Girls Using Walking Sticks

Actually a lot of wheelchair users use them when they need to. Not everyone who uses a chair cannot walk at all.

It's a bit of a misunderstanding about disabled people too and puts people off using them because people think they're faking it they then get up out of it and can walk.

The other thing that people conveniently don't want to consider is the effect of the pandemic on the health of the country. There will be lots of people, young and old, who have developed long covid and Mecfs after having covid. Those conditions have comorbidities with eds and pots.

'some sort of disability' will include an awful lot of ASD, anxiety, ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, Down Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, Dyspraxia, visual or hearing impairment, various and numerous LDs and SENs, none of which affect their ability to walk.

And even then 15% is an implausible stretch, because as I said, the parameters and definitions of disabilities have been widened hugely in recent years. I stand by my statement that the amount of females under 25 who have a disability that affects their ability to walk or stand unaided, will be vanishingly small. Remove the ones who have disabilities so severe that they cannot walk at all, not even with a stick, and it's even smaller.

I'd actually imagine that far more people struggle with mobility enough to benefit from a cane than struggle enough to require a wheelchair.

I think that's an important part of it, actually; that people are unlikely to use a wheelchair unless they strictly need it to get around. They're expensive, often unwieldy, and make accessibility far harder. I'm sure there are many people who would benefit from using a chair without yet requiring one, but don't use one as they finds the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. On the other hand, canes are relatively affordable, often lightweight and portable, and provide a small but beneficial boost to those with mobility issues, balance problems, muscle weakness or fatigue. Therefore people are more likely to use a cane to make their lives better without waiting until they physically can't walk without one. Personally I think that's a good thing; there's no virtue in suffering needlessly from a disability when there's something that can help.

That's how I used mine, in the few years I needed it. I was suffering from chronic fatigue and recovering from recurrent hypermobility-related injuries, and using the cane for that time meant I gave my body the chance to build back some strength and allow me to get back to my full ability. If you'd seen me at that time you may well have thought I "didn't really need" a cane, but in reality using the cane on a walk around town meant I then had the energy to also do the weekly shop, and that I wasn't then having to take painkillers to stand up long enough to make dinner.

It's simply impossible to tell from the street why people need the mobility aids they do, but I would always rather give them the benefit of the doubt than start playing "no true Scotsman" with other disabled people's wellbeing. Unless they've told you themselves, or you happen to be their doctor or physiotherapist, you just don't know. And that's fine, because nobody else actually needs to know!

15% of women in their twenties have some sort of disability, so the number who use a mobility aid is unlikely to be vanishingly small, especially if you add in people who aren't disabled but have a temporary condition which makes as stick useful. I used a stick for a few months when I had a knee problem, and DD borrowed it when she had a minor sports injury that made walking painful for a week or so.

Agreed

And I think it's notable that the "it's the same as the trans thing" posters don't engage in my explanations of things like how there used to be no fashionable sticks, and no famous female role models using sticks, and we used to not be able to "find" other disabled people with our conditions so easily whereas now even when bedbound we can join groups on social media and online chat groups and discuss what helps and what doesn't, and encourage each other to over come the fear and and embarrassment of using sticks.

It seems that these are inconvenient truths to be ignored.

I have always "looked" abled bodied. I have always been disabled since my late teens. I feel much less disabled now I have a diagnosis and have made peace with it and use a wheelchair/stick as required. I feel less disabled because I am stuck at home less. I can go out to museums or shopping or the theatre. All things I had tended to avoid doing because they made me ill so fast.

I was just going to mention this.

Is it a huge coincidence that the right wing shit of a human Lord Toby Young, wrote this today about that article?

https://x.com/toadmeister/status/1942161695549399469?t=MQOaDSrnBRBnp1bhAS2e-g&s=19

Is it a coincidence that there's been a campaign to cut disability benefits?
MN has been flooded with so many suss posters in recent years. I think there's a lot of planted stuff and stuff from political agitators.

I used to think mn was lefty. So many right leaning people these days and posts that are all about how they earn over 100k and can't afford a holiday because of people on benefits.

I am massively 🤨 at this thread.

A decent percentage of the population is classed as disabled one way or another, as the definition of disability has been hugely widened over recent years. But what percentage of the under 25 female population is disabled with something that genuinely affects their mobility, but not enough to use a wheelchair? I''m going to guess that it's vanishingly small.

I'm not sure it's at all fair or sensible to extrapolate from one to the other.

