ravelling
Grateful bypasser
(I have posted this on another forum, so apologies if you have read it elsewhere, but I thought I would post it here too.)
I work in the public sector and attended some training this week about Disability Discrimination called Attitudes and Fears. It was a really useful course, full of information about the Disability Discrimination Act, people's perspectives and experiences etc.
The other attendees were a mix of other public and voluntary sector professionals, carers of disabled adults and children and volunteers.
One session set out to explore and challenge stereotypes. The trainer showed slides of groups of people and individuals and asked the participants to shout out their immediate, 'stream of consciousness' responses to the images.
Asian family group: happy family, close-knit, supportive, culture, faith...
Group of teenage boys in hoodies: misunderstood, disaffected, wearing a uniform...
Older lady: wisdom, misrepresented, matriarchal, experience...
etc.
To be honest, lots of the comments reflected how politically correct most people's responses need to be these days, but it was interesting.
Then the next image.
Fat man in a swimsuit on the beach: (lots of laughter) greedy, I can tell he smells from here, (more laughter), hungry, starving to death (more laughter), needs a gastric band! (more laughter).
(I imagine you caould have predicted that)
Burning up with discomfort (I am still a size 32 woman wearing a size 10 body at the moment) I asked why it was ok to be abusive about the fat man, but not the black man, child in a wheelchair or any of the other images.
Apparently, it's because being fat is the person's fault where race and disability and age aren't...
The trainer was brilliant. He's a professional who uses a wheelchair and has a personal assistant as he is unable to use his arms or legs. He simply commented that people need to think about their responses as it appears that, in that room at least, fat is the new disabled.
We've still got such a long way to go.
I work in the public sector and attended some training this week about Disability Discrimination called Attitudes and Fears. It was a really useful course, full of information about the Disability Discrimination Act, people's perspectives and experiences etc.
The other attendees were a mix of other public and voluntary sector professionals, carers of disabled adults and children and volunteers.
One session set out to explore and challenge stereotypes. The trainer showed slides of groups of people and individuals and asked the participants to shout out their immediate, 'stream of consciousness' responses to the images.
Asian family group: happy family, close-knit, supportive, culture, faith...
Group of teenage boys in hoodies: misunderstood, disaffected, wearing a uniform...
Older lady: wisdom, misrepresented, matriarchal, experience...
etc.
To be honest, lots of the comments reflected how politically correct most people's responses need to be these days, but it was interesting.
Then the next image.
Fat man in a swimsuit on the beach: (lots of laughter) greedy, I can tell he smells from here, (more laughter), hungry, starving to death (more laughter), needs a gastric band! (more laughter).
(I imagine you caould have predicted that)
Burning up with discomfort (I am still a size 32 woman wearing a size 10 body at the moment) I asked why it was ok to be abusive about the fat man, but not the black man, child in a wheelchair or any of the other images.
Apparently, it's because being fat is the person's fault where race and disability and age aren't...
The trainer was brilliant. He's a professional who uses a wheelchair and has a personal assistant as he is unable to use his arms or legs. He simply commented that people need to think about their responses as it appears that, in that room at least, fat is the new disabled.
We've still got such a long way to go.
