Plant awareness disparity: A case for renaming plant blindness

• Published in: Plants, people, planet Vol. 2; no. 6; pp. 598 - 601
• Main Author: Parsley, Kathryn M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lancaster John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.11.2020; Wiley
• Subjects: Animals; Attitudes; Biology; Biosphere; Blindness; Botany; botany education; botany outreach; Disability discrimination; Education; Handicapped accessibility; Knowledge; Learning; Literature reviews; outreach; plant blindness; plant conservation; Plant sciences; plants and society; plants and well‐being; plants versus animals; society; Teaching; University students
• ISSN: 2572-2611; 2572-2611
• DOI: 10.1002/ppp3.10153

Societal Impact Statement “Plant blindness” is the cause of several problems that have plagued botany outreach and education for over a hundred years. The general public largely does not notice plants in their environment and therefore do not appreciate how important they are to the biosphere and society. Recently, concerns have been raised that the term “plant blindness” is problematic due to the fact that it is a disability metaphor and equates a disability with a negative trait. In this Brief Report, I place the term “plant blindness” into historical context through a short literature review on the subject and follow this with why the term has been criticized for its ableism. I then propose a more appropriate term to replace plant blindness: plant awareness disparity (PAD) and explain why it both addresses the problems with “plant blindness” while keeping the original reasoning behind the term intact. “Plant blindness” is the cause of several problems that have plagued botany outreach and education for over a hundred years. The general public largely does not notice plants in their environment and therefore do not appreciate how important they are to the biosphere and society. Recently, concerns have been raised that the term “plant blindness” is problematic due to the fact that it is a disability metaphor and equates a disability with a negative trait. In this Brief Report, I place the term “plant blindness” into historical context through a short literature review on the subject and follow this with why the term has been criticized for its ableism. I then propose a more appropriate term to replace plant blindness: plant awareness disparity (PAD) and explain why it both addresses the problems with “plant blindness” while keeping the original reasoning behind the term intact.