We often talk about the landmark legislation change for LGBTQI+ couples in the UK as the moment marriage equality was achieved. 2014 was the year we celebrated equal love, and although marriage equality for the LGBTQI+ community is still far from globally universal—with many countries still prohibiting it and even rolling back rights—the UK is often discussed as a place all can marry as they choose. But that’s not true.

If you are disabled and want to marry, or even live with your long term romantic partner, you risk losing access to your income support. Although we have disability-specific support, commonly known as Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which has issues associated with it too, those who are unable to work due to long term illness or disability also claim income support benefits—income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

An individual living alone can claim ESA, which is measured by the total income and financial savings of the household. So if a single disabled person who lives alone is not working, they are entitled to the full amount offered. However, as soon as they choose to move in with a partner, a normal and often desirable part of long term relationships, their ability to claim ESA changes. In the eyes of the government, the cohabitation between a disabled person and their partner now makes the working partner responsible for the disabled person who is unable to work. From that moment on, all ESA payments are dependent on the income and savings of the working individual in the relationship, which sets a toxic and often dangerous precedent for disabled people.

Alice, who is in her mid-twenties and in a long term loving relationship, told SCREENSHOT that she is choosing to live alone at present in order to access more help, both financially and physically, than she would get if she moved in with her partner. “He would have to work such long hours to effectively cover my half of the rent that I would no longer receive in benefits and then wouldn’t be able to see me or look after me as much, so I would get less help and care technically than I get now,” Alice explained. Clearly, it is not only a direct financial impact that losing ESA has, it reverberates throughout a disabled person’s life. As Alice shared, some of us rely on our partners for domestic help, cooking meals and more, so if a partner has to continuously work longer hours to pay rent or a mortgage, then we also lose access to that kind of care.

It is not only these tangible losses disabled people must experience but the more complicated and hard to classify ones too. Society is structurally ableist, and the last ten years of government have made no secret of their disregard for disabled lives. From the treatment of vulnerable COVID-19 patients to austerity measures cutting social care, it is clear that disabled lives mean less than healthy ones. This ableism compounds to make disabled individuals feel less than, and policies like the ESA household allowance contribute further to feeling like burdensome children, lacking any autonomy.

There is the idea that disabled people, viewed as one monolithic group, require ‘looking after’ and are not capable of things like romance and being desired for marriage. Alice described the frustration, “We can’t make the decisions that are best for us because of the rules in place, and it’s upsetting to not be able to experience the parts of life everyone else gets—waking up together, doing household things together—I have never felt that.”

Jasmine, who is 24 and currently single, said that relying on disability benefits has made them reframe how they see partners and marriage, “It’s an economic proposition, I don’t have the luxury of pursuing a relationship just for love,” because they know a new partner would become financially responsible for them. She reflected on that scene from Little Women, where Amy says marriage to her must also be economically appealing and stated, “It’s funny that women now shake their heads and talk about how far we have progressed, but really, that’s still how some disabled people who access benefits are forced to approach love too.”

Disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic violence than their non-disabled counterparts and also experience the abuse for longer before seeking help. Jasmine shared that they’ve experienced a history of abuse, so relationships that force her to become financially dependent and lose her ESA are worrying, “It is a terrifying concept, a recipe for abuse and an expression of the government’s eugenics campaign.” Although abuse happens for a myriad of reasons, and we all know by now that the question ‘Why didn’t she just leave?’ is as useless as it is offensive, there is a specific danger for disabled people who are financially reliant on their abuser, due to inadequacy in the government support systems. It’s time for everyone to see that some things have got to change when it comes to marriage equality in the UK.

Although she once proudly declared that she does not give many interviews, this week, yet another podcast episode featuring English social media influencer previous Love Island contestant Molly-Mae Hague has resurfaced, with her views causing uproar on Twitter and online in general.

I wrote an entire 10,000 word dissertation on the Class Ceiling and why working class people struggle to progress. But everyone has the same 24 hours in a day and opportunities according to Molly Mae so how can there ever be a class ceiling? 😍😌🥰 😳😳 https://t.co/Y0IOFk1Tin

— Rhianna Murray (@rhiannamurray) January 6, 2022

In The Diary Of A CEO interview, Hague doubled down on the age-old phrase ‘we all have the same 24 hours in a day’, often used in reference to Beyoncé—which is exactly who the influencer compared herself to—and other uber-successful entrepreneurs and celebrities. After acknowledging previous criticism she received, Hague told listeners that it’s still true, there really is 24 hours in a day. Sure, that simple statement cannot be argued with, but as many Twitter users were quick to point out, the C-list celebrity didn’t even bother to acknowledge the wide array of choices she is faced with when it comes to using her time. This is exactly where 24 hours can differ from one person in our society to another. But oh well, Hague chose to ignore those who do not have the privilege she has had, whether that is those caring for family members, victims of discrimination due to race or ethnicity or those who are physically or mentally unwell.

She really did a number at pissing the internet off because Hague is representative of a much larger issue within the new age of influencer culture. Individualism is perpetuated throughout the girlboss narrative which almost feels Thatcherite in its expression. Molly-Mae, although not the only one responsible for promoting the ‘hustle ‘til you make it’ type of working suggested that ‘hard work’ alone is the reason she is currently in a successful position, in her early twenties and earning a six-figure income with a seemingly prestigious job title (for a company that consistently harms its workers and the environment).

It is perhaps a stretch to suggest the 22-year-old, famed for her participation in a crappy reality TV show, rewarded for her conventional attractiveness and socialised in a world that promoted individualism to her, would be able to decipher the ways in which she is promoting a damaging rhetoric around work culture.

There are plenty of young people who have the skills and talent to compete with influencers like Hague for creative roles in the fashion industry. There are many of those same people who are house- or bed-bound with ongoing illnesses, who as much as they’d like to work towards dreams of a career in something they love, are living at or below the poverty line due to inadequate government assistance for disability.

Many of those people will have dropped out of education due to inaccessible schedules or lack of remote learning, and may still live at home in order to receive care. Frankly, when it comes to 24 hours in a day, those living with chronic illness are too ill to even consider much past the next hour of staying alive. Time appears to move slower or inconsistently when you’re constantly sick, an experience referred to by many as ‘crip time’, which asks us to reimagine what can and should be done in a time period. Alison Kafer, a professor in disability studies described in her book Feminist, Queer, Crip that crip time is “recognizing how expectations of ‘how long things take’ are based on very particular minds and bodies. Rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds.”

The influencer’s combination of hustle culture and young success CEO story led her to promote (like many before her) a toxic ideal that damages us all, and particularly those who are unable to physically contribute to work, or pursue goals society forces on us. For every hour Hague has in a day, a chronically ill young person may only get ten minutes.

Everything you do requires more energy and more time to complete when your body will not conform to working methods that non-disabled people and workplaces abide by. To assume that anyone can “go in any direction” is to ignore the ways many chronically ill people are defined by their bodies and the (lack of) accessibility in the working world. It is also important to note that work, or more precisely, a ‘career’, is not something all people (including those living with chronic illness) want or need to aspire to. The tying together of physical output with our worthiness will always perpetuate a mindset that is inherently ableist—‘those who work the hardest are better than those who don’t’, even if those who don’t are physically or mentally unable to.

So Molly-Mae, I’ve got one question for you, why don’t you use one of the many hours you have in your day to educate yourself on crip time? It’ll be worth it, I promise you.