It is currently a Monday, 7:30 in the morning and snow is strewn across the streets of my neighborhood and the grass surrounding my family’s driveway. My mother spent an hour before she left the house for work shoveling the snow and laying ice melt on the driveway so that my chair would not suddenly swerve out of control when I am going out to the bus. The weather outside is freezing, sub-zero, to be slightly more precise. Despite this though, I am still only wearing a thick sweatshirt and sweatpants – no coat, gloves or hat. Why? Would that not be dangerous?
Dangerous? Not really. Is it uncomfortable? Absolutely, but so are my alternatives. See, I could put on my coat or ask someone to put it on for me, but I am only outside for a little more than half a minute as I get on, and later off, the bus. It does not help that the one time I reliably have to get someone to take off my coat is first thing in the morning when the aides are helping all of the other students with disabilities go from their bus to their next class. Admittedly, yes, that would be a perfectly suitable way to both use and take off the coat, but once that coat is taken off, where can it be stored?
It is too big to fit in my bag, too obtrusive to fit on the back of my chair and too cumbersome for me to hold. Therein lies the problem. See, when an able-bodied individual with a typical level of fine motor skills is done with a coat, I have witnessed that they usually do one of two things: either wrap it around their waist or hang it on a coat rack. I am unable to do the former because it is hard to keep something around one’s waist whilst sitting down and I cannot do the latter because my fingers seem to lack the dexterity to do it properly. I can get it on the hook, but I can never get it to stay. Annoyingly, it just sort of falls off randomly.
The solution I have devised is to ask somebody else if they can keep it with them, and if they decline, I put it in my locker. The locker, though, is a bit of a last resort. I almost never use it, so I forget it exists, and then I leave the coat, defeating the locker’s entire purpose.
What about in a non-academic environment, or an environment where aides are not present? I have never brought my coat to work. Ever. Greeting people by the door in the winter is not that fun. Imagine a polar vortex opening up every ten to fifteen seconds whenever a customer walks in. I still do not bring my coat though. There is nowhere for me to put it and nothing for me to do with it.
A comparison I think would be apt to my situation is the whole debacle going on with women’s clothes. Basically, because of several sexist comments and industry standards made by male fashion designers way back yonder, pockets in female clothing are smaller and slimmer than their more masculine counterparts. I am not just bringing this up to get a few brownie points for being politically-correct and socially-aware, I am drawing real parallels here. See, before I knew that clothes could be subtly discriminatory like this, I thought that the reason why there were almost no accessible clothing options for me that did not look like I belonged in a retirement home was because the market was simply too niche or it did not make sense to market to someone like me. Yes, while both of those things may be true to a certain extent, disabled people with varying levels of ability have existed for just as long as their able-bodied counterparts, and individuals with physical disabilities are actually the largest minority in the United States.
Why are there so few options of clothing made for me? I am unable to use buttons or drawstrings, so I am basically trapped in whatever clothes I have on. That is exactly why I do not wear coats, I would rather not be a human burrito. That is uncomfortable. Fashion designers, tailors – whoever I need to address this to in order to get things done, do better.
