Brooke welcomes writer and advocate Lucy Webster to discuss disability, activism, and journalism. They dive into various topics, including how they refer to their disabilities, the importance of access needs, and the pressure to share personal disability stories. They also explore their experiences as disabled individuals during childhood and the challenges they faced in school, as well as highlighting the lack of representation for disabled people in traditional media and the power of social media in creating a supportive disabled community. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Finding community is crucial for disabled individuals. Lucy emphasises the importance of connecting with other disabled people, as it can provide support, understanding, and a sense of belonging.
• Ableism and sexism often intersect and impact disabled women in unique ways. Lucy discusses how societal expectations of womanhood and motherhood can be exclusionary and discriminatory towards disabled women.
• Social media has played a significant role in changing the narrative around disability. It has provided a platform for disabled individuals to share their experiences, challenge stereotypes, and create a sense of representation that was previously lacking in traditional media.
• Ableism is pervasive and often goes unnoticed by non-disabled individuals. Lucy highlights the need for greater awareness and recognition of ableism in society, as well as the importance of calling it out and challenging it when encountered.

BEST MOMENTS

"I tend to just refer to myself as a power chair user because that's the thing that people need to know about access needs." 

"I think as disabled people, we're almost expected to just roll over and be like a public education service." 

"Teenagers are mean. I now know some great teenagers but personally I'm not one of them." 

"Disabled people are everywhere. I write about disability in the arts, in politics, in culture, in healthcare, in whatever, you name it, disabled people are there, I write about it." 

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Lucy Webster - https://lucy-webster.com/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/disabled-and-proud/id1621152878

Disabled and Proud is the show that brings listeners a different perspective on disability. Each week this podcast highlights an awesome disabled guest speaking about their own disability; why they are proud to be disabled and why they are proud to be themselves. 

The conversations in this show will look at what challenges these amazing people face socially, mentally, physically and life in general. This show is raw, open, honest, funny, welcoming and educational. 

Disabled & Proud does exactly what it says on the tin! And whilst we are creating this space for disabled people to be unashamedly themselves, without the need to conform to society, this is also not about toxic positivity. This show will be shining a big, bright light on disability without it being “Paralympic or pity”. 

As you will hear disability is WHOLE, COMPLETE & PERFECT and whilst the topic of disability can be quite heavy - and we definitely don't shy away from the bad days - this podcast is also about having fun too! Our aim is to play a part in reclaiming the word disability - turning it from inadequacy to perfection!