And it's very well-known that women face a harder battle to believed by doctors, so can wait years for diagnosis

And I have already explained that better and more sensitive tests mean far more people are being diagnosed with my condition in the last 5 years. That's not self ID it's specific blood tests for specific antibodies.

And the same applies to other conditions too.

Where once we might have faced dismissal after dismissal by GPs who thought we were just making a fuss, now we are getting diagnoses that give us the confidence and guidance to get the mobility aids we need.

Combine that with a much nicer range of mobility aids and you start to see a pattern

When my dad bought me a stick in my twenties, because I was without a diagnosis but he could see how much I struggled on my commute, I cried. Because it was an "old man stick" and I was a 20 something professional who wanted to look fashionable. I would have felt quite differently had all the nice options we have now been available. And seeing people like Christina Applegate normalise using a stick on the red carpet also helped me feel brave enough to use one. Whereas I don't remember anyone doing that when I was at my most fashion conscious

Just how many young women and girls are there out there who have suddenly started using sticks when previously they may have felt too stigmatised or proud to do so, but could have benefited from them nonetheless?

It’s the same (recycled) argument used for why there’s been a 4000% increase in girls IDing as trans. “Society is so much more accepting now”. But at the same time we are supposed to believe there is a trans genocide or that inexplicably a bunch of women on a feminist board are ableist meanies (even though many of us have disabilities or long term chronic health conditions ourselves) for noticing a growing trend amongst young girls from a particular demographic.

You are, rather bizarrely, assuming POTS and EDS are the only relevant conditions

I have already mentioned my condition, Myasthenia. (which, as an aside, is thought to be underdiagnosed).

There's also conditions like arthritis, and muscular dystrophies etc.

i quite often find myself in a lift with someone else with a stick, and often end up chatting. People are dealing with all sorts of conditions, things you might not realise even exist.

Added up, a decent percentage of the population is disabled. Why should we hide away? Why should we avoid using mobility aids just because some judgy fucker will think we are using them for fun?

Social capital can be complicated, I think (and not only in this context) , because it depends where you are looking for it. For example:

• 'mainstream' householders who have someone knock on their door and try to convert them to a religion may regard that person as a pestilential nuisance, but within their religious community (whose opinion and support they value more), being willing to beard householders in their den may give them status and admiration, and their accounts of hostile responses will garner sympathy.

• the kind of teenage behaviours and style choices that drive parents and teachers to distraction may give street cred within a teenage peer group, precisely because the adults don't like it and doing it is an act of defiance.

So in the case of an invisible disability, I could envisage a situation for some people where the aggro of being "out" as disabled in the world at large is outweighed, socially and emotionally, by the sympathy and admiration of a small group (friends, or activists, or an online community) whose support that person values more.

Just how many young women and girls are there out there who have suddenly started using sticks when previously they may have felt too stigmatised or proud to do so, but could have benefited from them nonetheless?

POTS apparently affects 0.2% of the population and EDS anywhere between 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 250,000 depending on the exact type of EDS you have.

Am I to believe that in a small city with a population of less than 150k I've encountered two teenaged girls who both genuinely need walking sticks in the space of less than two hours?

Because it's the natural home for hate speech? 😉

It was just clumsy wording and i apologise.

No it isn't. That's just straightforward Munchausen's. By Proxy is when they claim their child is unwell and often deliberately make them unwell because they crave the attention and the drama from doctors and putting their child through loads of unnecessary tests. It might not be a child, it could also be a vulnerable, learning disabled relative or an elderly parent. Someone who cannot advocate for themselves and doesn't twig what's going on, anyway.

I'd love it if more people (who need to) used sticks. I would feel less self conscious. There's a few people at work who have said they should use a stick but are too embarrassed. I keep hoping my using one will help them feel able to.

Not at all. I saw it with my own eyes.

Irrelevant perhaps for this discussion, in terms of the need for mobility aids

Not irrelevant overall because disability means that you have something that disables you. A chronic condition. However if that condition has potential to be removed by making different choices, then it becomes relevant as to how the disability is seen.

We shouldnt be encouraging that disabilty caused by lifestyle actions, should never be changed. It can be changed.

Irrelevant. It's still a disability.

Cassandra yes that's true, with overweight people with mobility issues we can never be sure whether the obesity is the cause of the mobility issue and too much strain on the joints, or whether a medical issue (or the treatment for it) has caused the obesity. That's a fair point.

