Limitations Of The Independent Living Model

Introduction
All human beings, at some point of their life spans, will experience care. Whether it is care received as a child or as an older person the “giving and receiving care is something which no individual can escape from some points of the life” (Shakespeare 2006, p. 135). However, society’s misperception of people with impairment is one of being continuously “in need of care” (Morris 2005, p. 22). Therefore, people with impairment are viewed as not being self-sufficient. This misperception has led to widespread and continuing social exclusion of people with impairment participating in mainstream society (Barnes and Mercer 2010, p. 127).

To substantiate that care is a contributing factor of social exclusion for people with impairment,
4-5). Their main aim was to ensure people with impairments had “choice and control over service supports and remove some of their dependency on family and friends, with personal assistance a primary target” (Barnes and Mercer 2010, p. 127).

The independent living model has a strong reliance on personal assistance model that separates “the emotional from the physical activities” (Shakespeare 2006, p. 141). This creates certain limitations for certain people with impairment. While people with physical impairments “require basic tasks to be performed” (Shakespeare 2006, p. 141). People with intellectual impairments would have different care needs such “advocacy, advice, and emotional support” (Shakespeare 2006, p. 141). Thereby this would destroy the segregation of emotion from tasks that is inherent in the independent living model (Lynch and McLaughlin,
25) in which various “multidimensional forms of exchange” (Tronto 1993, Barnes and Mercer 2010) such as “care-giving and care-receiving” (Tronto 1993, Barnes and Mercer 2010) can occur. There are several shortcomings of feminist ethics of care for people with impairment. This essay will now examine two of these shortcomings.

The first shortcoming is the sentimentalising of the caring role while forgetting the risks and reality of care for the person with impairment. In order for people with impairment to participate within society, they must “receive personal assistance as of right, not to be dependent on care or kindness” (Shakespeare 2006, p. 145). The sentimentalising of the care role can also pose the risk of disempowerment in which the person with impairment “may feel taken over, spoken for, undermined, disempowered or even neglected and abused by carers” (Shakespeare 2006, p.