What is Audism?

The Definition of Audism

The word 'audism' first showed up in print back in 1992, written by Harlan Lane, however she credits the invention of the term to Tom Humphries' unpublished 1977 doctoral dissertation. Despite the term being created in 1977, it did not start being used until Lane used it in her work. Nowadays, it is increasingly being used among the deaf culture, by hearing and deaf people alike.

What is audism? The scope of the word includes group institutional and group attitudes, practices, and oppression of deaf people. Going deeper, it is the concept that one is superior based on one's ability to hear, and that deaf people should attempt to be like the hearing people as much as it is possible to be. Basically in the deaf culture, audism is similar as to racism or sexism, except instead of being judged because of your race or sexual preference, you are judged on your ability to hear.

What are Audists? Simply put, audists are people who practice audism. Audists, hearing or deaf, tend to shun Deaf culture and the use of sign language, especially American Sign Language as it is different from spoken and written English. Audists may refuse to use sign language in the presence of a person who depends on sign language in order to communicate. Audists tend to have misconceptions about Deaf people, such as they all cannot write well because English is not their first language, that the ones who can speak well are smarter than the ones who can't, that life must be terrible if one cannot hear and one should do everything and anything to help their hearing such as hearing aids or cochlear implants.