LISA COX

DISABILITY ADVOCATE

Lisa Cox is an award-winning media professional, author and public speaker who is actively changing the way disability is represented in mainstream popular culture – like the media, fashion industry and more.

Lisa’s able to objectively assess the fashion industry from both sides of the camera – as a model and a marketer. She is equally comfortable in the boardroom as she is on the runway and has uniquely fused her professional and academic media/advertising background with her lived experiences of disability.

It’s this powerful combination of insight and experience which makes Lisa a leader in conversations around diversity and inclusion.

Changing social attitudes, stopping stereotypes and rewriting the narrative around disability is what fuels Lisa’s mission to muse, educate, challenge convention and create tangible change in the way disability is represented in mainstream popular culture.

BY Podcast Covers Issue 2_Clare

Lisa’s Podcast: Disability Diversity

  • From media mogul to disability advocate
  • Inclusivity is just doing the right thing
  • How the fashion industry can be a catalyst for change
  • Body positivity: Good, bad or toxic?
  • What does brave mean to you?

Transcript

 

Rowena Preddy
It’s a big space that you’re in that just doesn’t get enough sounding boards with people, it doesn’t get enough presence in everyday society, it doesn’t get enough conversations just starting around the, you know, the watercooler type thing. It’s just not as present as it should be.

Lisa Cox
Thank you for saying all of that. And recognizing that, you know, disability doesn’t get the spotlight shone upon it nearly as much as it should, considering how many people in this world do have a disability and maybe one or two things or events or people, you know, occasionally do get the spotlight shone. But generally speaking the day to day, it doesn’t and it should be spoken that more.

Rowena Preddy
It’s kind of like the elephant in the room in so many situations. And it shouldn’t be it needs to be in conversations we have. And we need to educate ourselves so much more in the space and take it upon ourselves to be a bigger and better part of the world.

Lisa Cox
Yes. And kudos to you for recognizing, understanding that and I wish more people had that approach.

Rowena Preddy
And for our listeners that haven’t been religiously stalking you like I have been recently. Could you give a little bit of an intro to who you are and how you came to be so passionate about the misrepresentations of disability in society today.

Lisa Cox
I’ll go Back and give you the slightly long version. So I grew up here in Brissy in Australia, Brisbane, went to university got my my two degrees, business Communications and Media, then started working in advertising agencies, worked there for a couple of years, loved my work as a copywriter, as I was making ads essentially for my national and international clients. Then, after a couple of years, unexpectedly at Melbourne airport one morning had a brain hemorrhage like a stroke. So they took me to hospital, I was in a coma for three weeks, on life support for two months and in hospital for over a year. During that first year, I had my left leg, right toes and nine fingertips amputated, heart surgery, terrible replacement. And then all of my invisible disabilities or permanent brain injuries, I’m over 25% blind, My speech has been impacted. My memory is terrible, which is why you’ll see I keep forgetting things throughout this conversation. I’m a bit wobbly on my feet. So I use a wheelchair full time as well as my prosthetic leg. What else I’ve also got anxiety and PTSD and things like that. So after all of that, I thought there is a way to combine my professional background with my lived experience of my quiet disability I suppose. So these days I work as, I still work in media and advertising but more part time and as a, I suppose a disability consultant theres really not a name for what I do. But I work with brands and businesses and teach them or show them how I suppose to include disability better in their content sort of understand those nuances better, I suppose not be called out on Twitter and canceled or whatever the case may be. Sometimes that’s in the fashion industry, sometimes thats in advertising or marketing. It’s in a whole variety of ways. And of course, I still write. So that’s a really quick, a really quick summary of what I do. It’s a mishmash of all sorts of all sorts of things.

