My Body, Your Property?

A graphic which shows a photograph of the back of a woman walking down a wide city path. She has long brown hair and is wearing a cream knitted hat. She is wearing a black coat and is holding a black rucksack. The heading My Body, Your Property is overlaid across it. The Equal Lives logo is in the top right hand corner. The Equal Lives logo features the words Equal Lives in a dark blue font. To the right of the text are 3 small, simple bird silhouettes in flight. Beneath the name is the tagline “Free From Disabling Barriers”, presented in a smaller, lighter font.

I don’t get invited to parties much these days. That’s why I was excited to have the opportunity to go to one a few weeks ago. It felt good to be getting ready to go out on a Saturday night. Even leaving aside the ordeal of putting make-up on when you can’t see what you’re doing, the general ceremony of preparing for a social event was exciting. 

In inappropriate shoes for the distance I had to walk, I set out. As I was walking to my partner’s house so we could go on to the event together, I was overtaken by a young couple (in this case the default assumption that they were a man and woman was correct). They seemed to be having a lovely time; larking about and giggling together. It was really pleasant to hear. 

It just so happened that they drew level with me at a point where some plastic barriers surrounded a small hole in the pavement outside a shop. The young man concluded that I was on a collision course with a disastrous end to my Saturday night. He grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me aside like an obstructive wheely bin. Then, with hardly a word, he went on his way. The last I heard was his girlfriend flinging her arms around him and squealing “You’re so sweet! That was so thoughtful.” 

I’ve described this fairly light-heartedly, and I recognise that the intentions were good, but was it sweet? Was it thoughtful? As a woman on a dark, residential street, it is not in fact sweet to have a strange man coming up behind you and grabbing you by the shoulders. I couldn’t help wondering whether the young woman would have felt that it was sweet and kind to have had the same experience. With the much-needed attention now being paid to the experiences of unwanted and inappropriate behaviour towards women and girls, it upset me that the incident wasn’t considered in that context. This got me thinking about two particular issues that Disabled people encounter all too frequently. 

The first is a complete lack of respect for personal space. It isn’t uncommon for people to march up to me, decide that I need help, and haul me away like a piece of dangerous abandoned luggage. If they don’t actually whisk me across roads without any prior indication – and no warnings about steps and kerbs – they take hold of my hands, arms or shoulders before asking if I need help. This feels the same to me as when wheelchair users describe experiences of being moved out of the way or marched to the head of queues without discussion or consent. 

The second thought I had was about the apparent sexlessness of disability. The otherness of disability is still so hardwired in society that nobody sees past visible differences to the human inside. If it isn’t that, then it’s the innocent – almost virginal – Charity Model portrayal of disabled people as victims or children. Non-disabled people agonise over whether their new partner will have a pleasant laugh when they plan for a first date. Disabled people are on alert for the decision that we’re too much responsibility to take on. We don’t even have time to deep dive into the assumption that disability is enough to contend with, so obviously none of us could also be members of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

I chose to share my experience to highlight this multi-marginalising space at the intersection of disability, gender and age. Although I admit to making assumptions here, my visible disability set me so far apart from this couple’s lived experience that the idea of me as a woman with the same concerns about safety didn’t occur to them. This was compounded by society’s tendency to see women approaching middle age as increasingly irrelevant, and my removal from the couple’s sphere of relevance by dint of probably being just about old enough to be either of their mothers. Although I went on to have a good time at the party, this experience was a disheartening reminder of just how much harder a disabled queer woman still has to work to achieve the same levels of respect, dignity and courtesy in our apparently enlightened society. I can only imagine how these challenges are further compounded by even more marginalising factors, particularly ethnicity. 

Written by

Natalie, an Equal Lives staff member