When I was going through some pretty heavy medical shit a while back, a lot of people were speaking for me. They meant well but rarely got it right. It could be incredibly frustrating and sometimes even make the situation worse. Sometimes the presumptions could be downright insulting; after all, I was still an intelligent adult and being treated like a toddler could be rage-inducing. Other times, I felt like someone was “standing up for me” for the morality points. However, I’d be lying if I said that advocacy wasn’t needed at times. So where is that line between advocacy and pandering?
The fact is, consciously or unconsciously, most people have a vision in their head of the kind of people they think need their help. This is reflected in how they treat the person/people/group/brand/whatever they’re advocating for (and everyone advocates for something). Let’s look at a common scenario: opening a door for a woman. In my opinion, opening a door for a woman is a kind and polite gesture – I would keep that door held open for a man who was walking behind her. My assumption isn’t that she can’t do it for herself, I just want to be nice. However, let’s look at a bystander (not the woman herself) who sneers at me and says, “What, you think because she’s a woman she can’t open a door by herself?” That bystander, despite their intentions, has assumed this woman is a victim due to a simple gesture. Was she? Did this woman need a hero, or did she think nothing of it? Was I disrespecting this woman by opening a door or was the bystander disrespecting her by assuming she couldn’t stand up for herself had she felt wronged?
Obviously, issues of feminism go much deeper than who is opening doors for who but that’s not my point. For those of you who may be newer to accessibility advocacy, this is a familiar comparison. How do we avoid being someone’s hero who may not need a hero? I would even go as far to say that getting into any form of advocacy with the intention of being a hero is the wrong reason to be an advocate. Heroes are for runaway trains and baby carriages loose on Lombard Street, NOT contributing to a world of equality.