Last week I took notes for a joint meeting between the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Hand-in-Hand, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. During a break, I went to use the restroom. As I washed my hands, one of the meeting’s attendees and her assistant entered the bathroom.

Usually, I wouldn’t think twice about this sequence of events, except for one detail. The woman brought her assistant with her to the restroom because she uses a wheelchair.

After an initial look around the space, the woman realized that one assistant would not be enough. The dimensions of the toilet stall in combination with her wheelchair meant that she could not close the stall door if she wanted to use the toilet. She needed one person to help her get on the toilet, and another to stand by the main door of the restroom  to prevent people from entering until she finished.  Due to my proximity to the situation, she asked me to stand by the main entrance.

I spent the next several minutes standing guard by the door, informing a few very upset women that they had to wait to use the bathroom.

As she and her assistant left the restroom, the woman thanked me profusely for ensuring her privacy. Then, we both returned to the meeting and continued with our days.

I write about this ten minute interaction because it was the first time I felt connected to the difficulties that people with disabilities encounter. An act as routine as using the restroom became an ordeal involving multiple helpers. I–as I’m sure many people do–take for granted how easily I navigate this world. Riding the subway, using the stairs when the elevator breaks, or walking along a gravel path cause me no anxiety. For those with physical or mental disabilities, however, the simplest actions can require an enormous input of energy and resources.

Aside from realizing how privileged I am to have a fully functioning body, this experience also showed me that our society does not always value, and–at times–even resents the existence of people with disabilities.

When I stood watch by the bathroom door, the women I told  to wait could hardly contain their frustration. They expressed no compassion for the woman in the wheelchair who had to deal with a poorly constructed toilet stall as well as the embarrassment of having to inconvenience others.

Although the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act , passed in 1990, prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities, disabled people still face a stigma in the United States.

Society often assumes that disability is something to fear or pity. Consequently, all disabled people lose opportunity, no matter their individual impairments. Like many other minority groups, people with disabilities face economic insecurity and are perceived as a danger to groups in power. Additionally, society’s emphasis on health and attractiveness, which we generally attribute to individual effort, means that a prejudice falls on those who do not meet popular standards of beauty–someone in a wheelchair, for example.

A few weeks ago I read an article by Eva Feder Kittay called “When Caring is Just and Justice Is Caring: Justice and Mental Retardation.” Kittay examines disability through the lens of philosophy. More specifically, she deconstructs society’s current concept of personhood and how it affects the way we view disabled people, and their claim to rights.

Basically, we think of people as autonomous beings, and we value them based on their ability to be “independent.” Disabled people may be seen as less valuable because it seems as though they rely on others more than an able-bodied person.

But, who is really independent?

Almost all of us depend on others to produce the food we buy, to build and run the cars, trains, or buses we take to work, and to maintain the places where we live. Dependence is inescapable–it is the ultimate unifier.

If a web of dependence connects us all, then why have our laws and our attitudes often assumed that able-bodied people are more entitled to rights, respect, and opportunity than those with disabilities? Why are only certain workers protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act, and others–like domestic workers–excluded? Why do films, advertisements, and books rarely feature disabled people? Why do bathroom stalls in downtown Manhattan fail to accommodate a woman in a wheelchair?

As a society, we need to reconceptualize personhood. If we think of our selves in terms of our relationships with others rather than in terms of our autonomy, then we will be on a path towards valuing all people.