Disability washing is an unfair practice that is unfortunately becoming increasingly prevalent in corporate and media marketing, causing significant problems for people with disabilities in terms of representation. Indeed, this practice only fuels society's distorted and stereotypical image of people with disabilities, resulting in further discrimination.

Index

What is disability washing?

It consists of a company or organization using the representation or image of people with disabilities to enhance their public image or brand with the ultimate goal of increasing profits , without actively promoting the rights of people with disabilities or creating an inclusive environment for them. Therefore, it is a practice that seeks to exploit an important issue for its own purposes without truly committing to change toward a more inclusive society.

ableism disabled girl at the seaside
read more

Or even better, this practice, according to Marina Cuollo and Sofia Righetti , two activists with disabilities, “involves the use of disability to promote engineering and design innovations with commercial objectives, without however collaborating with people with disabilities or involving them in work plans”.

Disability washing, as well as other areas such as the environment (so-called greenwashing), is based on the exploitation of activism related to specific social issues to convey misleading marketing messages that have little relevance to the causes of that organization, association, or movement . This action can be defined as "washing," which in Italian translates as "to wash" or "to hide."

Why do companies implement these types of practices?

Because “they are aware that disability-related projects attract press and, even if the company's focus is not really on these topics, they flaunt minimal or non-existent ties to accessibility , taking advantage of the resulting media coverage, only to then quietly let those projects die into oblivion” (see link in the references section).

Disability washing has negative effects on people with disabilities, increasing disillusionment and mistrust towards companies or organizations that fail to respect their rights and needs.

Factual examples of disability washing

An example of disability washing is using a model with a disability in an advertising campaign without actually taking any steps to make the product accessible to people with disabilities.

Another, more concrete example is a company that uses an image of a model in a wheelchair to advertise a pair of shoes, but fails to provide any information about the accessibility of the shoes for people with disabilities or fails to make the stores where they are sold accessible to people with disabilities.

sociology of disability, ableism, disability washing
Learn more about disability studies

In this case, the company is exploiting the image of a person with a disability to improve its public image and brand perception, but it is not truly committed to promoting the rights of people with disabilities or creating an inclusive environment for them. This practice is considered dishonest and damages the company's reputation in the eyes of people with disabilities.

Disability washing can also be seen in films and television series where characters with disabilities are played by able-bodied actors, and in commercials such as the Liguria region's "Liguria da baciare" (Liguria to kiss), which aired during the Sanremo Music Festival in February 2024. This commercial features people kissing in various passionate ways to celebrate love, with a girl in a wheelchair and a boy appearing to kiss each other modestly on the cheek. The modest kiss between the disabled girl and the boy is considered by several disability activists to be an example of disability washing, such as Valentina Tomirotti, who wrote in a LinkedIn post:

Virtually no kissing variant is missing in these 30 seconds, and finally a couple appears, with the woman in a wheelchair, but not everything is perfect: the attitude in this frame is very different; no passionate kiss, but a chaste one on the cheek. Why such a drastic change in narrative compared to the rest? As if the person with a disability were eternally a childish, desexualized figure. Disability washing is the register that chooses to include disability as a good example of inclusion, but in reality it's just a means of cleaning up one's image because it completely excludes the others present.

Ambiguous cases: is it disability washing or not?

There are ambiguous cases, such as the one presented by Iacopo Melio, an activist, journalist, writer, and politician with a disability. The image posted (image link at the bottom) on his Facebook page shows a billboard. It could be interpreted as disability washing or as the normalization of human body variations and therefore disabilities, as Melio himself questions in the post. Or it could be interpreted both ways. The interpretation is subjective, meaning it depends on the sensitivity of those who see these billboards. Some are offended, some are not.

Simone Bellan

References

CORRELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM THE AUTHOR