Conflict Theory

Conflict theory tells us that there is an oppressor and the oppressed, like how the oppressor in American racial relations is white people and the oppressed are people of color. Within the construct of ableism, the oppressed are disabled people and the oppressors are abled people. Abled people often hold the power in society, as disabled people may often need assistance to get on with their daily lives. Because abled people hold the power to assist the disabled people, they often are able to oppress disabled people. What disability rights is especially about is having the accommodations available to help make disabled people as independent and equal to abled people as they can possibly be. However, this upset the power structure, and takes away the power abled people have over disabled people. This is why there is a push against accommodations. They are proposed as giving disabled people special advantages or treatment, when really they are simply and equalizing force. Abled people are just used to disabled people being below them, and not their equals, whether they are aware of it or not. Abled people often see disabled people, depending on their disability or condition, as less than human. By seeing disabled people as less than human, it is easier for abled people to see their oppression as a kind of benevolence, akin to being responsible for a pet or an animal.

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism has do with the meanings we as a society place on different objects, concepts, images, etc. Ableism is a social construct that very much has to do with how we as a society place meanings into the concept of disability, as well as visual cues of disabilities. Disability can often be very visible, and visible disability is often associated in our society and many other cultures with “brokenness.” Disabled people are considered to be inherently “broken” because of their visible difference from the average abled person. There is also the factor that disability can be visible in behavior that differs from the average abled person, or requests for assistance that the average abled person would not make. These factors can easily have disabled people labeled as social “deviants,” and this difference in social behavior can easily lead to abled people treating disabled people very differently socially as well. More can be read on this concept here. Disability in general often inspires a variety of pity, confusion, disgust, awkwardness, etc. Pity often comes from the idea that disabled people live terrible, pitiful lives and it is abled people’s responsibility to ease their suffering. This is a point pushed heavily by charities for disabilities and other conditions that are often run by abled people. Confusion and awkwardness come from the lack of representation of disabilities, so people either haven’t seen certain disabilities before or have never had an encounter with a disabled person before. Disgust comes from the previously mentioned “broken” concept. People find this physical or mental deviation from the norm to be horrifying, and will react as such. It also comes from the idea that not being an independent, “whole” person makes you less than human.