Here's where you can watch it online http://www.sundancechannel.com/push-girls/
Having just finished reading the section of my qualifying exam material that deals with stigma, I definitely noticed the lack of research that has been done on physical disability. Nearly all of it centers on mental illness. Here's a few takeaway points I think are important when it comes to stigma:
- People with a disability or illness do not immediately consider themselves "a disabled person" as their primary identity. If it's a new issue for them, their whole existence prior to the diagnosis does not suddenly erase everything about them. And even if the person was born with the stigmatizing condition, it still is not how they define themselves. This is why it's better to say "a person with a disability" rather than "a disabled person," to emphasize the importance of the person over their physical (or mental) condition.
- People with a stigmatizing condition know they have the condition, and know that other people notice it. Sometimes this makes them nervous that the other people will treat them badly if there are negative stereotypes about their condition (this is called stereotype threat), and this can make them act in ways that actually confirm the negative stereotype they are trying to avoid.
- Problems that people see as character flaws, like substance abuse, are stigmatizing and make people want to avoid those people. But problems that are blameless, like being paralyzed from an accident, are still stigmatized, albeit to a lesser extent.
- Discrimination can be supported as a cultural institution. For example, in the show, one of the women is looking to get back into modeling and finds that all of the modeling agencies she tries to work with have never represented someone in a wheelchair before. One even told her that their building was handicap accessible with a staircase. Thus the culture of the modeling industry systematically excludes people who use wheelchairs to get around.
- Not all people who have a stigmatizing condition are upset about it. The main thrust of the "disability rights movement" is to enable people with disabilities to be self-sufficient (see related article here) and not dependent on medical professionals or caregivers.
