ablesplaining

English

Etymology

From ablesplain.

Noun

ablesplaining (uncountable)

1. (neologism) The act of a nondisabled person condescendingly explaining disability, especially with the presumption that the disabled lack relevant understanding or authority, or are not in a position to speak for themselves.
   • 2016, Jay Dolmage, Dale Jacobs, “Mutable Articulations: Disability Rhetorics and the Comics Medium”, in C. Foss, J. Gray, Zach Whalen, editors, Disability in Comic Books and Graphic Narratives, page 26:

     In fact, ablesplaining also encapsulates the fact that most people with disabilities are not seen as authorities about their own minds and bodies.

   • 2018, Patricia A. Dunn, Angela Broderick, “What Does The Glass Menagerie and Its Discussion Questions Teach About Disability? And How to Undo It”, in Crag Hill, Victor Malo-Juvera, editors, Critical Approaches to Teaching the High School Novel: Reinterpreting Canonical Literature, page 141:

     Jim's presumptive mansplaining (and ablesplaining) is insulting to Laura from both a disability studies and a feminist standpoint.

   • 2018, Chun-Shan (Sandie) Yi, "Res(crip)ting Art Therapy: Disability Culture as a Social Justice Intervention", in Art Therapy for Social Justice: Radical Intersections (ed. Savneet K. Talwar), unnumbered page:

     A few of them offered to connect me with their therapists and told me how they had already “groomed” them with “disability 101,” so I would not have to deal with ablesplaining.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ablesplaining.