FirstPerson: Lisa Freeman is tired of having to speak up when people refer to her as 'a wheelchair' — the inanimate object she uses. She writes about why language and the treatment of people in wheelchairs matter.
1:58This First Person article is the experience of Lisa Freeman, a person who splits her time between Ottawa and Montreal and uses a wheelchair. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please seeWhile it might seem obvious because, of course, I'm not an inanimate object or an artificial intelligence writing this column, people refer to me as a thing – "a wheelchair" – in myriad everyday situations from riding the bus to returning library books.
It makes me uncomfortable — and sometimes frustrated, sometimes angry — when people refer to me as a wheelchair. It feels as if they are not seeing me as a person, but as a thing.I visit the library frequently, and carry a few books on my lap. I also have a few in the back of the wheelchair when I go to return the books at the book drop.
Freeman says people sometimes reach over her to put their books in the slot or even push her and her wheelchair out of the way to access the library return slot. It can be hard to balance speaking up for myself and being an advocate with the reality of my day to day, such as the need to get to my destination on time or complete my task. It is tiring to always have to educate people about respecting another's personal space, and remind them that people different from them are people, too.
I'm not representative of every person who uses a wheelchair let alone all people who have other mobility devices or aids.
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