Girls Using Walking Sticks

[Arran2024]

I saw a post about this on X this morning. Apparently it is a trend.

Anyway, I went into town this afternoon and sure enough, I saw a number of young women with walking sticks. None of them looked like they were leaning hard on their stick, just kind of walking along like it was a big umbrella.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Well said. This thread is a bloody disgrace in parts.

I'm not attempting to deny this trend exists - I haven't noticed it myself but it appears others have - but some of the prejudices this thread is giving rise to are all too yawn-makingly familiar. As far as I am concerned some people who present a certain way may indeed behave a certain way, but that doesn't mean they all do, and making any assumptions around disability and how a person appears/identifies is a slippery slope to blind prejudice. In this sense some of the more clueless on this thread have been behaving in exactly the same way as the 'where's your wheelchair, then?' types that tend to hijack disability threads to bash: using reductive generalisations about the few in order to bash the many.

If you don't want disability discussed on FWR, don't discuss disability on FWR. It's hardly rocket science.

Because they make it harder for people with disabilities. People think they are making it up. It leads to the hostile environment we are in on the gov benefit change proposals. It means more people trying to access services, even just disabled toilets. It isn't okay.

But presumably, unlike some on this thread, you do think it is fine for those of us with disabilities to identify as disabled?

My new neck fan has arrived. I got it after reading about it on one of those dreadful social media groups where I <gasp> discuss my condition with other people who have it and we share tips.

I am hoping it will help me a little when out and about as it starts to feel quite unsafe when I lose my speech control and swallow control when my face and neck get too hot.

However, I have just realised that I ordered it in a beautiful purple colour and not something suitably beige /grey. Shall I return it or shall I just accept that some people are going to see me as a fake disabled PIP claimant with gender identity issues.....

Or maybe no one should be judging others as making up their disability. People’s ignorance make it more difficult for others with disability. If you see someone you think is faking - mind your business and treat them as you would any human being, disabled or otherwise.

It’s not hard. At all. As a disabled person, who has been disabled my entire life, who had been a wheelchair user for years and who went to a school exclusively for other disabled people I can tell you right now: the thing harming disabled people is YOUR ATTITUDE.

We should not have to justify ourselves or the legitimacy of our struggles OR our medical history in order to get basic respect and amenities.

God forbid disabled people form a community to help each other. That’s some kind of identity politics! Nothing to do with humans helping humans who understand each other in ways other humans can’t.

Do you have this kind of temper tantrum every time someone disagrees with you politely? You must be an absolute nightmare to live with.

Perhaps I'm missing something but are you saying that disabled people aren't pissed off at non-disabled people appropriating disability, but rather that they welcome it, or that they just don't care either way?

Or are you saying it never happens in the first place?

To paraphrase...
"I disagree politely"
"You have a temper tantrum"

Has anyone read Lionel Shriver’s novel Mania? The behaviour of some posters on this thread puts me in mind of that.

This actually made my teen and I laugh - and she is blind and navigates using a long cane. This trend is no worse than the totally able-bodied ‘I’ll only be five minutes in the Blue Badge space’ crew.

I think the correct answer is: whichever one puts you in the wrong.

I try to avoid threads like this, because they always end up the same way.

Me: let me tell you what pisses me off about spoonies
Poster1: Excuse me! I heard you mention spoonies. I have a diagnosed chronic illness and I would like to have a polite conversation about what a hateful bigot you are.
Me: I wasn't talking about you, I'm sorry if you thought I was
Poster2: Excuse me! My child is seriously disabled. Why do you hate my child and want them to die?
Me: I wasn't talking about you either, I don't know your dc or have anything against them. I was talking about spoonies
Poster3: Excuse me! I would like to have a polite conversation with you about your ableism, so you will see why you should apologise to all the disabled people you've been injuring with your hatey hate.
Me: well fuck the lot of you if that's your attitude

(limps away on my stick)

I have POTS, as diagnosed by a cardiologist. I have never used or needed a stick.

I'm not pissed off at non-disabled people "appropriating disability". If people want to use walking sticks, so what? At worst, it normalizes them, which helps those who need to use them and esp helps those who would benefit from them but don't want to use them bc of stigma.

For those young women who identify as disabled and, perhaps, don't meet the criteria that others have for disabled, it's still so much better to use a mobility aid than to become anorexic, which was what some distressed girls and young women did when I was young. It seems so benign to me. I'm relieved that they chose this way to express their distress.

I do think that we have underestimated the effects of Covid on the general population. Even young healthy people I know have suffered residual effects. Maybe that partly explains the explosion of diagnoses of POTS etc.

POTS has been fairly manageable for me through medication and exercise, but it is still unpleasant.

The Covid argument would hold more water if it wasn’t generally one type of person claiming to suffer residual effects.

I do think there is an epidemic of certain young women believing they are unwell. It seems a shame and so limiting: I know that for some marginalised for whatever reason from school it provides a tribe and an identity. It must be tough for parents to deal with.

@GenderlessVoid - I was asking @Baggingarea because they seemed to take strong exception to somebody suggesting that disabled people would be pissed off at non-disabled people appropriating disability as an attribute.

I would have thought that members of a relatively small group in society who could legitimately see themselves as being vulnerable and/or oppressed to a greater or lesser extent because of a shared characteristic would be quite reasonably upset to have more privileged members of society who don't share that characteristic appropriating it.

But maybe it's just me...

(FWIW according to the ONS Family Resources Survey I can count myself as one of the 24% of disabled people in this country, but if I identified myself as such I would honestly consider myself an imposter)

I know plenty of people who don't fit the stereotype who still have experienced pretty major problems post-covid. I'm not saying we should've masked and social distanced forever - but covid is a nasty virus and we still don't know its full effects.

My disability doesn't cause me to limp, because it affects both sides of my body. Are you implying that makes it less real than yours?

I'm curious what's "not real" about a condition that causes me to be unable to swallow or speak clearly (or at all sometimes) if I am active for more than a few minutes at a time? I get ill just from applauding at a concert, or talking for more than ten minutes or so at a time. Most evenings I am too weak to lift my head up. Please could you explain why my opinion is less valid than yours?

I was wondering recently when the walking stick would become a fashion item. So it’s started?

You see more young people that average with sticks/walkers using walking aids at certain demos. It’s like the tshirts you can buy with double mastectomy ‘cuts’ on them (not for breast cancer). I assume it’s the new fashion statement.

In what way is it goady? It's a genuine question? All the "spoonie" conditions have a big overlap with my condition, Myasthenia in terms of how they present -.eg exertion makes us more unwell (and I was misdiagnosed with CFS in my twenties).

Why am I not allowed to challenge the idea these aren't real illnesses?

I came across this MA course in 'Disability studies' which may be of interest to some. I came across it through the 'Chronic illness and Inclusion' website I linked to earlier; and one of the lecturers on the course seems also to be very much engaged in trans activism. There definitely seems to be an over-lap.

www.hope.ac.uk/postgraduate/postgraduatecourses/disabilitystudiesma/

I have already said that I am talking about a trend, not individuals.