Author Archives: Robyn

by | June 4, 2013 · 12:40 pm

Disclosing disability during job search

A little while ago someone asked me about disclosing their disability when applying for a job. The answer I gave was focused on being in control of the process of disclosure, of making sure you choose the time and the place to disclose, and of disclosing in a positive way.

Since then I have been thinking some more about a problem which worried me a good deal when I was setting out on my own career. I took a variety of approaches, sometimes disclosing, sometimes not, and occasionally lying, which I do not recommend under any circumstances.

Disclosure is individual

The difficulty about disclosure is that it is such an individual thing. It depends on your impairment, whether or not it is hidden, whether you might need modifications to your workplace, or particular technology to help you do your job, or whether or not you might need to organise your work differently, or do it in a different way. There is also the fear, sadly, still not entirely unfounded, that discrimination will occur following disclosure.

However you disclose, and at whatever stage of the process, you need to take responsibility. Thoroughly research the job to help you decide. Think about what you need to do the job, and have a plan.

If your impairment is invisible and won’t affect the way you do your work, then the answer is easy, you don’t have to disclose. But if you don’t disclose, and your impairment does affect your job then there may be problems for you. If your impairment is very obvious you can seize the high ground, directing the conversation the way you choose.

How and when

There is no right or wrong way or time for disclosure. Don’t dwell on limitations. Weigh the pros and cons of disclosure at each stage of the job search, recruitment and hiring process, wherever it is appropriate for you. Think about the following stages.

  • In a letter of application or cover letter;
  • Before an interview;
  • At the interview;
  • In a third-party phone call or reference;
  • After you have a job offer;
  • During your course of employment; or
  • Never.

When you do disclose make sure you are clear about your needs in the workplace. Try to anticipate questions you might be asked and have some answers ready. You might like to practice disclosing with someone you trust who will give you feedback. Disclose on a “need to know” basis only.

What information to give

You need to disclose information relevant to the job only. Take the opportunity to explain positively how you might perform particular parts of the job well, perhaps with some modification. You should expect confidentiality with disclosure.

If you do disclose the following may be a useful guide to the information you choose to share.

  • General information about your impairment;
  • Why you are disclosing;
  • How your disability affects your ability to perform key job tasks and any ways you can do things differently;
  • Types of accommodations that have worked for you in the past; and
  • Types of accommodations you anticipate needing in the workplace;

Good luck!

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Filed under Disability Issues, Disability Rights, Inclusion, Miscellaneous

by | May 8, 2013 · 10:44 pm

Digital workplace accessibility

A blog for Global Accessibility Awareness Day

The purpose of this day, May 9, is to get people talking, thinking and learning about digital (web, software, mobile, etc.) accessibility and users with different disabilities.

In New Zealand consideration of web and digital accessibility most attention is paid to public-facing websites that offer public information and services. We need to broaden the discussion, as digital applications have penetrated most areas of our daily life, accompanied by accessibility questions.

The workplace is increasingly digital. Some years ago I wrote an article for the Human Resources Journal, subsequently published on the Neon web site, An Accessible Work Wide Web.  Since then a great deal has changed, although some of the same accessibility tips I outlined then are still useful. It is time for Human Resources (HR) people to explore digital accessibility again. A few questions, by no means comprehensive, might help the discussion get started.

It is important to note that accessibility issues affect a range of disabled people, not just those using screen readers.

The recruitment process

  • Most recruiting is done online. How accessible are these processes, the web sites carrying the advertisement, the job descriptions, the forms for completion, responses and so on?
  • What happens if someone asks for information in an accessible format?
  • How easy is it for an applicant to discover what digital tools they need to be familiar with, to meet work requirements?

At the interview

  • Are people asked appropriately about their digital accessibility requirements as well as their physical access needs?
  • Is a test task accessible to all candidates?
  • How are interview questions about assistive technology handled?

In the workplace

  • When a disabled person starts work can they “hit the ground running” with their assistive technology?
  • Is your workplace truly inclusive or is there a scramble to cobble together an individual accommodation?
  • When tendering for intranet development and social media platforms what weight is given to accessibility?
  • How closely do you work with communications, web and IT people to achieve the best accessible outcomes for everyone in your organisation?
  • Do you know how and where to get help on digital accessibility?

