“Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilisation starts,” said anthropologist Margaret Mead when asked by a student what the first signs of a civilised society were.

She answered that the first instance of civilisation was when a broken bone healed. In the animal kingdom, she explained, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger. You cannot hunt for food. Your bone does not heal quickly enough to remain safe. A healed femur break is evidence that someone else has taken time, resources and energy to care for someone who was unable to fend for themselves.

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The quote became somewhat of a viral folk story, particularly doing the rounds at the start of the pandemic, when evidence of our ingrained and innate compassion was an especially soothing thought. More recently, doubt has been cast over whether Mead was ever actually asked this question or if the compelling quote was said by her at all.

Whatever the case, the quote has now taken on a life of its own, as all stories do. The importance of the quote lies in what it addresses – a fundamental and integral part of being human: disability.

It is not something new – in fact, disability defines one of the core parts of what we think of as our ‘humanity’. Thousands of years on from our ancestral roots, however, our societies often continue to fall short of being truly inclusive to people with disabilities. What needs to change?

Where we are

There are over a billion people in the world who experience significant disability, according to the World Health Organization. That’s nearly 20% of our global population. One of the biggest barriers to disability equality is economic independence. In the UK, families that include someone with a disability are 60% more likely to be in deep poverty than families with no disability, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The correlation between disability and economic impact means that the meaning of inclusion in the workplace is not a ‘nice to have’ but a necessity for many individuals with disabilities. Currently, there is a huge disability employment gap. In most countries, the unemployment rate for individuals with disabilities is twice that of non-disabled people, and often it is as high as 80%.

“Traditionally, I think business has seen disability inclusion as an optional add-on,” says Katy Talikowska, CEO of The Valuable 500.

Founded by Caroline Casey in 2019, The Valuable 500 is a global business partnership of businesses working together to end disability exclusion. Its work reaches over 500 organisations – including Google, Apple, Airbnb, the Bank of England, British Airways, Credit Suisse and Deloitte – and 22 million employees across 64 sectors.

“Through our partnerships with these companies and lots of research, we identified what we feel are the three biggest system barriers for disability and inclusion and business: lack of reporting, lack of representation and lack of leadership,” Katy explains.

By addressing disability inclusion via these pillars, she feels that change is already underway. Where disability inclusion was once seen as an add-on to the business agenda, The Valuable 500 is noticing an increasing awareness of how integral it should be to business.

“Leaders are increasingly understanding the meaning and significance of inclusion. Why would you want to exclude 20% of the world’s population from buying and benefiting from your products and services?”

Therefore, the consideration for businesses has become not whether they should invest time, resources and energy in disability inclusion but rather whether there are significant business risks to not doing so authentically. What is the meaning of inclusion – and what does it take to be truly inclusive?

The power of pride

Tiffany Yu was nine years old when her father died in the same car crash that left her with life-changing injuries and resulted in paralysis of one of her arms and post-traumatic stress disorder.

For 12 years, she hid her arm. “As the daughter of Asian immigrants, I had internalised a lot of shame about my disability. I had been conditioned to avoid drawing any attention to that part of my identity.”

But in 2009, she founded a student club at her college that aimed to create a community of people with disabilities to empower and amplify their voices. Diversability was born. Today, it’s a community with over 80,000 followers, hosting events and facilitating community networks across the world. One of its main focuses is what Tiffany refers to as the shame-to-pride transformation of a disabled identity.

Emmie, a 27-year-old artist and part-time gallery assistant, had severe scoliosis when she was young. She relates to the emotional impact that disability has on identity. As a result of her fused spine, she was left with permanent back pain, which has caused further health complications as an adult.

“I never really confronted the word ‘disability’ when I was younger because I was just used to having a fused spine and used to my body being different to others,” Emmie tells me. “But then, when I slipped my disc in 2020, things really changed. I suddenly had a really big disconnect between what I wanted my body to do and what it actually could do, and I became visibly disabled.”

