While disabled people’s rights have burgeoned over the years, some still face discrimination even today. Things like buildings without wheelchair access, inadequate public transport, and unequal employment opportunities can make living with a disability a waking nightmare.
For a bride-to-be on Reddit, she was dismayed to be called ableist by her brother because her wedding venue features terrain that’s impossible for his wheelchair-using girlfriend to navigate. Now the sister has turned to the web to ask if she’s the jerk in this awkward situation.
More info: Reddit
Bride-to-be plans to have her wedding at her future mother-in-law’s stunning garden property
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The ceremony is set to take place in the middle of a grassy meadow
Image credits: prostooleh / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The bride-to-be’s brother has been dating a disabled woman for years and recently got engaged
Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Although the brother’s fiancée has always used a prosthetic leg, she recently began using a wheelchair, something the bride-to-be was unaware of
Image credits: wayhomestudio / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Her brother asked her to install flooring in the party tent, since the grass would be difficult for his fiancée to navigate
Image credits: freepic.diller / Freepik (not the actual photo)
She said flooring was out of her budget, so her brother told her he wouldn’t come to the wedding because his fiancée is being excluded and called her ableist
Image credits: KeyDizzy361
The bride-to-be turned to Reddit to ask if she's the jerk in the awkward situation
OP begins her story by telling the community that she and her wife-to-be are planning to have their wedding in her future mother-in-law’s gorgeous gardens. The ceremony is set to happen in the middle of a picturesque, grassy meadow in the center of the property.
She adds that her brother has been dating a disabled woman for six years, and the couple recently got engaged. Although the brother’s fiancée has always used a prosthetic leg, she recently switched to using a wheelchair. The brother texted OP to find out if the property was wheelchair-friendly, so OP said she’d let him know.
After she inspected the venue, OP let her brother know that the terrain might be problematic for his fiancée. The brother responded by asking her if she could have flooring set up, but OP told him that would be out of her budget.
The brother then told OP that that would mean his wheelchair-using fiancée would be excluded, and that if she couldn’t come, he wouldn’t either. He even went so far as to call his sister ableist. Then OP’s mom texted her and said she was being mean by not agreeing to rent flooring and that she’d pull her contribution to the wedding unless OP made an exception for her future sister-in-law.
In an update to her post, OP says that her brother and his fiancée had never mentioned the wheelchair situation, not even after they’d replied to the formal wedding invites with very clear venue details. She adds that her fiancé’s grandmother also uses a wheelchair and has never had a problem navigating the expansive property.
Now OP has turned to Reddit to ask if she’s being a jerk for not accommodating her brother’s fiancée out of her own pocket, even though she feels bad for excluding her.
Claiming his soon-to-be-wedded sister is ableist is a hefty accusation. But what is ableism, exactly?
Image credits: freepic.diller / Freepik (not the actual photo)
Urban Dictionary says “Ableism is the discrimination or prejudice against people who have disabilities. Ableism can take the form of ideas and assumptions, stereotypes, attitudes and practices, physical barriers in the environment, or larger scale oppression. It is oftentimes unintentional, and most people are completely unaware of the impact of their words or actions.”
According to that definition, OP is technically being ableist, but it’s doubtful that was her true intention. As she mentions in her post, her brother could always spring for hiring a specialized wheelchair for the special occasion.
In his article for Forbes, Andrew Pulrang writes that, in one sense, ableism is about individual behavior, but it is also about social structures and institutions. It’s important to explore the essential components of both.
Personal ableism includes feeling instinctively uncomfortable around disabled people, or anyone who seems “strange” in ways that might be connected to a disability, associating specific stereotypes with particular conditions, and resenting disabled people for advantages or privileges you think they have as a group, like good parking spaces, for example.
Systemic ableism, Pulrang writes, includes laws and regulations that restrict the equality and freedom of people with disabilities, social policy that seeks to “care for” disabled people through intensive supervision, protection, and isolation, and practices that look to shrink or eliminate disabilities, not just as a benefit to any individual disabled person, but as a perceived benefit to society as a whole.
Pulrang, who’s a disabled person himself, concludes, “Ableism is bad. It hurts people. But it shouldn’t shock us. We should be able to identify it and work against it with urgency, but without undue shame or anguish.”
What do you think of the situation OP finds herself in? Do you think the brother went too far by accusing her of being ableist, or does he have a case? Let us know your opinion in the comments!
Redditors weighed in, advising the woman to look into renting an all-terrain wheelchair or a golf cart at the brother’s expense and declared the woman was not the jerk
