A Different Way Of Thinking
How society approaches disability from the perspective of someone with autism.
What is the difference between a disabled lawyer and a lawyer with a disability? James ponders the difficulties he and others face when it comes to finding a job
When this blog appeared for the first time on the New Statesman website, I experienced a feeling of self-consciousness, especially about the biography on the right hand side of the page, which is both longer than those of other contributors and written in the first person.
Partly this is because, like many with autism, I am quite a private person and I knew that my friends, and indeed strangers, would be able to read it. However, there is much more to it than that.
My writing is something of which I am proud and I will doubtless want to alert any potential future employers to my achievements in this area of my life. Even if I choose not to mention it, they could find my blog via Google without too much difficulty. Therefore, I must ask myself whether I really want them to know just how disabled I am.
It is usually a dilemma as to whether I want to disclose my disability on job applications. In practice, I am not always given the choice.
I am currently studying law and around half of the firms offering training contracts brazenly, and illegally, ask for this information up front. As well as making me concerned that I will be discriminated against, this gives me little faith that they are at the cutting edge in the field of employment law.
In other cases, such as working for a Disability Law Centre, it is possible that being disabled is actually an advantage, but herein lies a subtle problem. To obtain work in the area of disability, or as a writer on the subject, it can be necessary to prove that you are disabled enough for the role. As someone with a hidden impairment like autism, I feel inclined to play down my strengths and play up supposed weaknesses to show legitimacy, which partly explains why I wrote the biography in the way that I did. This tension pressures me into making a choice between being a disabled lawyer or simply a lawyer who happens to be disabled.
A similar contradiction is faced by all disabled people in employment, sadly still a minority, as a result of the disability discrimination legislation itself. In order to qualify to have reasonable adjustments made on their behalf, disabled employees must be able to demonstrate the extent of their impairment, while simultaneously convincing their bosses of their talent.
If they eventually find the need to bring a claim, they will have to persuade a tribunal that they both count as disabled under the Disability Discrimination Act and that they are sufficiently good at their jobs to render any differential treatment unjustified.
Some people regard the problem as simply one of language, which can be resolved just by altering the words that we use. In the Queen’s Speech, the government announced a not-quite-radical plan to reform Incapacity Benefit, by changing its name – for a second time.
Although the proposed shift of emphasis from incapacity to capacity would in some ways be welcome, it will be counter-productive if accompanied, as seems likely, with lots of extra hoops that people have to jump through in order to demonstrate their entitlement.
What is really needed is a fundamental change of attitude, a separation between proving one’s disability and proving one’s ability. This can only come about when it is accepted that fair treatment is an automatic right for everyone, not a privilege to be earned, and employers can see beyond irrelevant factors in deciding who is best qualified for the job.
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