Beyond One Day: Celebrating International Day Of Persons With Disabilities

In 1992, the United Nations established the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) to encourage individuals to take an active role in recognizing the experiences of individuals with disabilities. Each year, IDPD promotes celebrations and productive conversations about how to foster a more inclusive society.

As an active advocate for disability awareness, Texas A&M University Department of Sociology doctoral candidate and Disability Resources’ Student Advisory Board member Christopher Mathey has committed his education to understanding disabilities and increasing accessibility efforts.

After receiving his B.A. in English and Critical Social Studies from Hobart College, Mathey earned his M.A. in Sociology with focuses on economic and political sociology, social psychology, deviance and diversity studies from the University of Houston Clear Lake.

Mathey’s multidisciplinary background provides him with a comprehensive understanding of visible and invisible disabilities. Mathey has published works that explain topics like neurodivergent experiences, military and society relations and understanding nonverbal learning disabilities.

"I want to absorb as many different perspectives and bits of information as possible, no matter how anecdotal, no matter how formally researched and official,” Mathey said. “I want all of it to better inform my own perspective and understanding of what’s going on around me, not just in my own household, but also in my community and as it relates to my students and the world.”

Mathey explained that the existence of days like IDPD are important for recognizing disabilities, but a year-round focus on eliminating implicit biases would be a more productive step towards acceptance.  

“Days like this are great because we need them to help us understand at a broader level that those with disabilities do provide something greater than just a contribution to society,” Mathey said. “There’s just one minor problem: It's just a day. It’d be great if we had 364 more days during which each day represented some other group of people that received marginalized status.”

Although significant strides towards inclusion—like the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the advancement of assistive technologies—have been made, there remains a harmful stigma surrounding disabilities which is perpetuated by a focus on societal contribution over proficiency.

“When you focus on contribution rather than proficiency, there’s an implicitly ableist approach, in that we provide some sort of rank or value hierarchy to people according to how much they can give or provide to society,” Mathey said.

Attitudes like ableism and classism can influence more avenues of disability status than one might think. In fact, popular movie franchises like James Bond and Harry Potter build villainous characters that are differently formed, like the infamous Dr. No from James Bond who has pincers instead of hands or Voldemort from Harry Potter who has a facial deformity. Each time a cinematic decision like this is made, it causes audience members to unknowingly create a harmful association between physical appearance and character integrity.

“There becomes an implicit bridge, which is that if you’re not somehow physically acceptable or normal, then there’s something wrong with you, and then we take that concept of what’s wrong and turn it into some sort of character flaw,” Mathey said.

The presence of these biases make it extremely important that society looks introspectively to eliminate discriminatory views, which are all rooted in fear, Mathey explained.

“When it comes to attitudes like classism and ableism, they all come from a common thread, which is fear,” Mathey said. “And by virtue of fear, it’s ignorance and it is through ignorance that we get to fear, and it is through the fear that we perpetuate misunderstanding.”

As both an educator and student, Mathey uses his research background to engage his critical thinking skills and encourages his students to do the same, challenging what they know about disabilities.

“It’s about being able to first become comfortable with intellectual discomfort and secondly, being able to take our own assumptions and call them into question,” he said.

In the ever-evolving journey towards greater disability awareness and understanding, days like IDPD can make a difference by encouraging individuals to focus on shared humanity rather than physical and mental differences.

“I wish people realized that everyone with a disability is unique,” Mathey said. “Everyone without a disability is also unique. It’s those traits of commonality that bring us together. What should matter most of all is how we can use our own capacities and faculties to better others because that betters ourselves and causes us to realize that we are all in this together.”