Someone on r/Disability asked when “Handicapped” became an offensive word (and I went into Nerd!Mode and wrote out the whole history).
And it’s a better fit for here:
I used to be confused about why “Handicap” became offensive, too (as I remember it, the movement to stop using it started picking up steam in the early 1990s). And then, a few years ago, I went on a deep dive into the history of it for part of a book I was working on (My main source for this info was an article in an academic journal I found online that’s now behind a paywall {sigh}).
But this is what I remember. I love it as part of word history, because it says so much about how we perceive things, and how we choose the words we do.
Anyway:
The Folk History of the word says that’s because it comes from the phrase “Cap-in-Hand” – in other words, begging, and gives the suggestion that the only thing disabled people are good for is begging.
The true history of the word is that it started out associated with sports (Golf, and Horse Racing) and referred to an extra difficulty the stronger competitor had to deal with in order to even up the stakes for the weaker competitors.
Around the turn of the 20th century, it started being applied to children with intellectual impairments, and framing their lives as being burdened by their limitations. It might have started out as neutral at the time, but it quickly morphed first to a term of pity porn, and a derogatory term (The children are burdened by their impairments, and they are, in turn, a burden on Society).
At the end of World War 1, the word “Handicap” began to be applied to all disabilities, especially to the wounded soldiers coming back from the War, and applying for government assistance. And then, the military system spread to the civilian sector, and the way states ran their welfare systems.
And so, by the middle of the 20th century, the word “Handicap” came to be associated with bureaucracy and having to submit to “experts” examining us, to decide how much help we deserve, and how many hoops we have to jump through to get it (some things never change). And so that feels like begging with “Cap in hand,” even if that isn’t where the word actually comes from.
And then, by the ‘90s, the “Social Model of Disability” began to take hold – that’s the idea that we’re not only disabled by our own impairments, but also by how our society is built (lack of accessible housing, inflexible employment requirements, etc.) and the word “Handicapped” implies that our impairments are burdens we carry for ourselves, and “Disability” doesn’t.So that’s why the consensus was gradually reached that “Disability” was the better word.
(Sorry this got long; I’m something of a word and history geek)
I’ve always thought it was a bit of a shame this developed this way. Because I don’t blame anyone for rejecting the term with all this associated baggage. But “handicap” in the horse racing sense is such an excellent counterpoint to privilege.
Like in horse racing, a horse might be made to carry extra weight on the saddle as a handicap, to even the odds for betting. This is not something natural to the horse. It’s something allocated to him by a third party serving its own interests — the handicapper wants to make betting more exciting and lucrative for the gamblers.
To me that’s such a good metaphor for the ways systemic oppression create problems for the disabled. It’s not that you are inherently any less than anybody else, it’s that you have this extra burden placed on you but are still expected to compete in the same race. Accommodations could eliminate that handicap, but gosh, then the system wouldn’t get advantages for outsiders now would it?
So yeah. It’s a problematic and outdated term to be sure but it makes a neat metaphor.
