Disability activist and journalist Lucy Webster is the author behind memoir A View From Down Here and is intent on creating a fairer and more equitable world but how is she going about it?

Dhruti Shah:

Hi, I'm Dhruti Shah and this is my podcast Have You Thought About. I'm a writer who loves to find out about what passions people are pursuing, especially if they managed to blend together skills and unusual ways. Each edition I'm going to chat with someone I find particularly interesting and has managed to fit things together in their life a profession that you might not think of as an obvious match. You're about to hear me chatting with Lucy Webster, a journalist, disability activist and author.

Dhruti Shah:

Hi Lucy, now it's wonderful to have you on the podcast. We've known each other a while and it's been amazing to see your career soar.

Dhruti Shah: But first, let's kick off because you have a book which is called The View from Down Here, Life as a Young Disabled Woman, which goes with your newsletter of the same name. So, can we find out more about it and how it came about?

Lucy Webster: Yeah thanks for having me. So the book is a memoir that looks at the intersection of disability and womanhood and my experiences it came about.

Lucy Webster: Almost by accident where, as you know, I was working as a political reporter at the BBC. But during COVID, kind of, what was happening to disabled people became harder and harder to ignore, I think. And then I kind of have my own personal experiences of ableism during that time.

Lucy Webster: Particularly with a dating agency who basically tell me I'm too disabled for anyone to want to date. And that, I tweeted about that and it went viral. And it kind of made me think that things weren't just going to get better by me doing my job or me being out in the world. If I wanted things to get better, I was going to have to make them better.

Lucy Webster: So I quit my job and I decided to write the book and focus my journalism as well on anti ableism. So yeah, so that's kind of where it came from.

Dhruti Shah: You talk about many, many different things in the book, there is the challenges, the intersectionality of having a disability, of being this young woman, but it's also your life.

Lucy Webster: It was incredibly hard to write and even harder to publish but, you know, the reactions have been incredible. I think one of the nicest things is Other disabled women saying this is the first time that their lived experience has been represented in a way that feels true.

Lucy Webster: And, you know, people saying, oh my god, I've always thought that these things only happen to me or that they go with my handle. I've been overreacting or whatever. Who would think it would help? So it's been, it's been really lovely to hear that and to hear it ring true for so many people. I think what's been really interesting is that disabled people and non disabled people pick up on many different parts of the book.

Lucy Webster: So, a lot of interviews that I've done with non disabled people, everyone kind of asked me about access, and about going to school, I've experienced quite badly. And about dating. I think it's because having gone viral that time, that's kind of what people know me for talking about. Where disabled people, especially disabled women, have interviewed me and talked to me about the chapter about body image and about parenting. So it's interesting to see this reaction to everything. One thing is that while it is brilliant to see disabled women loving the book, It would be nice if more non-disabled people interacted with it, because really I moved it to change things. And that that is in the hand of non-disabled.

Dhruti Shah: You want people to change things. You want to spotlight what life is like. It's a memoir, like any other memoir in that respect. You have cerebral palsy but this isn't purely about a condition that you have, this is for, as you say, anybody to read and take action. But why do you think there's such hesitancy to do so?

Lucy Webster: The short answer to that question is ableism, right? Like, we are conditioned as a society to think that disability is something that happens behind closed doors that it doesn't affect. If we're not disabled, I'll tell you, I have someone disabled in our family. But, that's not true. When one in five people are disabled, and, like, it's everyone's responsibility to engage with ableism and accessibility.

Lucy Webster: Whether, whether or not you think you do you do, even if you don't know it,

Dhruti Shah: With this act of demystifying the realities of living with disability, with being in a society where as you say, one in five people actually have a a disability, even if it's not visible, what is it that keeps coming up again and again that you realised was something that you could, and deliberately would, try to create significant change around?

Lucy Webster: Yeah, I mean, it's hard, it's hard to know where to start, because kind of everything is terrible. I don't mean my life is terrible, my life is great, but ableism is so pervasive. So intense that, like, you are kind of constantly putting out fires or trying to put out fires all the time. And as a writer, I think my, the thing I'm most able to do is change how we talk about disability.

Lucy Webster: and how we conceive disability. So, for me, it's about representation, it's about language, it's about Making sure people understand that disability is not a medical problem, it's a social condition that we create as a society. And that, you know, I will say the reason that I can't get up the stairs doesn't matter.

Lucy Webster: The problem is that there's no lift and once people understand that

Lucy Webster: they are then empowered to be activists and so, or at least active bystanders, whereas I think if you are thinking about disability as a medical condition you kind of think nothing can make being disabled better. So yeah, representation is a huge issue and the way disabled people are represented is really bad.

