What is Audism?
Fig. 13
Audism is oppression based on one's ability to hear. In 1975, Tom Humphries, a Deaf scholar, came up with this term to explain the discrimination against Deaf persons, based on human rights. (Blanchard, 2015)
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Audism is "the notion that one is superior based on one's ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears". (Humphries, 1975) In the book Mask of Benevolence, Harlan Lane (1992) defines audism as "the hearing way of dominating, restructuring and exercising authority over the deaf community."
Lane (1992) also describes how educational and medical institutions have assumed control of deaf people's lives, claiming to make decisions in their best interest, but leaving out the input of the individuals themselves. (Blanchard, 2015) |