She recalls feeling ashamed of her body: “I was taught to feel shame, and for me, a lot of that came from trying to fit into a prescriptive box and downplay my struggles, both at work and in the rest of my life. When I got my walking stick, I realised I had two options,” she says. “I could be embarrassed, or I could really own it. So I painted the stick and decorated it with stickers.”

Tiffany stresses that the relationship with pride is not singular or straightforward: “Disability pride is both a celebration and a struggle at the same time. It’s not necessarily saying ‘I love myself every single day’. There are difficult parts of living with disabilities and conditions, and it’s important that they don’t get forgotten.”

In the pursuit of creating cultures where people can feel pride in their disability, it is equally important that they aren’t romanticised or that their difficulties are not dismissed. “I don’t know if I’m proud yet,” Emmie reflects. “I think I’m more at acceptance. But it’s a lifelong journey.”

Reclaiming pride is an integral part of an inclusive society, and it’s at the core of what Diversability focuses on. Margaret Mead’s (accurate or not) quote provides an interesting example of where our societal views of disability continue to fall short of understanding this. The story going viral is proof that we’re interested in helping others, but it’s also part of the problem.

It’s not about being in a position to ‘help’ someone with different abilities to you. Placing yourself in the position of caregiver reduces disabled identity down to an individual being in need and retains the power in the hands of those without disabilities. The result is that we tend to view disability as a medical diagnosis, a tragedy or a charity case.

“All of these things are rooted in pity,” Tiffany points out. “They prevent us from being seen as peers and equals and mean there are a lot of assumptions and biases held by the decision-makers that control our economic self-sufficiency.”

Instead, organisations, individuals and leaders must create something different: a truly inclusive culture. And that starts with recognising why it’s no longer a corporate add-on.

What business needs to be and do

Ignoring disability inclusion is bad business – plain and simple. The Return on Disability Group’s 2020 annual report estimated that the global disability market controls $13 trillion of disposable income, and that the disabled community, immediate family and friends make up 73% of the global population. In the UK alone, businesses lose an estimated £17 billion annually in revenue by failing to accommodate disabled customers. And alongside a significant and lucrative consumer market for accessible services and products, there is also the question of talent.

“Recruiters, human resources staff and managers tend to think of hiring people with disabilities as a social good or as something they have to do to meet a quota, but they should be hiring disabled people because of our strengths and all of the value and innovation we can bring,” Tiffany tells me.

Alongside being the Founder and CEO of Diversability and the author of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto, Tiffany is also a public speaker with several TED Talks on the intersection between disability and the workplace. She began her career, however, in investment banking at Goldman Sachs.

Within a few months of starting, all the new hires received an ergonomic assessment of their workstations. A dedicated system considered employees’ access needs in a proactive and normalised way. They also ensured that at least one person in each cohort of new hires had a disability.

Tiffany was able to support the candidates: “I conducted informational interviews with other disabled graduates who had never thought that a career in financial services was available for them. It may not seem like a big deal, because it’s just one individual. But their lives were changed – they were able to achieve economic self-sufficiency.”

“It isn’t an add-on to the conversation anymore. It’s become baked in,” Katy Talikowska says. “Sensible business leaders understand that to be a successful business, you need to be truly inclusive. People are waking up to the reality that there is a very real business risk if you do not act in an inclusive way.”

Gone is the myth that achievement cultures and inclusion cultures are at odds with each other. Research shows that companies who prioritise disability inclusion – especially in proactive, normalised and human-first support – are more profitable overall. Around 62% of employees with disabilities have ones that are not visible or obvious. Even if business leaders may think they don’t have disabled employees, the chances are they do. 

“What is right for society is right for business,” says Katy. “Innovation drives growth. If you are inclusive, you will naturally be more innovative.”

By offering a company-wide, proactive, disability-inclusive culture, they are not only providing the conditions for employees to thrive but also paving the way for future employees, clients and customers who might benefit from inclusivity too.