Yes lots to agree with here

I find it odd that there is such a push back against curious discussion, we should be curious, we should be exploring why social contagion takes this or that pathway. This discussion is about the presentation of illness/disability from those who are not ill or disabled.

Those of us working with a wide variety of service users/client groups have seen this, it isnt actually recent, it might seem that way to the lay person, but its been for a while and does have a cross over with ND and trans.

And Im also surprised that the question even needs to be asked about why is this part of discussion within womens rights.

To me its obvious, its about the lack of intervention, support, therapy for girls/women on the spectrum, its about not recognising that very often women in partricular with autism find an 'identity' to fill what appears to be a personality gap, to find validation and many other reasons to connect, in a way that on the surface is harmless but is actually harmful, we have seen this with the trans ideology.

On the surface, who cares if someone is walking round with a stick and they dont have an actual need for it. Who cares if I order a wheelchair or crutches to use. Who cares if I 'identify' as physically disabled when Im actually not? But it has overlaps and impacts on the person themselves, their network and wider society in terms of services, resources and access.

How do we support autistic women to understand their own personality, what it is, how to feel positive about that, what is functional for them, what is an actual personality rather than 'identifying' with this and that as a pseudo self. Where are the intensive support gropus and therapy about that?

Ps it is grim to assume that someone used a stick because they are overweight. Treatments like prednisolone can make people gain a huge amount of weight.
Through my condition -myasthenia- I chat online to a lot of youngish people with it, who have been prescribed steroids and put on a lot of weight. It's hugely distressing.

And even just taking my one condition, Myasthenia, there has been a rapid increase in diagnosis in the last 10 years. Partly due to covid making symptoms worse and unmistakeable, partly due to discoveries of more antibodies, and more sensitive tears, meaning people are being diagnosed with some last resort diagnosis like CFS /fibromyalgia now get a proper diagnosis instead.

I should have been using a stick 20 years ago. I didn't due shame and embarrassment. Plus all the options were designed with old people in mind.

Quite a few of us have said that. I have said that more than once. But that version of events isn't as fun, is it, because you don't get to hoik your judgy pants up then

Absolute bollocks

These sorts of threads are always the same. OP mentions the sudden prevalence of young women and teen girls seemingly needing to use sticks to walk. Other people say they've noticed it too and it always seems to be a certain 'type' of girl from a particular social tribe. Some people mention this phenomenon in the same breath as TikTok, trans, austism and ADHD, anxiety, POTS, EDS, attention seeking and social contagion.

Loads of other women queue up to defensively say how they or their DD have walked with a stick their whole lives and it's down to CP, or something else entirely. So the OP wasn't talking about you.

Other queue up to defensively say they or their DD does have POTS or EDS and autism, and coincidentally, blue hair, but that we shouldn't judge or be ablist. We are not being ablist. No-one is saying that people with mobility issues shouldn't use sticks if they need them. But why so many all of a sudden? Where were all these girls with walking sticks ten years ago? Or even one year ago? Either there were far fewer young women with any of these disabilities and their co-morbidities ten years ago, or there were exactly the same amount but they didn't use sticks.

Other people say they've recently needed to walk with a stick due to a collapsed spine or knackered knees or some other debilitating condition but they are 45 and not autistic or non-binary and they don't have blue hair or ear defenders and they are definitely not attention seeking or putting it on. The OP wasn't talking about you.

Why can't people just talk about the 'thing' they are talking about, without other people coming along to say how that 'thing' certainly doesn't apply to them, or if it does then it's for genuine reasons and we shouldn't judge? The question of whether people with mobility problems might need to use walking sticks was never the point of the discussion.

It reminds me of reading about a man who wrote to his local village newsletter to complain about dog walkers letting their dogs foul the pavement outside his house several times a week. Several angry dog owners wrote back to say 'How very dare you? I'm a dog owner and I NEVER let my dog foul the pavement outside people's houses.'

Er...no, but somebody is, and that's who he was talking about. Not you.

Anyway. I've just got back from a morning in town. I saw three young women with walking sticks. One of them was mid thirties, totally regular looking woman out shopping with her mum, didn't fit the 'spoonie' mould discussed on this thread, so probably just had a bad knee or something else going on.

The other two were late teens and DEFINITELY fitted the mould discussed upthread, both overweight, one of them significantly so. I'd bet my house on it that they'd identify as autistic or ADHD or non binary or say they suffered from anxiety or all of the above. I think to spot two in the space of an hour and a half is pretty good evidence to suggest it's a social contagion thing.