The genesis of Sines of Disability began in 2021, amidst the global COVID pandemic. While ableism and the oppression of disabled bodies have existed for ages, the pandemic brought these oppressions to the fore. Disabled lives were seen as disposable, and framed as acceptable collateral damage in the quest to return to normalcy. Simultaneously, the types of flexibility and workplace accommodations that disabled people have been requesting for decades and were denied suddenly became available to everyone. These two facts show how ableism is endemic to our society, and unveil the hypocrisy in our treatment of disabled bodyminds.
In many ways, mathematics has served as a pernicious tool of ableism. Mechanisms such as IQ testing, eugenics, tracking, standardized testing, and college admissions all rely upon the perception that mathematics is objective, perfect, and fair. However, all of these processes are intertwined with racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and other systems of oppression. In this way, the seemingly perfect nature of mathematics has been leveraged in dubious ways to sanction generations of accumulated privilege as merit.
The discourses around ability in mathematics are also a site of oppression. A quick web search for mathematics and disability reveals a wealth of results around “mathematical learning disabilities” and talks about the ways that disabled people can’t do math. There are also tropes about “crazy mathematical geniuses.” In either case, disabled people are seen on the margins of mathematics and our contributions are not valued. In many ways, disabled mathematicians remain invisible in broader society, yet we are everywhere. Just because you don’t know who we are, it means you haven’t been looking hard enough.
With Sines of Disability we are reauthoring the discourses of mathematics and disability and telling our own stories. We invite you to join us and tell your stories and help us build a more just mathematical world.