{"id":62965,"date":"2014-06-16T09:00:13","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T14:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62965"},"modified":"2017-05-31T01:22:50","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T06:22:50","slug":"is-walking-overrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/06\/16\/is-walking-overrated\/","title":{"rendered":"Is walking overrated?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few days ago, Juliano Pinto <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-27812218\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">kicked off<\/a> the World Cup with a first kick. \u00a0It was a media stunt designed to make us verklempt. \u00a0Pinto is a paraplegic who wore a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton to make his move.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/450501254\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 65.993266% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/450501254?et=QLh_V9e_Q-VqZ_DHklHbQA&amp;tld=com&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=Qd5m6dQzu1VMSx8PzA0e-IUi9NjtiTTWHZSCezOeEJo=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"392\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n<p>We were to be awed by the technology, too, of course, which is being developed by the <a href=\"http:\/\/virtualreality.duke.edu\/project\/walk-again-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Walk Again Project<\/a>, a scientific consortium. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national\/health-science\/mind-controlled-prostheses-offer-hope-for-disabled\/2013\/05\/03\/fbc1018a-8778-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Says<\/a> the leading scientist on the project, \u201cWith enough political will and investment, we could make wheelchairs obsolete.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Red Nicholson<a href=\"http:\/\/attitudelive.com\/blog\/red-nicholson\/opinion-why-obsession-walking#sthash.oBJ0ZQcI.dpuf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> isn&#8217;t having it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ask any wheelchair user, particularly one who\u2019s been in the game a while, and they\u2019ll tell you that they\u2019re far too busy living their life to sit there worrying about whether or not they\u2019ll ever walk. We just get on and do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From his point of view, the exoskeleton is for people who <em>aren&#8217;t<\/em> in wheelchairs. \u00a0Getting &#8220;non-walkers to walk again,&#8221; he says, is about making everyone else\u00a0happy. \u00a0As for him, he\u00a0says, he&#8217;s fine:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>My wheelchair is a very capable tool and to be honest, the last thing I want is to be strapped to a District 9-esque robot and become a puppet in some corporation\u2019s half-baked execution of an obsession&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the meantime, he says, everyone&#8217;s concern\u00a0with getting him to walk again suggests that he, and everyone else who uses a wheelchair, is living a pitiable life. \u00a0&#8220;These stories,&#8221; he says, &#8220;are unwittingly invalidating a unique way of life for millions of people around the globe who are really happy with their wheelchairs.&#8221; \u00a0 So, he goes on record: &#8220;This is not my dream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>William Peace, an anthropologist who also\u00a0uses a wheelchair, goes further, <a href=\"http:\/\/badcripple.blogspot.com\/2014\/06\/walking-is-over-rated.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">arguing<\/a> that the exoskeleton is harmful to people who are newly paralyzed. \u00a0The scientists developing the exoskeleton are &#8220;sell[ing] the dream of walking to newly paralyzed people who cannot imagine life as a wheelchair user.&#8221; \u00a0This is bad, he says, because it encourages people to reject their new body instead of accept it. \u00a0 He writes: &#8220;the exoskeleton\u00a0is symbolically and practically destructive to a newly paralyzed person.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Instead of focusing on the one thing people using wheelchairs can&#8217;t do, Peace argues, we should focus on all the things they\u00a0do everyday:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Work, make a decent living, and be\u00a0autonomous. Own a home even. Have a family. Get married. In short, be ordinary. Walking is simply not required for all this nor should it be glorified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Nicholson concurs: &#8220;My life as a wheelchair-user is a very good one.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So hey, able-bodied media: quit making me feel like wheelchairs are a shitty, sub-par option. Stop beating your exoskeleton drum. And most of all, let go of your obsession with walking, because it\u2019s totally overrated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><em>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psmag.com\/navigation\/nature-and-technology\/exoskeleton-wheelchairs-disability-walking-overrated-83758\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few days ago, Juliano Pinto kicked off the World Cup with a first kick. \u00a0It was a media stunt designed to make us verklempt. \u00a0Pinto is a paraplegic who wore a mind-controlled robotic exoskeleton to make his move. Embed from Getty Images We were to be awed by the technology, too, of course, which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":62966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[218,23645,345,283,290],"class_list":["post-62965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bodies","tag-bodies-prejudicediscrimination","tag-disability","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-sciencetechnology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/06\/19.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62965"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70319,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62965\/revisions\/70319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}