Perception: The Real Barrier in Disability Employment

Summary:
eSight members, most with working experience, admit that overcoming fear, ignorance and prejudice to gain employment in the mainstream job market is no small task. But it can be done.

The Setting

The Personal Experiences

The Challenge


The Setting

During the summer, eSight members took the opportunity to use their personal experience to document how they believe the perceptions of others shape their opportunities in mainstream employment.

Here's a summary of that eSight Networking Forum (eNF) discussion, the highlights of which are certainly apropos
during the upcoming National Disability Employment Month (October).

Back in July, I posed this eNF question:

What personal experience can you cite as evidence to confirm or disprove that disability largely lies in the perceptions of others?

The Personal Experiences

Take a look at these thoughtful replies:

• "I am a vocational rehabilitation counselor. I am also severely disabled. I used to think it was a limitation. However, my perception has changed. It is not a limitation. I have a new-found ability to see through the eyes of my consumers. It has made me a better person and a better counselor ..."
  -Ivan
  
  
• "... (Situations where) employers can't or won't hire employees with disabilities really have nothing to do with us as individuals with disabilities and far much more to do with their lack of imagination. They can't imagine that, as a disabled person, they could do any sort of a job, so they put their projections on us and say, 'Well, of course, they can't do it.' It's more an issue of ignorance and projection than disability."
  - Liz
  
  
• "I just lost my eyesight about a year and a half ago. Before I lost my eyesight, I was working as a tutor at my college. After I lost my eyesight, I did not believe that I could go back to tutoring. However, my supervisor believed that I was no different than I previously was and tried to get me to work again.
  
  "(After) I resumed working there, I realized that some students who came for my help had no problem and left happy and satisfied and even returned. However, there were others who could not even sit with me for a minute. They got too uncomfortable and said, 'It's OK. I will take someone else's help.' And then they left.
  
  "I later realized that some of these people who thought I could not help them were new students that I never tutored before and had realized that I was disabled. The students who were happy and satisfied were the students who had come to me before I lost my eyesight or that they did not know that I was disabled (I can fool many about my disability).
  
  "Overall, anyone who came with a prejudgment could not sit with me for even a minute. However, people with an open mind had no problem at all."
  - Jyotsna
  
  
• "My experience with employers who are intimidated by the visually impaired hit home with me after a job interview. The shop owner was pleased with me. She claimed I sounded knowledgeable about the job being offered. I had enthusiasm, people skills, and a good business sense. This was all on the phone.
  
  "When I showed up with the white cane, her demeanor changed instantly. The cane was all she saw from that point on. Although she had been friendly, warm, and witty, now she had become withdrawn, nervous, and rushed.
  
  "I left the shop with great disappointment. At first, I was blaming myself for the failure -- and then I blamed my visual impairment. After serious consideration, I (realized it was) the inability of the interviewer to see past my disability.
  
  "I'm a 44-year-old woman with Usher's Syndrome. I submit at least five resumes a week for jobs I know I can do. The problem is having someone give me a chance to prove myself."
  - Paola
  
  
• "I think that employers' prejudgments and perceptions have a lot to do with whether we appear 'dis-abled,' as opposed to the being 'differently' abled, to the outside world. If we highlight how we've dealt with similar positions in educating the employer, even when we don't get the job, we can at least come out knowing that we put our best feet (and in some cases, best paws) forward."
  - Natalie
  
  
• "The general public today pays little notice of ... disability. (People), however, will notice the level, or degree, of functionality.
  
  "Disability is a non-negotiable fact of life for the affected individual. However, the residual negatives resulting from the disabling condition can be altered with each Individual."
  - C. Fred Stout
  
  
• "Attitude in the face of a world that often ignores what is obvious is one of the most important attributes each of us has. I know that not everyone will agree with me or see things as I do, but I am looking for allies and people who will help me on my journey.
  
  "My disability is visible to the eye of anyone who looks, and, thus, I need to address how I can perform the essential duties of the position and help employers to become comfortable with me as an employee and as a person.."
  - Barney
  
  
• "I find it interesting that, when you meet friends, neighbors, potential employers, etc. and you are visually challenged, they also feel that you are hearing impaired. Why do people have this misconception? I don't understand."
  - Lori
  
  
• "After obtaining my 60-credit master's degree in counseling and passing the national counselor exam, I had one year and several months of rejections (in my hunt for a job). These were precisely because the emphasis was on what I could not do.
  
