Why So Many Disabled People End Up Doing Unpaid Accessibility Work
By Mason | disABLEd guy A lot of disabled people do work that rarely gets counted as work. We explain accessibility problems. We point out broken systems. We tell businesses what is missing. We help employers understand accommodations. We correct bad assumptions. We answer questions. We test whether things actually work. We flag barriers that should have been noticed long before we arrived. And very often, we do all of that for free. This is one of the least acknowledged parts of disabled life. Disabled people are constantly expected to educate, advise, translate, and troubleshoot accessibility for other people, even when we are already the ones being affected by the inaccessibility in the first place. That means the people most burdened by bad design are often also the ones expected to fix it. Not through formal jobs with titles, pay, or support. Through emails. Through feedback forms. Through awkward conversations. Through social media posts. Through unpaid emotional l...