“When we were first starting, we were trying to work out what aspect of disability awareness we should be focused on,” Tiffany continues. “But then I realised that there is a different conversation that is equally important. Awareness does not equal inclusion. You can be aware and still think disability is a tragic experience, or that it precludes people from having dreams, aspirations or talent.”

Creating a disability-inclusive workplace is about more than just policy changes or accessibility considerations. It must be accompanied by a cultural and systemic mindset shift both in and out of the workplace regarding how we think about disability – and it is a constantly ongoing journey.

The future is inclusive 

Whether or not Margaret Mead ever did get asked what she thought was the first sign of human civilisation is unclear. But the interest in her supposed answer is a testament to a widespread yearning to believe that, fundamentally, we are good, that we care for others when they need it and that we have done so for thousands and thousands of years. And whether or not that is true is almost redundant – the fact that so many people want it to be true today shows there is a hunger for empathy and compassion.

The question is: how can we channel that empathy and compassion into true inclusivity? How can we create a society where we care for others without taking away their agency, dignity or power?

“I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about disability because they’re afraid of saying the wrong thing,” Tiffany says. “But if you stay silent, nothing changes. Ask us the same kind of questions you would of any colleague. What drew you to this work? What are your goals? What do you hope to do from here? Sharing stories is how we create intimacy, and intimacy is how you create non-performative and genuine allyship.”

The role of community is integral to building a culture of genuine allyship and inclusivity in the workplace. Tiffany thinks of herself as a community-builder first and foremost, and Diversability seeks to create a global network of disabled individuals from the ground up.

At the other end of the scale, The Valuable 500 has created a powerful network of big corporations that are committing to a joint pursuit of ending disability exclusion. Over 500 companies putting disability inclusion firmly on the agenda is a powerful force. What that looks like in practice may differ for each company; some may invest in actively recruiting disabled employees, while others might launch disability resource groups or invest in innovating accessible design and technology.

Other organisations are following suit. The Nippon Foundation, based in Japan, is a social innovation hub working towards a more equal society. It acts as a strategic partner to The Valuable 500 and recently showcased Taiyo-no-ie (Japan Sun Industries) – a collection of seven manufacturing companies united in their mission to support the lives of people with disabilities through meaningful and permanent employment. One of the companies, OMRON, has been pursuing social and disability welfare since 1972. Written on one of their company manifestos are the words:

“What does it mean to live your own life? Since no two persons are the same, Taiyo-no-ie accepts each individual’s differences and supports them so that they can live their lives in their own way.”

Crucially, OMRON foregrounds the emotional reflection and understanding of what it means to feel yourself as a precursor to a corporate inclusion policy. Katy visited the factories recently and was immediately immersed in a space and culture that left no one behind.

“All of Taiyo-no-ie’s policies or accessibility designs stem from the thought: what’s going to make a human feel fulfilled?” Katy reflects. “Everybody has got the right to feel proud of who they are.”

To separate the emotional dimension of disabled identity from the realities of workplace inclusion policies is to miss a crucial element of what it means to be genuinely inclusive. Creating an atmosphere where individuals are supported in feeling proud of who they are is a fundamental part of the puzzle and one that Tiffany has made integral to the work that Diversability does: “I always felt like my disabled arm was this elephant in the room, but that no one wanted to know about it. I had internalised the idea that my story just didn’t matter, so I stopped telling it,” Tiffany says. “Part of my journey has been reclaiming my own story.”

In 2019, she asked an artist to draw her nine-year-old self hugging an elephant on the splint she wears around her paralysed arm. “By owning, accepting or celebrating your disability identity, you can experience a level of liberation. You can feel proud of who you are and find your voice.”

This article first appeared in Issue 04 of The Beautiful Truth Magazine. Magazine orders before Christmas will include a free tote bag, while stocks last. Visit our shop here.