Rowena Preddy
Like individually. There’s a lot of a lot of things there. But put all together that’s a lot to go through in a year and I can completely understand the PTSD side of that whole experience. But to come out the other side and find a way to actually combine, like you said your lived experience will be so valuable to so many people

Lisa Cox
I really loved and I’d still love the work I do. But I always loved my work in media and advertising and writing scripts, making ads being creative, essentially and joked with friends that I can’t believe I get paid, paid to do this work to write to create and so to be able to continue that work in some way was really important to me. I’m going to sit in hospital and and watch, watch TV ads on the dodgy little TV and in a hospital room and my eyesight wasn’t great, but I could still make it out and rewrite the TV script in my head. as best I could and think I would have used this tagline in the 30 second TVC you see on the screen and probably would have scripted it this way or that way. And the cogs were still turning, even though, you know, my brain, the wiring was all a bit different after the stroke, I was still determined to get back there somehow and still still really enjoyed the work. And I did go back to advertising agencies, eventually, I still do have had contact with them. But it’s just something that I don’t do full time.

Rowena Preddy
A lot of what you do is challenging and really questioning some of the myths and stereotypes of disability in mainstream pop culture. How do you feel that you’re disrupting these and what are your hopes for in the space in the future?

Lisa Cox
There are so so many myths and stereotypes out there? And I know that firsthand, because I, I’m guilty of having had so many myths and stereotypes in my head pre disability, I assumed I knew what disability was all about what it would entail, what my life would be like when I had disabilities. So once I acquired my disabilities, I soon discovered that that was a load of BS, and none of those were true, or certainly a lot of them weren’t true. So I’m, I’ll generalize for a moment, as a general rule in the media life with disabilities, you’re either portrayed as Paralympian. If you’re not a Paralympian, then you’re just a sad, miserable person with very low self worth, who’s probably unemployed. And that’s the end of that sort of the two ends of the spectrum. And there’s this huge, huge middle ground in between ofpeople who are just living their lives, getting on with it, driving the kids to school work, getting paying taxes, making school lunches, doing laundry, doing gardening, just like me, and doing all those ordinary things that that everybody else does. But we never see those people represented in mainstream popular culture. And unfortunately, we only ever see those extreme ends of the spectrum. And I’m not saying those things don’t exist. But we are only ever presented with those very narrow stereotypes. So I decided that I wanted to see some some more accurate reflections of disability in mainstream public culture. And there were certainly other people out there doing doing things like this. I certainly wasn’t the first, but given my professional background, and given that I had this experience in media and popular culture, I knew how the industry worked from the inside. Having spent all those years working there I knew I was, I sort of had a bit of an advantage in that I could do more, right, I certainly put those tools to good use.

Rowena Preddy
I’ve started to notice that across the board, not just in the disability space, but in other spaces as well. Theres starting to become more of a shift and an awareness around it. But everyone knows that it needs to be more, but just the fact that it’s starting to become more gives me so much hope for the next generation.

Lisa Cox
I absolutely. And theres no longer just one person in the agency who’s whether it be I’m not just disability, but cultural diversity, or another underrepresented minority group, there’s no longer that that one person trying to shout out for equality or whatever the case might be under representation. It’s it’s across the board. So it’s the graphic designer, it’s the art directors, it’s the copywriter. It’s the creative directors, numerous people going hey, where’s the person of color where’s the person like this, like this, like this. It’s there’s a lot more accountability from everybody, which is great to see. It’s a really, really great thing. And it does like you said, give me hope for the next generation. There’s certainly a long way to go, because there are still senior people and I’m generalizing. They’re a great senior people. But there are certainly some some senior people who are still living some decades past.

Rowena Preddy
Let’s be honest, a lot of advertising agencies can still to this day can probably be a true reflection of the whole Mad Men era.

Lisa Cox
Oh, I can say that. I was Trying to be diplomatic.

Rowena Preddy
There’s nothing that makes me happier to know that those particular stereotypes are being broken down by the littler voices. Yeah, it was one of the biggest things when I was working in an advertising agency. I refused to dull down my opinions. I refused to wear the short skirts and flirt to get ahead.

Lisa Cox
Oh, yes. I mean im the outspoken feminist, that frustrates a lot of old men, like I said before, people of color Muslim men or women as well as disability. So it’s not just disability

Rowena Preddy
one of the biggest platforms you’ve used as a catalyst for this change is fashion. How do you see that fashion can be leveraged to start to showcase this change that you want for the world.

