“Disability” by Nancy Mairs is a wonderful essay which tells us about the problems faced by the disabled people on a daily basis. The way how disabled people are treated and excluded from the society is the main point of the essay. Someone being judged solely on their disability without knowing them from the inside is very wrong. Disability is just a small part of their life. Mairs wants to prove that people with disabilities are no less than any other human being and should be treated like everyone is treated.
Mairs, suffering from multiple sclerosis, has explained very precisely about the struggle that a disabled go through on a day to day basis. First, she talks about the media not treating a disabled in a right way. Usually the media I believe media has a huge role to influence the people and since the media’s view is negative about the disable person, it has a lot to do with the large number of people. So, I think she has started the essay with a strong point and presenting her views towards the media. She mentions that she had never seen anyone disabled like her in the television. But, the one woman who she saw on the Television was just focused on the disability that she had. She was basically interviewed for her disability not for herself. As mentioned in the essay “It’s not about a woman who happens to be physically disabled; it’s about physical disability as the determining factor of a woman’s existence”. It is a really strong statement the author has used and sums up the whole idea about how a disable person is viewed and treated. It is ordinary to have disabilities as it can happen to anyone at anytime. It does not mean that they are not capable of doing anything. The way how a society counts the disabled people as a waste discourages them the most. It stops them from living their life how they want to and cannot have a normal life. They are always in a fear of not being accepted.
The author in this essay has set a great example by writing a motivating essay proved that a disabled person is nothing less than a normal person.