Is a character gaining a limb back ableist?

Learning disorders are not relevant only to academic settings.

The presence or absence of learning disorders, and high versus low intelligence, are two separate things. You can be highly intelligent and, for example, dyslexic. You can be completely free of learning disorders and have low intelligence.

Meanwhile, I'm unclear on why this character has a prosthetic leg in the first place? And why bird legs? It's hard to answer without more detail.

 

I just looked up the definition of 'abelism' because I wasn't entirely sure how much it described. According to this definition, the term is usually related to attitude (except in the case of actual active oppression) and is often related to unconscious or well-meaning attitudes towards people who are termed 'disabled.'

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ableism

@Aviandalek - As @big soft moose mentioned, the attitude of the person with the new legs will be crucial to how this story comes across. In fact, your charcter's own attitude will be just as important as how other people see him.

His attitude is likely to be non-universal. Other people will feel differently from him, no matter what his feelings are. Does he feel as if he's disadvantaged? Is he depressed? If he is, will this change? Does he feel the legs are natural and enjoys having them? (This certainly might be the case if he has no memory of his previous life. And it might change if his memory comes back.) Does he feel grateful that he's not as disadvantaged as he would be, if he had no legs at all? Do these particular legs confer advantages over his original legs? (Maybe he can run faster, or perch on things, or something like that? Maybe they fold up differently from human legs.)

You can talk to a person in a wheelchair, for example, and get a similar set of reactions, I expect.

Some people might feel very depressed and disadvantaged if they are required to use a wheelchair, and they can't do the things they used to do, or what they see other people doing. However, others may well feel lucky BECAUSE not having a wheelchair would confine them to bed, chair, whatever, and make them totally dependent on others. A wheelchair allows more independence.

It would be interesting to talk to people who do use wheelchairs to get their thoughts on this issue. Then you can project their attitudes towards your character. Same with the user of any prosthetic limb, etc.

In other words, do some research on this issue. What do people who rely on devices like these think about their situation? And how does having access to these devices change their lives? Obviously it will change their lives from somebody who doesn't need these devices. But it will also change their lives from people who need these devices but don't have access to them.

Do research. Figure out what the advantages and disadvantages of your character's bird legs would be. Figure out how you might feel if you had the legs. (Perhaps even construct other characters who also have the legs, and decide how THEY would react to having them.) Don't try to be too universal. What would THIS character's attitude be? Then write your character as honestly as possible.

 

I'm really glad (impressed more than glad honestly) that a few of you folks can wrangle up entire groups of beta readers from strangers - with shared backgrounds and circumstances no less.

Amazing from my perspective.

 

Once it starts, it can kinda snowball, actually. I've been really lucky with betas as well.

 

It is not ableism, because ableism is a made-up term by a bunch of oversensitive people that can't laugh at themselves.

Hell, I could be diagnosed with cancer today, and I know the first thing my friend would say is, "free shit for life!" And I'd laugh, because I'm not a miserable person.

I was raised to see no problem with offensive jokes, so long as they remained jokes. I like 9/11, cancer, midget, and sexist jokes,and I see no problem with it, because they're jokes.

 

Okay, Mod hat on here. This is an official warning. Next step is a thread ban and infraction points.

I want to re-state big soft moose 's warning from earlier in the thread : "The topic at hand is whether it is is or isn't ableist for the OP to write the character as described... we aren't going to let it spin out in to a debate about the rights and wrongs of political correctness in general."

Your post is hugging the edge of the cliff on this one. Please let's help the writer do what they are concerned about doing, rather than provoke a discussion about political correctness/jokes, in general etc.

If you want to discuss the appropriateness of jokes about disability or illness, take it to the Debate Room.

 

Gotcha. Didn't realize there was a debate room!

Anyways, to answer the OP, even following the popular usage of the term, what you wrote doesn't fit into that.

 

What I don't understand is, if the character doesn't realize anything has changed about him, and nobody else is fazed about the bird legs either, why bother to give them to him? Are you writing about a society where these things routinely happen, like the neighbor lady might show up tomorrow with a mermaid tail?

Not trying to be snarky, but it seems to me if the character is going to have this happen to him (from the original loss of the leg, to the weird transplants), it should make a difference to his life and who he is. I can't speak to the ableism debate in general, but I know that if I encountered a character who had a difficulty I identified with, and it had no impact whatsoever on him, I'd be astonished and probably wouldn't finish the book.

Unless it's a weird world

 

I've been thinking about this for a bit.
I don't think I would be able to avoid accidental abelism but as long as you think about it, and consider the issues that would help
HOWEVER
I've been thinking about how I might write ablism into a story like this. (to examine/critique it) - I would have someone list their romantic requirements - then the friend says "Birdlegs here fits all of those" - to be met with "I could never"(which crushes birdleg's heart) . Then later birdleg has a good relationship and the person who listed their romance needs gets jealous. "could have been yours if you weren't a dick about birdlegs"

My main thing about ableism is that it isn't about the person with the disability, it is about someone's reaction to those with disabilities. Whether they are "they are disabled so they can't be the thief" or "Can't be the hero" or "can't be the love interest" or whatever.
I know that ableism is also about including ramps or braille or whatever, but for me it is more about treating people equitably

 

It definitely makes me sad how difficult to it is to ask these sorts of questions without someone sticking their tongue out and going "well, why's it matter?" like a child. Of course you should put some thought into whether or not what you right is going to step on someone's toes, because you know, you don't want there to be a dissonance between what you're trying to say and what you end up saying.

In regards to whether or not this particular idea would be ableist, it kinda depends? I don't think the fact that it happened would be in any way inherently offensive, but if it were portrayed as unambiguously a good thing, maybe--because we're talking about something that happened without this character's consent, disrupting their life and potentially putting them in danger should the operation fail. If that fact is totally wiped from their mind, it doesn't have terribly much effect on their life, does it? In that case, I personally think it'd be better to shelve the whole amnesia thing and make it a story about how these disabilities can effect one's identity, and the negative impact it may have if these things are suddenly removed no matter the benefits.

 

It's a fact that people with disabilities have to live with constraints. They deal with them every day. How they experience and work around these constraints is an excellent area to explore in fiction, and a good source of conflict for any story. Tyrion Lannister is one of my favorite characters in fiction who has a disability. He is not a good sword fighter, and people call him "half man" like he isn't even a full person. But he's still one of the most important, likeable, and moral characters in that series. It's not because GRRM makes him out to be something that he can't be (a world-class sword fighter), it's because of how he has found room to excel in other areas.

Ableism is the failure to respect someone who has a disability as you would anyone else. Everyone has to live with constraints. People with disabilities just have to live with specific, omnipresent, and often highly visible constraints. Represent all your characters as real people making the best of their situation and you'll be fine.