Lucy Webster: Whether that's news or fiction or TV, across the board it's quite bad. So my job as a writer is to make sure the information and the representations are out there for people to learn from.

Dhruti Shah: So what is best practice? What are people doing, even what you're doing, that you want to see more of, that you want to hear more about?

Lucy Webster: Yeah, so, the first thing, like, the first step is for understanding disability as a social condition. Read about the social model of disability. Understanding it's not some niche thing, you know, it's one in five of us. That includes the biggest minority. group. So you, you do not get concerned of a niche group of people by Also, like, hire disabled people.

Lucy Webster: It's really obvious, but it's not happening. If you're a news room, if you're a writer's room, if you're Like, there should be disabled people on staff, and if there's not, that's a problem. And if you are doing something about disability, you should be hiring disabled freelancers to make sure that you are doing It correctly.

Dhruti Shah: These are your words that I'm gonna say here about where you write about growing up in, in your memoir A View From Down Here

Lucy Webster: mm-Hmm.

Dhruti Shah: The narratives around disabled female bodies were rooted in ableist and sexist assumptions about beauty, excluding everyone who is not white, non-disabled and thin.

Now, I raised that because you've deliberately gone for that element of intersectionality. Why is that so important to you? That we don't just see disability as something homogenous?

Lucy Webster: Well, because it's so varied, you know. I'm a disabled queer woman, and none of those things can be separated from the other. And it means that the way that I experience ableism, is actually really different from a white straight man who was also a disabled man. They experience a lot of ableism too, but it's different in the way it manifests.

Lucy Webster: And you can't tackle any of it unless you recognise that reality. And I think it's just so important. It's so fundamental to the work that I do that I can't imagine not seeing it that way. But, you know, with the book especially, I've, you know, I realised my experiences were different because I was a woman. But they're also different because I, that I'm careful. Or because I have a speech impediment. And the fact that I'm queer. There's so many things that affect how you're treated by society. And we can't pretend that all disabled people are the same. But also gives disabled people a disservice. Because, I, none of us should claim to talk for each other. Like, I don't have that right, no one has that right. So, you have to be honest about everything to change them, I think, and you can't be honest without acknowledging the intersectionality.

Dhruti Shah: I'm interested in that idea of body positivity that you embody to, to take, to take the language. How can everyone? Able bodied, people with disabilities, actually become more comfortable with their own bodies when society posits such negativity that you have to constantly fight against it. It feels like that you're further along in your journey than perhaps a lot of other people.

Lucy Webster: Yeah, I, I mean, I, I find it Ironic, actually, that as a disabled woman who has consistently told my body is wrong and bad and to be pitied and shunned, that actually I probably like my body more than quite a lot of my non disabled friends. I think the kind of body

Lucy Webster: positivity that we're told is quite unsafe. That we're told is. You know, it doesn't matter what your body looks like, it matters what your body can do. Which, obviously, alienates quite a lot of people. I fundamentally don't think that the value of your body comes from anything apart from the fact that

Lucy Webster: you are alive in it. And that it's not gross. Which, yeah, we can all relate. So. Your body allows you to exist and that is as much as it needs to do in my view. You know, when I'm in pain and I'm sore and I'm tired, I'm not thinking, my body is the best thing ever. But I'm not blaming it for the fact that I'm sore and tired.

Lucy Webster: I'm just accepting that my body has to resist. In a way, it's not built for it, and the result of that is pain, but that's not my fault, or my body's fault.

Lucy Webster: Yeah, I'm not, honestly I'm not too interested in what's everybody is doing or what, what it means. Because it doesn't really matter. What matters is that I'm ostracised. And it's gruesome and irresistible because of the social category of disability.

Lucy Webster: Whether it was because I had cerebral palsy or I'd had an accident or any number of things like that. It doesn't even seem like it matters. I don't - Yeah, for me it's much more about the the social stuff.

Dhruti Shah: So if it's about the social stuff, what should be the starting point? So I say that because if people are scared to ask or not sure what to ask, what is a good starting point when it comes to creating a more fair society for all.

Lucy Webster: So, you know, if we just go back to kind of basic inclusion, like being able to get someone, being able to get somewhere, being able to have a job or go to school, rather than saying to a disabled person, what can't you do,

Lucy Webster: Just say what you would say to anyone else, which is, what do you need to make this accessible to you? And that opens up a whole conversation about access that is not based on medical diagnosis or lack or the disabled person as the problem. is based on positive action.

Lucy Webster: And it kind of works across the board. It works with, Oh, my friend who's a wheelchair user, I want to plan a holiday with them. Let me ask them what they need to be able to go on holiday. And it works with, I think we need more neurodivergent talent in this company. How do we get them? But all, what do you need?

