Customer Reviews

The Disabled State (Health Society And Policy)

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This text is required reading in the Bryn Mawr College Master's program in Social Work. It is articulate, insightful, in depth, and nuanced. Her analysis covers a great deal of ground: it includes historical, political, and sociological analyses of our concept of the disabled as a category of people entitled to benefits.

I do not see her at all as for or against the disabled. She says, "the very essence of society is providing help to those in need." She explains who we see as disabled, why we do so, and how we identify and validate each category within the broad notion of disabled.

What I particularly enjoyed is her ability to identify similar ways that people have thought about aspects of disability across centuries of history.

Highly recommended.

This text is very useful for understanding what one might refer to as the social construction of the category of disability. It is not anti-disability in any sense at all. The reviewer who criticized it as such profoundly misunderstands the volume and reads it in what seems to me a perverse way. Any one who wants to understand a public policy issue would be well advised to make use of this book.

"The Disabled State" was a required text for our English course on Disability Discourses at the University of California, Berkeley.

Two aspects about the text are disturbing, in that they perpetuate ignorance and hostility towards disability, which remain embedded in the minds of American society.

The first problem arises with Ms. Stone's reference to a student with low vision, who helps a completely blind person understand the feel and contour of a statue in a museum: "This is the blind leading the blind." People with low vision are NOT totally blind. Many see well enough to move about with grace, and are quite capable of helping a blind person appreciate the environments of which they encounter.

Secondly, Ms. Stone claims that those living with a disability enjoy a "privileged" station in life, which only exasperates the hatred and intolerance of which the disabled community faces each day.

Disabilityphobic bigots who see the disabled as "targets" will like the author's interpretation. Regan Mason, U C Berkeley, 1999