One day when I want to feel stylish and confident, I pull on my bell bottoms that I combined with high heels and I'm off to the office. Here, all eyes are on me. People will take a second look. Initially, I'm a bit tense because I haven't received any opinions about this combination I'm trying for the first time. But the comment I've been waiting for comes when I go to get my coffee: "You look stylish today, Elif!". Of course, I'm still a bit skeptical. Should I take these kind words seriously, should I take it as a compliment? A few hours later, my doubt is resolved in a definite but interesting way! At lunch a few of us friends were lined up around a table. One of them asks as if out of the blue: "Elif, I'm going to ask you something. It keeps coming to my mind, I'm curious, but I can't seem to ask. I keep thinking about it. I wonder, I just can't seem to ask. You always dress so nicely, I really admire your style. How do you choose your clothes?" This question, along with "What percentage of sight do you have?" and "is it congenital or acquired?", is a candidate to be one of the top five questions that a blind person has to deal with the most throughout his/her life! I'm going to end the scenario I've imagined here, which many of us have experienced at some point, although the answer to this question is not included in this article. On the occasion of this question, I am going to reverse the relationship between the seeing and the unseeing for a while. We are not always the object of curiosity, questioned, looked at, watched? I start a hypothetical monologue with the question: "What is your first reaction to a beautiful piece of clothing? Admiration, appreciation, surprise?" When it comes to blind or crippled people, the answer is obviously the last one. But why? Why are you surprised by a well-dressed blind or crippled person?
The first, seemingly reasonable response would probably be a widespread curiosity about the color perception and knowledge of the blind. It's an understandable reaction, of course, since even for us, our perception of color is in some ways unresolved; however, I must leave the subject of color out of this article for the time being. Still, there is a large area left open by this response. First of all, good clothing is not only about color harmony: it is equally important to be able to determine what you can carry, what suits your body, what looks good on you. Secondly, and here we come to the crux of the matter, this bewilderment is not only about color harmony. You are suddenly confronted with an unexpected blind profile. You are more familiar with the figure of a blind person who is not in harmony with the majority, who is moreover unpretentious, for whom social codes are or can be stretched. I don't want to be misunderstood, I don't want to be offensive, because a single individual can never be held responsible for this situation. But we all carry and repeat the cultural and social codes that are mostly passed on to us unconsciously. But good news! No code is absolute and unchangeable. Here in this article, I hope to roll a stone to change these codes. For this, we will need to bring up a very broad issue such as the participation and visibility of people with disabilities in the public sphere.
First, let's briefly review the relationship between fashion and visibility and participation in public spaces. Fashion, especially from the 18th century onwards, began to take shape as a concept in France with the prohibition of the common people wearing the clothing of the nobility. After Napoleon, clothing and attire became a significant factor in regulating society, with the requirement of different clothing for different segments of the population. Especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, Europe's big cities were being rebuilt. Large squares and gardens where different segments of the population would come together are among the most important characteristics of this new urban architecture. In these new squares, streets and parks, clothing played a functional role in distinguishing between professions and classes. Similar practices were also practiced outside France in different periods. In Southeast Asia, in the Middle Ages, only the court gentry could wear certain fabrics such as silk. For a period in England, the color purple was forbidden for those outside the royal family.Today, there are no similar formal regulations on dress, except for certain professional requirements, yet culturally and sociologically, dress codes continue to shape our lives. We all consider the harmony of our clothing with the setting, whether we are attending an elegant event or a cozy picnic. We all have an idea in our minds, albeit a rough one, of what kind of clothes should be preferred in which settings.
Now let's look at it from the other side: throughout history, disability and blindness have always been hidden from the eyes. In some cases, these have been the subject of shame, in others, common spaces have not been accessible for people with disabilities. According to the accounts of historians focusing on disability, disabled people who have appeared in the public sphere have appeared on the streets by begging or entertaining people with various performances. These often aroused pity, contempt or fear in the rest. The image of the disabled as sometimes pathetic, sometimes strange, and at best misfits has stuck to them. Today, with the development of technology and the rise of disability activism, the disabled and of course the blind have much better access to life. Yet, somehow these images still persist in people's minds, albeit in a diminishing way. That is why every profile that challenges these stereotypes arouses surprise at first.
Let me summarize the article as follows: Today, we disabled people are the heirs of a decades-old disability movement demanding and fighting for equal rights in employment, education and social life. I will now add: we want our image back as well as our rights. In public spaces, we should be assertive when we want to be, stylish when we want to be, simple when we want to be, just like everyone else!
Author: Elif Aybaş / BlindLook Visually Impaired Community