Of course the whole thing would just go away if you rejected all applications from disabled people, (that you know about,) as too much trouble, but the risk is that you might just miss the best person for the job. That won’t solve the question of an ageing work force, or staff who acquire disabilities either. They might need digital accessibility so you can retain their skills and experience.

Like anything else, good planning and strategy will bring positive, productive results and prevent costly mistakes in terms of lost productivity, clumsy workarounds, or at worst human rights complaints or personal grievances.

Introducing accessibility using the concepts of universal design is a win-win in the workplace.

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Filed under Accessible Engagement, Disability Issues, Disability Rights, Inclusion, Information Accessibility, Web Accessibility

by | May 1, 2013 · 10:04 am

Women, disableism and literature

In my last blog post I analysed why disabled women are invisible in New Zealand. This time, since I am joining other bloggers around the world on Blogging against Disableism Day, I have selected a subject which, as a disabled woman, is dear to me.

Being denied something which is generally of value to others is disableism, (discrimination,) at work, intentional or not. This is particularly true for those of us born with disabilities growing up.

Children and young people as they grow see similar life experience to their own life experience reflected around them through all kinds of media. It helps them find out who they are, and how they want to be in the world, good or bad. If they love reading good books they will probably meet a range of life experience, similar and dissimilar to their own in books.

Disabled children are denied this experience. Problematic “inspiration porn” and other negative media depictions aside, there are few, if any, good books written from their perspective by disabled authors who understand this experience of growing up with a disability at a very deep human level. Disability is constructed differently in different societies. It is constructed from a generally unchallenged non-disabled perspective in western literature. There is no body of literature or debate beyond a struggling academia to support any change, at least in New Zealand.

I do wish I could find similar life experiences to mine reflected in our literature. It was bad enough growing up without New Zealand books as my generation did. But I often experienced feelings of isolation as I didn’t know anyone like myself. Nor could I read about anyone like me, except Helen Keller, whose life experience was light years away from mine, in ways other than time, geography and personal circumstances. Even her impairment was promoted as a non-disabled construct and largely remains so.

Mental illness does seem to be an exception to the rule of silence. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper is a powerful example. Closer to home I have of course read Janet Frame’s early books. But there is now a climate of denial around her experience. Whether or not she was mentally ill, she still had the searing experience of being labelled and treated as disabled. I am also interested in the experience of Robin Hyde, although some of her writing is out of print and not accessible. At that time she probably would not identify as disabled, a fairly modern concept.

Disabled Women’s experience is starting to be reflected in dance, and in art and crafts, although disabled artists are often referred to as “outsider” artists, which I don’t like. Another less discriminatory term should be used.

Literature seems to be more difficult to infiltrate here. While I can find some international non-fiction about disabled women’s experience, often academic, I long for some general well-written, thoughtful, crunchy, insightful and satisfying everyday accounts of lives lived in the modern everyday world of disabled women, whatever that might be.

Self-publishing may not be the answer either, as I have seen too many poorly written edited and presented books telling “inspirational” life stories. They are frequently self-absorbed and undisciplined.  Doris Lessing’s description of the writing process is my favourite. She says,

“The whole process of writing is a setting at a distance. That is the value of it – to the writer and to the people who read the results of this process, which takes the raw, the individual, the uncriticised, the unexamined, into the realm of the general.”

Has no New Zealand publisher ever seen such a manuscript written by a disabled woman on the subject of the lives of disabled women? Has none ever been written, or do publishers think there is no market for such books? This situation needs to change.

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Filed under Disability Issues, Disability Rights, Inclusion, Information Accessibility, Media, The Arts, Women

by | April 24, 2013 · 4:38 pm

Disabled women Invisible in New Zealand

Several events lately have caused me to reflect on the invisibility of disabled women in New Zealand, and to think about how that might change. This year is the 120th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand. The Women’s Studies Association conference will be held in Wellington this weekend. I won’t be attending. What follows explains why.

Interests and rights neglected

The interests and rights of disabled women have been neglected by the women’s movement and successive New Zealand governments for many years. In my long history of working in the disability world, and of disability activism I have been frustrated by the lack of any real inclusion of disabled women in women’s rights initiatives and progress.