Lucy Webster: What makes this more accessible?

Dhruti Shah: Fantastic. So that what do you need is such a powerful question, and as you say, can open so many doors, Lucy, as well as the activism, as well as the authorship. You are a journalist and. You actually cover a variety of subjects and beats. So, with that, can you just share a little bit more about your storytelling and the stories you prefer to shed a light on?

Dhruti Shah: Can you talk through some of your favourites?

Lucy Webster: Yeah, so I cover a lot of things, but they're all about disabled people, right? So, because, like I said, more than five people are disabled, that means that disabled people are everywhere. Which is great for me because it means that my work is really very interesting.

Lucy Webster: So, I've done stories about disabled people in theatre, I've done stories about social care, I've done stories about fashion and, and sort of things. TV and books and politics and disabled people really do get it out. And the kind of brilliant thing about my job is that I just get to talk to interesting disabled people doing interesting things all the time.

Lucy Webster: I love, kind of, telling stories that, of any kind that demystifies in our disabilities and, as I said, about 500 times by now, but, takes it out of that medical box and puts it into a social context. I love telling stories that kind of make people challenge their assumptions about what disabled people belong and I do a lot on dating, but I think that's a really key part of why I do that is to challenge this idea that disabled people don't belong in that world.

Lucy Webster: So all sorts of things.

Dhruti Shah: Well, I was actually going to ask specifically because you've also done travel journalism and I'm sure I read a piece about Tokyo. So, what was that like? Because that was, I've been to Tokyo and it was one of the most surreal places I've had the joy to visit. How about you?

Lucy Webster: Yeah, Tokyo was incredible.

Lucy Webster: I like to say, Somehow, both one of the most accessible and one of the most inaccessible places I've ever been. Public infrastructure is completely accessible, which is incredible, coming from Europe. Where it's not. So, you know, the entire train metro system was completely set free, there were disabled toilets everywhere, I mean, it was a different world from London.

Lucy Webster: And yet, almost none of the restaurants were. Most of them because they're so tiny that you physically can't get around to any of them. And most of them are countertop barstools, and everything I call a barstool. Although I did try, but it wasn't quite entertaining. It does show that this idea that the two can't be accessible is a lie.

Lucy Webster: It could be if we spent the money to do it. But what an incredible point. I have to say one thing that was really noticeable about Japan was that no one stared at me. Which, people stare here. People really stare in other parts of Asia, I've found. And I think partly that's because I'm also incredibly blonde.

Lucy Webster: And apparently there's not a common sight in rural Thailand. But no one stares at me in Japan. Actually, it's lovely, I might move there.

Dhruti Shah: One thing I also wanted to ask, which I think is quite important, around the fact that you're an author, that you're a journalist, at what point In your life, did you realise that writing, that being a journalist was something that you wanted to pursue further and that you had that talent for it?

Dhruti Shah: Was it as a child? Was it when you were older? What was the catalyst for you?

Lucy Webster: I was an incredibly nerdy teenager. Like, nerdy off the scale of nerd. I think I was about 15 and I'd just started a blog. And all I would really do was write about what was in the news. I had no knowledge of anything, really.

Lucy Webster: So I basically sounded like a knockoff BBC News, because that was the only thing I had to go on. But I was lucky that a teacher at school put me aside one day to say, are you aware of the fact that you write incredibly well? And I went, well, yeah. Because I'd never particularly thought about writing or set out to learn to write.

Lucy Webster: I was just vlogging because I enjoyed it. And she said, you should really do something with it. So I kind of remembered and I started, you know, doing it a little. work experience, and I was doing my A-levels and the internships while at uni. I can't imagine doing anything else. All I know how to do is put words on paper.

Lucy Webster: I think very early on, I realised that it was a way to get people to understand. Start to understand, think about. At the time I found very hard to talk about in person. Now I talk about broken record, but at the time I found it very hard to speak about it, but I could write about it. So I had a sense of there was some power to it. I really believe that.

Lucy Webster: I really believe that writing about things and naming them and describing them is powerful.

Lucy Webster: That's how I ended up here.

Dhruti Shah:

Lucy Webster who shines a light on intersectionality breaking down barriers and anti ableism activism. Do you have an interdisciplinary life because I would love to hear from you. Maybe we can chat on this podcast that goes with my newsletter but just what have you thought about can be found via www.dhrutishah.com. Please join me next time for a fun conversation with another guest who likes to mix up lots of things in their life. Do listen to past episodes and rate and review the podcast if you've enjoyed it. And thank you to Rian Shah for the music.