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?

But you aren't going to be able to judge which is which.

My family can tell when my symptoms are flaring, through the subtle signs they understand - my speech begins to slur a little, my eyelids drop a little. But to everyone else I would look like a healthy adult (and, back in the day, a healthy teen)

I've lost count of the number of fuckwits at my very large workplace who don't know me at all but see me get a lift to go up one or two floors and cheerily make a joke about "being lazy today".

Or the people who look at me like they have found me out when I get out of the wheelchair and walk a bit. My walking looks completely normal because i have been resting in the wheelchair

I honestly don't even care if some teens are using sticks as a fashion accessory. If it makes it easy for the teens who need one to use one then I'm all for it.

I honestly don't even care if some teens are using sticks as a fashion accessory. If it makes it easy for the teens who need one to use one then I'm all for it.

A lot of adjustments that disabled people need rely on other people making some kind of adjustment - giving up a seat on public transport being an obvious example. The person giving up their seat cannot verify that the disabled person needs it, so trust is a big factor.

If people perceive that a lot of teenagers are using sticks who do not need them, it is going to make life much worse for those who do.

How do you "know" who's faking disabilities or not? 🙄
If you're young and/or with blue hair it seems you're fair game to be disbelieved.

It's clear that many of these young people have no disabilities at all

How is it clear, though? Is it the fact that they're young? That they don't dress or wear their hair conservatively "enough"? That they're standing with one (or heaven forbid, two) other people who are disabled?)
As for a "huge surge", maybe people are just feeling that they can be themselves more nowadays, that they don't feel they have to hide? As people on the thread with disabilities have already said that they feel they can be open more.

Honestly igt seems like you are being massively, deliberately naive.

People are not morons. If all of a sudden there is a totally unrealistic number of young girls using canes, it is not fucking abelist yo wonder why.

When they seem to have a very similar fashion profile, of course that seems odd, it's statistically unlikely.

If this is the same cohort who seem to be using identifying issues to claim privilege ok n other axes, of course that will raise bloody questions.

I was at a concert last year with a mainly NB audience. I have never seen that many canes outside a seniors home.

If you expect me to buy that this is because these young women are as likely to need them as 80 year olds then I think you are being deliberately manipulative.

The girl I referred to back when this thread started, who I spotted with a walking stick, was wearing exactly that Manga inspired look. She did look very thin and delicate, but other than that, not obviously in need of help to walk. She was wearing those massive chunky shoes so I can assume she wasn't too unstable on her feet. They are not a great choice for someone with mobility or balance issues, after all.

You left out Tics, Tourette's and Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Whoever they are, the trend they set will originate on TikTok.

There is an awful lot of talking at cross purposes on this thread. It's always the same with contentious subjects like this. Some people understandably get very defensive but they seem to want to keep talking about the instances where your point isn't relevant, rather than focusing on the main topic of the thread, which are the instances where it is relevant.

Was it Chappell Roan?

I honestly don't even care if some teens are using sticks as a fashion accessory. If it makes it easy for the teens who need one to use one then I'm all for it.

It's not a 'fashion' accessory as such though. It's an accessory that they've convinced themselves they need because they identify as someone feeble and chronically unwell, whether they are or not. That's not fashion, that's a form of social contagion that points to an unhealthy mindset.

You don't even know these people! Yet you "know" that they're all just "pretending" to be disabled as it's "cool" and they just like to "copy everyone else." 🙄

I have drawn the conclusion that some of the posters on this thread either have remarkable photographic memories or are taking detailed notes of the appearance and dress of every young person they see using a walking aid. How else are we to account for the minute descriptions they are able to give of strangers they have passed in the street. A casual glance seems unlikely to yield such a thorough portrait which suggests some of the posters on this thread are spending a great deal of time and energy documenting the appearance and movements of unknown people they pass in the street and using the data they collect to support their weird theories about what disabled people are supposed to look like.
This strikes me as oddly obsessive, outrageously judgemental and a bit intrusive, but if it is how they enjoy spending their leisure time then each to their own I suppose.
I would also like to know which medical qualifications these posters have which apparently allow them to accurately diagnose a stranger's disability or lack of one with a single glance. I assume they must be experts to be sure of their correctness.

This thread was thoroughly nasty when it first appeared, and is still nasty.

You see more young people with walking sticks now because in the past young disabled people would have been largely housebound or institutionalised, and in a number of cases quite possibly dead.

Provisions for disabled people are better across the board now. When I was a kid, the schools I went to had absolutely no provision for wheelchair users at all, completely blocking them from mainstream education.

Social contagion..... Or feeling more confident to be open about it and gravitating towards people with similar experiences?

Quite a few of my friends also have serious chronic conditions. Not because we have all copied off each other but because we have bonded over shared understanding and battles.

Until had a wheelchair I spent a lot of time housebound. As electric wheelchairs have become more affordable and accessible many more people with my condition have them not because we "identify and weak and feeble" (what nasty wording) but because they open up the world for us.

This is a bit of a quantum leap. I had a classmate with a serious disability. She wore a caliper on one leg. Of course she wasn't denied education or confined to an institution because I'm talking about the 20th century not the 18th.

Well my son had a serious injury earlier this year that left him unable to walk much for quite a long time (note, although a teen, he didnt just identify as injured and his crutches weren't just a fashion accessory) and he had to miss a lot of school because the classrooms werent accessible. And that's a quarter of the way into the 21st century

Girls and young women are struggling massively. I'd rather they had an external and useful crutch than internalise society's messages and do permanent damage to their bodies. They have all their lives to throw the stick away, when they are strong enough to stand on their own two feet.

This thread is misogynist, ableist and ageist.

Absolutely this! The pp you were replying to here sounds very frightened of anyone who looks/behaves differently to how they do. I wonder why?

Absolutely, and I'm so glad we live in more enlightened times. You wouldn't think it'd be hard for people to grasp the facts you outlined here, would you, but apparently some people do struggle to comprehend these things even in this day and age. I'm off now to swap my purple floral stick for a standard grey NHS-issue one lest anyone think I'm committing the cardinal sin of not being ashamed that I sometimes need a stick... removes tongue from cheek 😂

Are you sure you aren't just identifying as disabled?
Instead of sticks you could just identify as able bodied and then you will magically get better

Damn, why didn't I think of that? 😄