  "Now that I have finally gotten a job, I am sort of in a state of shock. The director of this Latin-American Institute behaves in a way that treats my disability as a non-issue. She is someone with many years of experience and treats me almost as her equal. I have not yet officially started and will be helping at a community health fare. This tells me that not only is it important to have a positive self-concept but for potential employers to have an accepting and open-minded attitude towards persons with disabilities."
  - Ivis
  
  
• "Yes, disability is in the eye of the beholder, but sometimes, when you have a mental illness such as manic-depressive, depression, and other hidden disabilities, the outside world can not see them.
  
  "If you are in a wheelchair, however, then that makes it alright."
  - Michele

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The Challenge

For more than a decade, I have been gathering thoughts from others about why the unemployment rate among people with disabilities does not improve despite improvements in adaptive technology, readily available resources for education and a wide range of services in job placement.

In doing so, I have come to the conclusion that those of us with disabilities face these three basic barriers in gaining entrance to the mainstream job market:

• The vulnerability disability exhibits for all of us -- and the fear among decision makers in companies and organizations that someday they, too, may become disabled and apparently vulnerable, a position they may believe they must avoid if they wish to survive in today's tough business environment.
  
  
• The lack of knowledge about what it really means to live with a disability in the 21st century, particularly in the U.S.
  
  
• The entrenched attitudes (prejudice) held by some people about disability.

These barriers can be summarized in three words: fear, ignorance and prejudice.

Here's what Helen, eSight member, writes about fear:

"...There is more education to be done in the mainstream workplaces (because) attitudinal barriers (still) block ... bright, talented people with disabilities from earning a paycheck.

"Perhaps the question (that often occurs to) employers is: 'If I had that disability, how would I manage?'

"(We could turn that around to) say: 'I might face a disability someday, and here's a person who could help me live with it!'"

Here's how C. Fred Stout explains the natural fear of disability:

"...We are afraid of people and things with which we are unfamiliar. Prospective employers who have had no contact with a person with a disability may have numerous questions. They may not dare to ask the questions for fear of violating the provisions of the ADA.

"I see the ADA and technology as tools to help with full participation in our society. Despite the value of these tools, they can be compared to the Civil Rights Act. Though that act makes discrimination illegal, it cannot change the hearts and minds of the discriminators."

Ignorance and prejudice are also complex barriers to mainstream employment.

Debra L. Angel and Elizabeth E. Harney, authors of "No One is Unemployable: Creative Solutions for Overcoming Barriers to Employment," provide a distinction between myth and prejudice which I find helpful.

Mythology, they point out in their book, is an unfair practice that stems from beliefs, often learned in childhood. Myths are not malicious. Myths can be challenged by facts. The authors maintain it is possible to overcome such bias.

However, prejudice is another ball game. People who hold onto a belief in spite of overwhelming proof to the opposite are prejudiced.

The authors suggest that, if you encounter a prospective employer who is truly prejudiced, you move on. There are plenty of opportunities elsewhere.

I'm encouraged by the impression I'm receiving from eSight members that saying, "Goodbye," to a prospective employer who is truly prejudiced does not have to happen very often.

Here's another bit of good news. Most of the barriers eSight members identified in their eNF discussion this past summer stem from lack of information or knowledge about disability employment issues.

In fact, all of the 10 comments I chose to highlight (above) in this article deal with lack-of-information issues -- a commonality I did not discover until I reviewed, as a whole, my already-selected list of quotes.

But here's the best news of all. You can tackle fear and ignorance among the prospective employers you visit as part of your job search. Job hunting is a one-on-one game. You don't have to launch a massive campaign to change the myths held by 300 million Americans about disability and how it relates to employment to get a job that is right for you.

It just takes work and insight. You need to quickly identify your job interviewer's personal fears about disability and his or her gaps in knowledge about how you, as a person with disability, can get the job done. Once you've cleared that hurdle, you can both move on to why you're the best person for the job.

No small task, but it's doable.

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