Bold, Bald and Beautiful: Alopecia - inconvenience of disability?

I recently read that disabilities—visible and invisible—affect more people and have greater consequences for society than most people imagine. It is estimated that about 15% of the global population is living with a disability. This is roughly the size of the combined GDP’s of Ireland, India and Japan.

So is alopecia a disability?

I would assert it is, here is what the article went on to say:

71% of disabilities are non-apparent and include mental health, learning, attention deficit, sensory (low vision/hearing loss), environmental (serious allergies to common products), and developmental/brain injury conditions.

So this article suggests alopecia is not a disability.

Mmmmmmmmm.........

Maybe alopecia is more of an inconvenience than a disability, however I am not so sure.

With alopecia, there may be in an inability for the person
to go swimming
to partake in physical exercise
to feel confident in public spaces
to name just a few things.

But do these things constitute a disbility?

Thoughts?

2 comments:

PandArchives21 November 2014 at 09:34
I don't have alopecia - and am a man - which I appreciate are both important provisos for me and others to take into account when writing/reading these words. But .... surely it is what you think it is. Whether it is a disability or inconvenience, a characteristic or a blessing, for you, depends on how you feel about it.

Those feelings are a function of a million and one things - and changing those feelings may be a long term or life time process. All I would say about them is that they are not fixed.
Anonymous21 November 2014 at 21:05
I would say that it is only a disability if the person with alopecia feels they need to wear a wig. If the person is open about the condition and is bald and feels free and good to be bald then I dont think it is a disability.
that being said i think it is must be very hard psychologically to be bald and to accpet it. But I imagaine when an alopecian gets there-there is no longer much disability or inconveneice.
is that possible? or totally silly and naive ( coming from a girl who has always had a full head of hair!!!)

Lauren