How To Be Treated In 'Disability' By Nancy Mairs

In American society, if American’s do not look the same as society’s ideal image, then they are not considered normal. Those non normal American’s are treated as if they have a plague and are left on the outside always looking in. The people who have something that sets them apart from the norm, such as a disability, should not be treated differently than the people who are society’s version of normal. In “Disability” by Nancy Mairs, the problem of judging a book by its cover discusses individual examples relating to people who have a disability. Mairs’ essay discusses having a disability in a world where disability is ignored, especially by the media. Television shows don’t show that people who have a disability can form their own decision. “[In Mairs’ essay] a woman with multiple sclerosis is portrayed on one of those medical dramas…She was terribly upset by the diagnosis, and her response was to plan a trip to Kenya…she got as far as a taxi to the airport…she succumbed to [her true love’s] blandishments

For example, she wrote “…you might conclude that there is something queer about you, something ugly or foolish or shameful” (14). When American’s walk by people who have a cane or wheelchair, they probably don’t think “Oh, I want to be friends with them.” American’s probably think they’re a “cripple.” American’s don’t treat people who have a disability with respect. Instead, they judge a person who has a disability harshly. Leaving people who have a disability out of things and forgetting about them hurts their feelings. For instance, in Mairs’ essay she says “…you might feel as though you don’t exist, in any meaningful social sense, at all” (14). No one wants to feel that way, but people who have a disability go through it all the time. The media’s influence may convince people who have a disability to feel as if they’re an outsider since they have a “shameful” part of