Who is the Normative Human?

Who do you picture when someone says, “a person”? How is that defined by our society, and how can we push back on it?

 

Gender

While gender sensitivity in writing is increasing, many of us were taught in school that correct English grammar means using pronouns that assume masculinity when gender is indeterminant or unknown (though that convention actually originated in the 50s). For example, we were taught to write “a person may expect others to be like him,” “one may like his own way best,” “a child should be treated like he matters,” etc. Even with increasing gender sensitivity, how many times have you heard a driver shouting, “he cut me off!” when no one knew the gender of the driver who did it?

 

Race, Sexuality, Ability, etc.

Privileged people also tend to assume they are speaking or being told about others with similar privilege, unless it is stated otherwise. How many white people have you heard say something like, “I saw a guy walk in, and then an Asian guy came up to him…” with the clear assumption that “a guy” must be white unless it is stated that he is not? How many white people say, “I saw a white guy walk in”? Similarly, how many heterosexual people identify when someone is not hetero, but not when someone is? How many able-bodied people identify ability only when speaking of someone disabled?

 

Why Does This Matter?

It is important to avoid language with these assumptions both in speech and in writing, especially mission-based writing. The reality is that there is no normative human being; there is a wonderful diversity of human beings. When we use language that implies one image of normative, it treats everyone else as other and less than.

 

The Solution

I think we need to go beyond just keeping gender, race, and sexuality indeterminant when they are not relevant. That is a way of avoiding further elevating privileged people, but it does not erase the elevation they already have. What I believe we need to do is intentionally lift up those who have been cast down to the same level as those who have been privileged. That means writing in ways that assume the normative person is female, gender-expansive, BIPOC, queer, disabled, etc. It means intentionally bringing marginalized people into the center where only privileged people were before, and calling on your readers to see how they belong there. It means using she to describe a normative person who is, say, accessing your services – then describing her need to navigate the space in her wheelchair, to have a joint appointment with her wife, and to receive trans-sensitive, culturally-congruent care from another Indigenous person.

Redefining How We Think & Write About Disability

We are taught to think of deafness, blindness, paralysis, Autism, etc. as inherently disabling to people who have them, but they are not actually disabling unless occurring in a society that won’t include them. For example, if our built spaces had no stairs, narrow passageways, or steep slopes, and all meetings occurred sitting down, and all doors were automatic, and other such changes, then using a wheelchair would not actually prevent anyone from fully participating in society and would not be a disability. Or, to give a real-life example, there used to be such a large population of deaf people on the island of Martha’s Vineyard that all hearing people learned sign language. Deafness was not a disability when it did not hamper people from functioning in daily life. A wide range of difference in ability is natural to humanity and is not inherently disabling if society does not make it so.

It is important not to write about people as being deserving of pity because of their differences in ability, but instead to write about them as being deserving of compassion because of how our society excludes them, judges them as inadequate, infantilizes them, and does not give them full access throughout life.

Public health experts have learned to stop writing about being Black as a risk factor for certain health issues, but to write instead about being a target of anti-Black racism as a risk factor for those issues. When will the same be done for people disabled by our society’s refusal to support people with the full, wide range of differences that naturally occur in our species? At least we can begin this change in the ways we think and write about people with disabilities.

Don’t Just Avoid It:
How to Counteract Stereotype in Writing

People are sensitive, and that means not only that they are easily hurt, but that they perceive a great deal of subtlety and are often influenced by nuances of which they aren’t even consciously aware. In writing, outright bigotry is often easy to spot and avoid, but sometimes we subtly support stereotypes, stigmas, and dehumanization without even realizing it. Here are two techniques for increasing your awareness of how writing can either embolden stereotypes or replace them with humanitarian concepts.

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