Lisa Cox
I suppose I chose fashion because it’s despite all of our differences, and be they skin color or ability or gender or something else. Fashion is so universal, we all have it, we all use it, we own it in some way or another. And it certainly is something that, it sets trends. I’m not saying the inclusion of disability or the representation of disability is a trend. But I certainly hope that representation and inclusion and disability can be a trend that is a forever thing. And it’s something that can be included.

Rowena Preddy
In a lot of ways, fashion has been a cliche, and it’s held on to a lot of antiquated stereotypes that people are becoming more and more vocal about. It’s a perfect vessel for so many different voices to be heard louder.

Lisa Cox
Absolutely. And just a really quick add on the size and color and fashion thing. One thing that I have been quite vocal about in the past is that when it comes to fashion, specifically, designers have tried to be diverse. And tick that diversity box and sort of put a larger model on the catwalk or a model of perhaps a different color on the catwalk. And great they’ve been diverse and box ticked all done. But disability and I refer to it as the less palatable form of diversity. Disability never gets a look in and we see this time and time again. And I’ve been interviewing designers on the red carpet before and they’re all puffing out their chests and so proud of themselves. Oh, we’re so diverse, you should see our collections so diverse, so diverse. And yes, so you know, larger models on the catwalk and models of different colors. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All good to see. But disability did not get a look in given that we are the largest minority that was really disappointing to say I see this time and time again, fashion show after fashion show. So there’s my quick rant for the moment. And I’ll jump off my soapbox and let you get back to it.

Rowena Preddy
That’s alright I’ll keep it here in case you want to jump back on it because I’m totally okay with that.

Lisa Cox
I will guarantee.

Rowena Preddy
Now, what are your hopes for a future where disability is more represented in the fashion industry? Like what does this actually look like? Practically,

Lisa Cox
Practically, I would really love to see disability included, I suppose to just to use our curve models. I’ll say plus size because. I know some people don’t call us plus size, but I’ll say plus size models just so everyone knows what I’m talking about. plus size, also called curved models use that as a case study, I’m old enough to remember when the very first size 12 model was used on a cover of a magazine here in Australia. Everybody lost their minds. Oh my god, she’s encouraging obesity, oh, it’s terrible. And she was just normal. But you know, she’s not large. She’s normal. So anyway, the point is that that was some time ago, these days, a curve model, or normal size model is very mainstream. It’s just run of the mill, mainstream modeling agencies have a curve model in there with the other models like it’s really no big deal to have a curve model be on a shoot another’s don’t nobody looks and stares and goes oh geez, look at that. But these days, there are still special agencies just for disabled models. mainstream modeling agencies will not include disabled models. That’s not true inclusivity that’s just one example of how it could look practically there are lots and lots of other ways. But that’s just one example. We still have to have a separate agency over here for all the disabled models, a separate little agency over, they are here for all the perfect rules. I would love it absolutely love it for when I’m on the catwalk, for example, or somebody else who has a disability that’s on the catwalk, I would love it not to be in the newspaper. But at the moment. It is and I understand that it’s new and we’re at that stage in Australia, but I’d love it not to be a big deal.

Rowena Preddy
Yeah, I feel like we’re at that tipping point. And it makes me excited but it also means that there’s going to be that controversy because I feel like the way through to new norms is controversy. And as you know, people being outspoken are challenging the norm and challenging people’s perceptions of things. But you’re exactly right that that curved model example was a perfect way of thinking about it. Because I think about my girlfriend magazine, when I was a teenager, I look at magazines now and I relate so much more to them. As a woman who has got a booty, I have like bumps and lumps in places because I am just a normal, everyday woman. And we all have those, whether we’re small, or big, or all those things. And I can imagine, especially when you’re in a space, advocating from the bottom up that it can feel heavy. Yeah, yeah, from a person that hasn’t been in the space, I can even see that things are starting to happen. And it makes me excited.

Lisa Cox
It makes me excited to most of the time, every now and again, I just just shake my head. And think really, I just think really roll my eyes and laugh just not worth my time. I’m getting very good at or have got very good over the years at compartmentalizing things and just having a laugh humor is is the best way to deal with most things, I’ve found

Rowena Preddy
that and a very un-pc sense of humor if you want that, come over here.

