Diversity: everywhere you turn … superficial concern?
Our society is paying greater attention to and increasingly engaging with inclusion issues. Companies and brands are positioning themselves accordingly, advocating diversity within their own ranks and in society in general. Initiatives and debate often focus on women in leadership positions, closing the gender pay gap and discrimination based on ethnicity and sexual orientation. Yet people with disabilities continue to receive little attention as a societal group.
Major economic opportunities
The latest research on diversity management indicates that the issue is insufficiently understood and generally given inadequate consideration. An Accenture study, titled Getting the Equal: The Disability Inclusion Market, has concluded that inclusion could give the US labor market alone access to an estimated 10.7 million additional skilled workers. A gross domestic product increase of $25 billion would result, according to projections, from a mere 1 percent increase in disabled people entering the US workforce. Over the four-year period studied, companies that have taken the lead regarding the inclusion of people with disabilities recorded 28% higher revenues and twice the net profit with a 30% wider profit margin, on average.
Social media: a bubble with potential
All across social media the story is mostly the same: people with disabilities are nearly invisible. Scandalously, algorithms have in some cases been employed to limit the exposure of disabled persons. Many users of prominent social media outlets are unaware that they in a sense exist in a bubble there which keeps people with disabilities out of sight. This limiting of awareness of the lives of disabled individuals through effective algorithmic censorship of their existence (unless deliberately searched for) represents an entirely deplorable state of affairs. Rather than having to deliberately seek out the disabled to have any encounter with them, the disabled should be found here and there by chance as part of holistic approach to diversity, so that awareness of their presence in society arises naturally.
Here we feature stories about a few individuals who are noteworthy for their activism in striving to make holistic diversity the "new normal" – even though it should have become the “old normal” long ago. One such person we interviewed is Laura Gehlhaar, who as author, consultant and inclusion coach is a leader in promoting accessibility and the rights of the disabled. Our talk with Laura will be published soon in Changing Cultures Magazine.
Laura Gehlhaar
Website // Instagram // Twitter // Book recommendation: Kann man da noch was machen? // Image: @Schall & Schnabel
Other people who raise awareness, advocate and educate about the issues facing people with disabilities:
Lizzie Velasquez
Instagram
New narratives and examples of change
Positive examples can be found of companies, social media platforms and marketing campaigns that include people with disabilities without a stereotyping or condescending focus on their lot in life as impaired individuals locked in a day-to-day struggle. Rather, in these new narratives disabled people are shown as having the same normal human needs, preferences and desires that we all do, thus helping increase understanding and raise awareness.
Starting point: accessibility
Improving the accessibility of digital content represents the low-hanging fruit in terms of making gains toward equal opportunity. People with disabilities are currently 50% more likely to encounter barriers when accessing digital and online content. A 2021 study revealed that 97.4% of all website landing pages have identifiable accessibility deficits. Yet there are many simple ways to eliminate such barriers to give disabled people greater presence and increase their participation, such as using hashtags to describe images, posting alternative texts under images and providing subtitles and audio descriptors for videos. A number of guides have been published on how to make accounts and websites more accessible.
Barrier free posting: https://barrierefreiposten.de/barrierefreiPosten.html
Digital accessibility portal: https://www.netz-barrierefrei.de/wordpress/
Checklist for an accessible website: https://wsb-werbeagentur.de/online-marketing/checkliste-fuer-eine-barrierefreie-website/
Some changes may require minor behavioral adjustment, but are definitely worth it to bring about a ‘preferable future’. We at STURMundDRANG are moving up the learning curve ourselves right now as we strive to adjust our actions and work to establish new habits and practices.
We look forward to receiving more professional input on this complex of issues from author and consultant Laura Gehlhaar, who is a prominent inclusion, accessibility and disability rights coach.
Laura Gehlhaar Website: https://lauragehlhaar.com/
Laura Gehlhaar Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fraugehlhaar/
Laura Gehlhaar Twitter: https://twitter.com/LauraGehlhaar
Kann man da noch was machen? Geschichten aus dem Alltag einer Rollstuhlfahrerin. Laura Gehlhaar.
CHANGING CULTURES MAGAZINE
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