Critic speak is tough, but we've got you covered.
Quote :"The Social Model of Disability" in The Disability Studies Reader
The social model so strongly disowns individual and medical approaches, that it risks implying that impairment is not a problem. Whereas other socio-political accounts of disability have developed the important insight that people with impairments are disabled by society as well as by their bodies, the social model suggests that people are disabled by society not by their bodies. Rather than simply opposing medicalization, it can be interpreted as rejecting medical prevention, rehabilitation, or cure of impairment […]
For individuals with static impairments, which do not degenerate or cause medical complications, it may be possible to regard disability as entirely socially created. For those who have degenerative conditions that may cause premature death, or any condition that involves pain and discomfort, it is harder to ignore the negative aspects of impairment.
It's not all about the stairs. Basically, Shakespeare is telling us here that society is not all to blame for the challenges faced by disabled people. Even more important, because the social model puts so much emphasis on these societal impacts and causes, it risks hurting the very people it intends to help.
This happens primarily because the emphasis in the social model on forces outside of the individual's body seems to suggest that issues within the body are not real or important. And by minimizing, rejecting, or downright ignoring the real physical and psychological impacts of disease, injury, or deformity on the person him/herself, you risk alienating those who are fighting for or seeking relief from their conditions through medical means.
An example would be the case of Christopher Reeve. In 1995, the star of the Superman films of the 1970s and 1980s became a quadriplegic following a horseback-riding accident.
From then until his death in 2004, Reeve and his wife, Dana, became passionate advocates for research into the treatment and cure of spinal cord injuries. While most within and outside of the disability community applauded his tireless efforts, some, especially those inspired by the social model of disability, objected to what they saw as the representation of Reeve's condition as intolerable.
They argued, in a nutshell, that instead of devoting all of this time and energy to trying to find a cure for these injuries, the goal should be to make society equally and fully accessible to people with conditions as severe as Reeve's. The problem, they said, was not with the body. It was with society.
Well, Shakespeare says that's a load of bull. Ask anyone who's endured a life-threatening pressure sore from sitting motionless in a wheelchair. Talk to the child of a parent who no longer recognizes her due to Alzheimer's. Talk to a man who has tried to end his life because of chronic and untreated depression.
The suffering of those with certain conditions cannot be blamed only on society. And, in fact, social challenges may be the last thought in the minds of those suffering progressive illnesses of the body or the mind. And to dismiss or ignore that very real pain or to discourage—or, worse, to judge—someone for seeking medical relief from it is to be just as discriminatory as any kind of disability prejudice out there. It is to deny the very rights and freedoms the social model is bound to protect.
In other words, the world of disability isn't nearly so black-and-white as the social model suggests.
Looks like old Billy Shakespeare isn't the only smart Shakespeare around, huh?