08/09/2026
Ok. I’ve been working on the right words to respond to this since my dear friend Wepastan Scully posted it several days ago. I think I have them now, and I’m speaking directly to this reporter’s questions about why Gen Z women are “suddenly” fancying themselves disabled.
All jokes I may make as a geriatric Millennial about Gen Z aside, they are truly the first generation to start digging out of the trauma shoveled onto us by a society that constantly tells women and girls to “make themselves small”. I wish I had a nickel for everytime in my medical career I’ve had to counsel women in their thirties and up on allowing themselves to take up space.
Stop apologizing for your existence.
Stop trying to be the size of a sheet of paper so no one is bothered by seeing your human body.
Stop minimizing your life experiences.
Stop being a doormat.
Do you know what happens when women and girls actually stop doing those things, for the first time since, I dunno, Eve in the Garden??
They. Take. Up. Their. Due. Fu***ng. Space.
There’s a lot of sick young women out there due to these “vague” syndromes that are actually not all that vague, not all that rare, but are generally underreported, underdiagnosed and under researched due to the whole “women should stay small” thing. They have ALWAYS been there, but this generation has decided, instead of being small, that they will be visible.
They aren’t going to say they are fine when they aren’t.
They are going to use adaptive devices if it helps preserve their mobility.
They aren’t going to compromise their health for your comfort.
And you don’t like it, because it takes these conditions, that have always been around, and shoves them right in your face, and makes it really seem like maybe the medical complex, cultural norms and a patriarchal approach to research maybe HAS actually sidelined women for the entirety of history. Makes you feel sorta uncomfy, the way the movement made you feel when you realized most women were victims of sexual trauma.
GenZ learned from that, and now they say f**k your discomfort. Because the reality is that women haven’t been doing so great throughout history, the only difference now, because of 4th wave feminism, is that you can see it.
And as far as the “rollerblading one day, in a wheelchair the next”? Yeah. Sometimes we like to present we can do stuff other people do because being chronically ill f**king blows. Then we pay for it. When we brought our chickens home they immediately escaped and I used my bendy body to chase them through the brambles. It took me a month to dig out from that.
Us older folks are working through our s**t, and trying to take cues from our daughters. Today I was at my AA home group meeting and my neck started to spasm because I went a little too hard doing my PT exercises this morning. It hurt to hold my head up. That’s not normal.
Years ago I would have said “I’m fine, my discomfort is fine, I don’t want to be DRAMATIC and BOTHER anyone” and it would have gone on to make my day worse. You know what I did today?
i got up, in the middle of the meeting, made a little noise pulling over a chair with a neck support, and switched seats.
Lots of space was taken up for that 10 seconds by me. So that I could ease my pain, and be more present for my family later. What a f**king sinful act.
Thank you Gen Z, for setting this beautiful example for us oldies who are still learning. The woman who wrote this article hasn’t learned yet - she’s still carrying the weights of female submission around her neck, but it’s not your fault. And in case you haven’t heard it today:
STOP APOLOGIZING FOR THE SPACE YOU TAKE UP ❤️
"This week a video went viral of a young woman in a wheelchair at a train station, filming the laborious attempts of staff to get her chair up some stairs after the lift failed. Towards the end of the video, somewhat unexpectedly, she gets out of her chair and walks upstairs herself, saying she “had a bit of energy that day” so could do it. In another video, she films herself putting on roller skates before pushing off from her wheelchair and skating happily away, Lazarus-like.
Even severely debilitating physical conditions produce good days as well as bad. On some bad days, a person may need extra help. But when a disproportionate number of young women are insisting this applies, we need to find out what is going on.
Why do Gen Z females, apparently unlike every generation before them, have strangely unstable bodies that intermittently require support?" | ✍️ Kathleen Stock
🔗 Tap the link in the comments to read more: https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/young-women-walking-sticks-gen-z-disability-2ssv95mws?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook =1786006233
