's clear that the author has approached their theme in a thoughtful manner (as the commenters in this thread have, hurrah), then, like you, I'm not concerned by unappealing futures. Part of SF is dystopia, after all.

[yukinojou]

(I'm actually in the middle of writing a fantasy project where the protagonist starts out with the handicap of being an intersexed slave in 800BC. I've had to bring myself up to speed on both the physiology, including things like the increased risk of cancer, and the societal implications throughout the ages in different cultures.)

I think we can agree that treatment of disability is a projection of societal attitudes - current US society, for example, is ablist in a significant degree, which informed your experience. I could well see a society with, say, telepathy, where those who cannot speak mind-to-mind are considered the disabled ones - the definition of disability, and 'normal', has changed over time and there is no reason to think this evolution of attitudes will reach the perfect non-ablist state within our lifetime and then stop forever.

I don't know if you've read the Vorkosigan books, but two things I'll always love about them is not disappearing Slavic people (a whole culture with my kind of social crazy!), and addressing all kinds of disabilities from very severe traumatic brain injuries to congenital defects to the impact of temporary disability on someone even after it's treated.

[duskpeterson]

"I'm actually in the middle of writing a fantasy project where the protagonist starts out with the handicap of being an intersexed slave in 800BC."

Oh, cool! Will you be posting this online, or is this a pro-fic project?

"I could well see a society with, say, telepathy, where those who cannot speak mind-to-mind are considered the disabled ones"

Yes, exactly. It's like with mental illness: we don't consider most people mentally ill, because they don't fall outside the human norm, but from an extraterrestrial perspective, all of humanity might be mentally ill.

"I don't know if you've read the Vorkosigan books"

By coincidence, I just took out a Vorkosigan audiobook from the library. I'll look forward to reading it now.

[yukinojou]

Oh, cool! Will you be posting this online, or is this a pro-fic project?

*eyedart* Possibly maybe ;) It's a collaborative sprawling saga that, from my side, is mostly an exercise in how much pain I can put dear Tan through. The collaborative part, alas, is the reason hir backstory up to hir death (where the real story starts) is mostly in my head, informing hir future actions.

[duskpeterson]

Well, good luck. :)