"Our social structure is not inclusive"

What do you see as the cause of prejudice and discrimination against people with disabilities?
Our social structure is not inclusive. As a result, people with and without disabilities rarely interact with each other. A lack of experiential knowledge about living with disabilities is often filled with assumptions. These assumptions are reinforced by stereotypes in the media, films and books. This leads to a distorted image of people with disabilities and their needs, without asking people with disabilities themselves.

This gives rise to prejudices that often lead to discrimination ¨C and can be linked to a devaluation of the person with a disability in order to supposedly legitimise it. If, as in racism, we try to deny certain abilities to a particular group of people and thereby legitimise devaluation and separation, this does not lead to coexistence on an equal footing.

How can we rethink disability?
We often have a medical image of disability in our minds. The focus is on what someone cannot do. This deficit becomes a disability. In contrast, disability studies have developed other models of disability, such as the social model: disability is no longer located in the person who cannot do something, but in the environment. People are then not disabled, but they are disabled ¨C by obstacles that exist in the environment: for example, a missing ramp or missing guidelines. In this social model, we no longer have to "tinker" with the deficient individual themselves.

Another model is the human rights model, which defines disability as an interaction between environmental factors and a person's individual characteristics: disability only arises from the interplay between external barriers and personal impairment. For example, when I, as a person who cannot walk, encounter stairs. The human rights model calls for the removal of barriers so that everyone can participate in society ¨C disability is no longer a reason to deny someone their human rights. It also criticises widespread ableist attitudes in our society.

Wait, what does "ableist" mean?
"Ableist" or "ableism" refers to the devaluation or overvaluation of individuals or groups based on their abilities. The term comes from the English phrase "to be able to do something". Ableism affects everyone: we all live with learned ableist images that almost force all people, whether disabled or not, to be as "able", i.e. as capable as possible.

This includes the pressure to optimise our bodies through cosmetic surgery or at the gym, to work as much as possible, etc. We follow the motto: the more "able" we are, the more we are worth. It is this ubiquitous evaluation based on abilities that not only people with disabilities "suffer" from, but society as a whole, which can also lead to exhaustion and depression.

Even though these ableist images are deeply ingrained, through self-reflection and encounters with people with disabilities, we can all try to recognise and overcome our own ableist thought patterns.

What personal experiences have you had with ableist prejudices or discrimination?

The list would be long; it could be an interview in itself. For example, as a student, I always had to sit in the front row in lectures. Most of the other students sat in the back rows of a lecture hall with stairs. This meant that it was difficult to interact with other students during group work. This made it more difficult to discuss academic content and socialise. People often forget the social consequences of non-accessible building design.

Or another example: as a teenager, I often experienced complete strangers praising me even though I hadn't done anything special. They would give me an "encouraging" pat on the shoulder or press five francs into my hand, which was always a very painful experience for me as a teenager. Because at that age, you want to feel equal and on a par with others.

And then there was an extreme incident when I was working as the equal opportunities officer for the city of Bern. At the train station, a woman I didn't know asked me, "Who let you out?" I just looked at her in amazement. She then asked me if I knew what they would have done to me 70 years ago and said that it was quite something that I was allowed to move around so freely here.

Back to the present day: how inclusive do you find ETH Zurich?
I see ETH as a pioneer in the Swiss higher education landscape, with a strong commitment to improving accessibility in its structures. However, there is still room for improvement in terms of education: how prominent is this topic in education? I believe there is great potential for progress by strengthening critical disciplines such as disability studies and integrating them into other research fields.

If you could change one thing quickly, what would you wish for?
I would like to see more lecturers become aware of the relevance of disability studies for their disciplines. The questions and theories developed in disability studies bring many disciplines much closer to the reality of life for people with disabilities than is currently the case. Switzerland is currently practically the only country in Europe where disability studies has not yet been institutionalised with a professorship. It would be great if ETH Zurich could also take on a pioneering role in this area.

Finally, what would you recommend to ETH members, students, lecturers and staff?
Try to involve people with disabilities in your projects, your research plans, your lectures. Try to learn together from different realities of life, let yourselves be enriched by this, so that in the end you can do better research and develop better products for everyone.