Dear Sassy Scientist,
In my institute I never see any disabled people. Only one or two people in wheelchair at the EGU GA. Considering the statistics in the global population, I’m sure some people are impared, but tell me : Where are the disabled geologist ? Is it impossible to be disabled and geologist ?
Your gnocchie
Dear gneiss human,
Thank you for putting light on this question. To answer I need to be a bit serious and forget partly my sass, apologies.
Short answer: disabled geologists are everywhere.
See, among the 16% of the global population is disabled and 70% of the disabilities are invisible or rarely visible (World Health Organization report). It is the only minority that anyone can become part at any time, and probably will ultimately, with old age if we are lucky enough. You might not know exactly how to identify disability as well, and that’s legit because most doesn’t show.
Disability is this person who worked all their childhood to reeducate their oral communication after cerebral palsy because of an accident at birth. Yes they walk a bit slowly to the cantine, guess what, that’s a big victory for them to join lunch with the group and their numb limb.
It’s this cancer survivor (sadly more and more people) who fought like a warrior (you’re seen), recovered but still experience consequences, is worried of the next PetScan and traumatized of this co-fighter who lost their battle.
Disability is your colleagues who has SPAM, trying to have a baby via IVF, they don’t come to the office a week per month, how curious…
It’s also your partly deaf colleagues, hearing is harder and harder every day, remember to activate subtitles in video call for them.
Disability is all your colleagues, pretty large proportion in science if you ask me, who have autism spectrum disorders (usually high functional), or ADHD, or both for a spicy combo. Science makes a good specific interest (and you should sleep sometimes). emoji
Important to mention psychology as well, not only the body can be impaired but the mind too. Psychiatry disabilities matter and deserve visibility. See this colleague who went through a burnout or a depression, for now they are disabled too, they need care, adaptations. Some psychology disorders are more permanent but their expression vary through time like bipolar or schizophrenia disorder, all is going well until not anymore.
See, disability is multi-form, multi-intensity, can be combined, and can evolve. Disabled people are everywhere; we are everywhere. You cannot guess at first sight the degree of ability or different ability of someone, you cannot guess at all, never.
That is the reason why inclusion is not an option. Disabled people are precious, they fight 10-100-1000 times harder to be there, to work, to exist. See all the energy you have in the morning, us disable have a part of this energy that goes directly in the disability because our body works differently.
Making accessibility everywhere is giving easiness when everything is harder from start because of our body differences. And the adaptations makes things softer for everybody (look at the Curb cut effect)
After this optimism I want to say a sad truth. Despite all the efforts we deploy, we are not superheroes. And the academic system is not exactly welcoming for people who spend a good amount of their time and energy to simply survive and go through each day. The system we work for, ask us to work without counting hours (often), prepare proposals for positions before we finish our current contract, finish paper from precedent contracts, teach (sometimes for free), review (always for free), move every few years for a while before hopefully finding a permanent position (so changing all the medical staff, harder than you think)… While many valid person struggle to jungle work/personal life (the famous work/life balance confirming that only work cannot be life), how do people with limited energy, pain, mobility impairment navigates this exigent field ?
An honest answer is sadly many don’t last, even if they would deeply like.
We are everywhere where accessibility is existent and we would like to be truly everywhere. We too have a lot to share to the world.
Take home messages for you : 1) don’t assume people around you are not disabled because you don’t perceive their disability. 2) Advocate for inclusion and accessibility, we want to join too, and one day you could need this adaptation too. 3) In case of doubt, just ask the people. A simple « how can I help ? what would help ? » means a lot to us.
Thanks for caring, spread the word!
Yours truly,
The Sassy scientist