The few initiatives have never been sustained or updated, or been retained in the collective consciousness, so every time a group of women with the least power and energy, and the least access to resources wants to do something they have to start from scratch. Those of us who have attempted action have been met with indifference, opposition, and even hostility, sometimes from our own community.

It is discouraging to note that our issues are still subsumed either into those of disability generally, or into women generally, thereby becoming invisible. While other intersections such as race, poverty and LGBT are now being explored, disabled women are still not in that loop. Disabled women are often invisible within these intersections as well.

Left off the agenda

It isn’t for want of trying on the part of many of us. Yet it is extremely hard to get on to the feminist, or any other agenda for that matter. It is so hard to find any useful data or relevant research, especially where our situation can be compared to non-disabled women. Feminist academics and writers studiously ignore our experience and perspective in their work. There is little comparative data available on almost anything. Attempts to find or create any are ignored. An example – Despite the length of time these programmes have been available it is impossible to find any information on disabled women’s access to and uptake of cervical screening and mammography programmes compared to non-disabled women. Research and related contributions by disabled women to a funded research programme into violence against women was strongly resisted, and the results reflected this.

Systemic discrimination

Does no one care that birth mothers who are disabled women can still have their children taken from them simply because they are disabled, or disabled mothers are more likely to have their children seen to be ‘at risk” and taken away by CYF, or that disabled men are able to adopt with non-disabled partners but disabled women with non-disabled partners can’t?

Analysing the problem

We have to find answers to this question of invisibility of disabled women and our issues.

Here is an attempt to start to tease out the problem:

Systemic

  • There is a lack of access in the broadest sense of disabled women to information and to the debate. (Disabled women in Australia have just produced a report on the digital Divide for disabled women.)
  • New age ideas that we are all individually responsible for our own destinies and disability is our own fault. See also some religion.
  • Policy makers and activists don’t see intersections, or see them as too hard.
  • Our sexuality and rights to be mothers are not recognised by systems, structures and policy implementation.
  • Disability itself is not a “sexy” issue, never mind disability and gender.
  • Agencies with responsibility for all women take little or no account of disabled women.
  • Lack of political will.

Feminism

  • Does feminism itself disable us?
  • The work of the few disabled feminist researchers is not valued as “real” feminism or “real” research.
  • The personal is political has excluded and denied our experience.

Other women/feminists

  • Feminists in the “caring” professions are part of the problem, and issues for carers eclipse ours.
  • Feminist writers and academics ignore us, our place and our experience. Their research is from a non-disabled perspective.
  • Non-disabled women construct gender and disability in different ways from disabled women. These constructs are damaging and disempowering.
  • We are not “real” women so we can be safely ignored.
  • Our experience of the behaviour of non-disabled feminists indicates they are ambivalent about disabled women and our issues.
  • Other intersections such as race and class “trump” disability when the chips are down.
  • A perception by other women that we are “less than them” and might drag the cause down or cost too much, or make women generally seem “not able.”
  • Perhaps we represent some kind of atavistic reminder of something seen as dreadful and unwomanly – even as feminists age or acquire impairments they don’t generally apply feminist analysis to their disability status.
  • Body and other differences are problematic.

Disabled women ourselves

  • Our impairments mean we don’t have the energy of other women.
  • There is a lack of our own discourse on disability and feminism.
  • Are disabled women too busy just surviving, or too apathetic?
  • In a small country we are isolated from each other and don’t have enough critical mass.
  • We are seduced by individualistic approaches to progress.

Disability

  • The siloed way disability services and resources have been and still are provided – divide and rule – has led to disunity and insularity in our own community of disabled people and of disabled women.
  • Disabled women leaders have been expected to lead all disabled people, not just women.
  • There is competition among impairment groups that diminishes energy and dilutes resolve and direction.

Is it about systemic issues? Is it about us, disabled women, or is it about other women and feminists? Or is it a bit of both, or all of the above. Or just maybe no one else cares, and I am wasting my time and energy.

This is a big picture view and I am not criticising any individual, including a few staunch allies, or any initiatives. I want to break this resounding silence once and for all, and begin some genuine, constructive and respectful discussion to find real answers to this problem of invisibility which I am beginning to fear won’t be solved in my lifetime.

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Filed under Disability Issues, Disability Rights, Inclusion, Information Accessibility, Women