While my battle to have my impairments recognized and their debilitating nature treated, I must acknowledge that how those impairments interact with the environment around me is also part of my disablement. The social model of disability asserts that disability is caused by societal barriers, not by impairment itself. Under this model, a person is not disabled by their bodymind but by inaccessible environments and discriminatory attitudes. The model suggests that while impairments exist, the ‘problem’ of disability is a result of exclusionary social systems rather than individual conditions.
In their video, My Body Doesn’t Oppress Me, Society Does (2017)1, Patty Berne succinctly says, “There are times when it’s just not convenient to have a body. But that’s not what oppresses us.” They also say, “There are always going to be, you know, people in pain – it’s just the nature of being in a body. But the social body we can change!” Stacey Milbern, in the same video, further extolls on this by clarifying that “[i]f we’re in a place where my access needs are getting met, then my impairment isn’t so significant.” In this way, they are not ignoring the reality of impairment, but perhaps they over-focus on the disabling nature of these impairments that sit squarely in society.
However, this collective framing can erase the particularities of chronic pain, minimizing its significance as a lived experience. Unlike some other disabilities, chronic pain is inherently disruptive; it disables from within, independent of external barriers. The impairment itself (pain, fatigue, cognitive fog) is disabling, regardless of how accessible or inclusive the environment is. Chronic pain challenges the assumption that disability is entirely external. Pain is both socially shaped and deeply individual. As Linton (1998)2 writes, “…no amount of social change or theory will take [pain, suffering, frustrations, and anxiety] away. Even though pain and even less extreme kinds of discomfort are mediated by social and political contingencies, they remain intensely personal experiences” (p. 5)
I must also acknowledge that the rigid distinction between impairment and disability is flawed. Social meanings and interactions shape both. Even basic definitions, like how far one must walk to be considered able-bodied, are shaped by economic and geographic contexts (Wendell, 1996)3. The constant attempts to define disability and impairment reveal the “fundamental instability” (Kafer, 2013, p. 7)4 of these terms and how fluid these categories truly are. My experience of chronic pain reinforces this instability. While my pain is unquestionably real and physically limiting, the extent to which I am considered disabled depends not just on my bodily experience but on how disability is defined and recognized
Wendell (1996) notes that the disability rights movement initially distanced itself from impairment to avoid medicalization, often leaving chronic illness and pain at the margins of disability discourse (p. 37). Like many before me, I have struggled with where my chronic pain fits within disability politics, as its inherently disruptive nature does not align neatly with traditional social model frameworks. Similar to how early feminist movements ignored queer women’s issues to maintain focus on broader gender equity, chronic pain and illness have often been sidelined within disability discourse (Linton, 1998, p. 5). There was strategic reasoning behind distinguishing pain from other disabilities (Selznick, 2017, p. 21)5, but does this distinction still make sense?
The rigid separation of impairment (medical) and disability (social) leaves chronic pain in a conceptual gray area. If disability studies only focus on external oppression, we must question where that leaves the personal and embodied knowledge of pain.
Series so far:
Intro
Positionality
A Personal Case Study in Disablement
Tensions With the Medical Model
- Spade, D., & Dector, H. (Directors). (2017). My body doesn’t oppress me, society does [Video recording]. https://bcrw.barnard.edu/videos/my-body-doesnt-oppress-me-society-does/ ↩︎
- Linton, S. (1998). Disability studies/not disability studies. Disability & Society, 13(4), 525–540. ↩︎
- Wendell, S. (1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. Routledge. ↩︎
- Kafer, A. (2013). Feminist, queer, crip. Indiana University Press. ↩︎
- Selznick, H. (2017). Enabling pain, enabling insight: Opening up possibilities for chronic pain in disability rhetoric and rhetoric and composition [PhD, Illinois State University]. https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2017.Selznick.H ↩︎
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