2019.03.12
Kim Ye-won, a prominent disability rights lawyer and director of the Disability Rights Law Center, frames her new book as both a personal and political project. Drawing on years of public-interest legal work and a lifelong love of film, she argues that society’s treatment of disabled people reflects environmental and attitudinal failures rather than individual deficits. Her book collects film scenes as entry points to discuss how dignity, work, education and community life are denied or distorted for people with disabilities.
Rather than treating disability as something to be pitied or “overcome,” Kim reads movies with a critical eye, using familiar scenes—from comedic moments to quiet domestic dramas—to reveal structural barriers: inaccessible labor markets, exclusionary education, and the presumption that disabled people are helpless or a public burden. She purposely writes in an accessible tone to shift social perception before legal reform can be fully effective, believing that laws alone cannot close gaps created by deep-seated stereotypes.
Kim’s central message is pragmatic and urgent: change the environment and attitudes so disabled people can live with dignity, pursue work and hobbies, and participate fully in community life. She illustrates this with a personal anecdote about her young daughter learning pity toward a disabled person, showing how early social conditioning reinforces harmful frames. The book is a call to rethink what “normal” means and to build social, legal and cultural conditions that respect everyone’s equal worth.
Original source: 김예원 변호사 “장애인이 처한 환경은 내가 처하고 싶지 않은 환경” | 예스24 채널예스 (Source: the news outlet; please refer to the original article.)
