Everybody Remember This Picture?

[wheelieterp]

( For the screen readers: this is a sign with the silhouette in the international shape for MAN standing next to a much smaller international shape for Disabled: A little wheelchair with arms, feet, and a dot for a head. Underneath the figures, it says "Men." It's a Men's Room sign, in other words.)

So I am finally ready to write about what I thought when I saw this sign. It's under the cut. Before you click on the cut to read it, please remember that I am fully aware that what this sign actually is is a marker of the location of a Men's Restroom and nothing more. It has no direct intentions other than to point out where a guy can find the can.

But also remember that this sign exists within the larger context of my experiences as person who is not only Disabled but uses a wheelchair as in the symbol itself. It hangs on a wall that is part of a building that inhabits a world that is not set up with me in mind, that has in it people whose belief structures belittle and oppress me, even when they don't mean to. This sign also exists in my perception.. Me... A human being with flaws and character defects and issues and problems like everyone else. My reaction to this sign exits in all these contexts and more. You totally don't have to agree; it's kind of besides the point.



My thought when I saw this sign was not about being Disabled, but about being a Disabled MAN.... Men.... The standing, robust, square-shouldered MAN, or the itty-bitty, scrawny, pin-headed cripple dwarfed by him. I was struck by the seemingly insurmountable barrier that was the realization that I had lost my manhood in all this disability. I no longer read as man, I read as Wheelchair Man. And while I will most likely never be scrawny or pin-headed, I most certainly will never again be nonchalantly described as "Robust" or "Strapping" or even a "Big Guy".

It left me stunned, for a moment, with a feeling I can't quite articulate, but for a moment it was like the concept of manhood had been placed on a shelf just out of my reach.

Comments

[gearjock.livejournal.com]

I cannot even pretend to know the daily issues you deal with, but I will say the design and formation of ADA compliant signs is set by the government. This even extends to the placement on the wall, in inches, etc.

I can see how you could make a connection on a bad day to that feeling, but trust me that is not how people generally feel (I cannot speak for everyone)

As a former sign shop owner, I have a lot of experience in the world of ADA compliant signage.

I can, in fact, see your point. Maybe a good way to deal with that is to speak to someone about being more sensitive to that point.

Their website is http://www.access-board.gov/

HUGS.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

This is quite understandable -- a friend of mine was in a wheelchair for quite a while until he got a prosthetic leg, and before this, he was the "big guy" (6'8", ~400#), but that was stripped from him in the chair -- he experienced the SAME THING. He was so glad to get his fake leg because he missed being able to even see eye-to-eye to someone (or look down to).

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Yep. I saw it as Man > disabled. And also disabled =/= Man (use of upper/lowercase intentional).

To me it says, quite loudly that to be disabled is to be less than, insignificant, an afterthought, someone for whom we make provision because the law says we have to.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

They need a new stick man who's more butch. Everyone I know in a wheelchair has great arms from all the wheel pushing.