bigfootismyonlyfriend:

Getting pretty fucking annoyed at all the ableist reporting on Stephen Hawking’s death so like hey uh just a nice little summary of the core of literally every article about Stephen Hawking’s death and the reason why they fucking suck

Stephen Hawking didn’t achieve the things he did ‘despite’ his disability. He didn’t ‘overcome’ them in order to achieve what he did. He had a physical disability. He did physics. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Heck, as the fucking ableist mess of an article Buzzfeed posted said, he himself said "My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in.” 

They also included a quote from another physicist that says “He thinks about the universe differently, due to his physical disability. That enabled him to make discoveries that no one else could make. And he has. They have shaken the foundations of physics.”

Stephen Hawking and his scientific discoveries weren’t made in spite of his disabilities. His scientific discoveries and the achievements he made happened with his disabilities, and possibly were informed by them, and his disabilities shouldn’t be shunned or seen as something that held him back while his achievements – that he’s literally said weren’t held back by his disability – are celebrated