Lisa Cox
Oh shit yes. Oh, I swear far too often. Yes.

Rowena Preddy
So you’re involved with style you the label now can you tell us a little bit about how that came about?

Lisa Cox
styling you Nikki Parkinson, who is a designer here in Brisbane, she has the label styling you and it’s a fantastic label non boring basics. And I’m absolutely delighted to be one of their models because the range does have models like me with a lot of diversity. So we have an Muslim woman, a curve model. And a woman in her 60s, Jan, who was absolutely fantastic. I got in touch with Nikki quite some time ago and said, Look, if you are after a little more diversity, I’ll be more than happy to help out loving loving the part of their brand, because they really do have some fantastic styles.

Rowena Preddy
And you do you align yourself through collaborations with individuals and industries, brands and businesses who share your vision? What values and beliefs Do you find you all have in common?

Lisa Cox
Yeah, I’m really careful to align myself with brands and businesses that only in some way want to improve the greater good of people with disabilities, I do get offers from brands and businesses or individuals who just want to do things for themselves or, and yeah that’s the obvious goal of any brand. This is not individual. But at the end of the day, like styling you, the fact that they wanted to include disability not just once not to for a token, tick a box, look, look socially responsible, but do it consistently throughout the year. And that’s what any brand or business can learn from. I was like, Great, sign me up, let’s do this. And there are a few other really great brands and businesses I’ve collaborated with because they are doing things consistently like jockey and doing it well not as a one off. But I’ve been really careful to you know only by those sorts of brands and designers who do show a commitment to improving the lives of people with disabilities, not just their own hip pocket sort of thing.

Rowena Preddy
And I think that that’s really central, it’s a big part of what I do as a designer is really nailing down on those values and figuring out what that actually looks like. And it can be uncomfortable for people. But I feel like it can give people such a strong direction and such a strong point of difference within their brand to align themselves and Stand in that spot where you go, this is what we are going to do. And we are going to do it consistently and we’re going to do it in spite if it’s popular or trendy or any of those sorts of things. This is core to who we are

Lisa Cox
sometimes I veer a little to the left or right and not just people with disabilities but it might be women or it’s somebody it’s not just them. It’s somebody serving people beyond your yourself serving someone other than yourself. There’s a another another brand called une piece here and they are a swimmer brand and they do some fantastic work with women and their brand here out of Brisbane as well. And I collaborated with them. It was about serving more people than just myself or themselves.

Rowena Preddy
You have been celebrated and a big part of this was around the swimwear brand that you were a part of. You’ve been celebrated as a body positive influencer. And I imagine after working in marketing and advertising space for so many years apart from that sort curve model space, what other shifts Have you noticed in mainstream media within the body positivity space,

Lisa Cox
it has been positive generally. And so much of that has been to do with social media. Because for the first time, or at least in social media, women have had control over setting their own narrative. So because of Facebook, and Instagram and things like that, we’ve been able to control our own narrative. And been able to put our own stories out there and take photos of our own our own bodies, our own cellulite , or our own tummy rolls or whatever, it may me like, hey, look, this is my boss, I’m having to die, or this mines, my stomach or whatever. Whatever you put out there, and we’re seeing real bodies, as opposed to only the bodies that Murdoch puts out there and only the ones that newscorp or whoever else will sell that have been retouched and edited. There’s that in itself, which is, you know, a good thing. But this hashtag body positivity, there are pros and cons to that, because I suppose a negative is that we’re starting to see some brands and businesses kind of hijack body positivity movement and sell, say cellulite cream or weight loss supplements or something as the body positive and buy this cellulite cream or be body positive and lose five kilos. And it’s sort of distorting the message. And that’s, that’s been a gray area. For me that’s still evolving. It’s been over the last couple of years that I suppose now everyone’s coming out of COVID. And I say that cautiously because it’s still moving. But now the messaging is around Hey, lose those COVID kilos, all that weight you gained in COVID lose the kilos. And so that’s that’s a new messaging, which is complete bs

Rowena Preddy
forced positivity. And you know, it’s toxic positivity and those sorts of things as well. Yes, everything that for me always just always boils down to how you can be more real. Another word that really gets me as well, that I in a positive way is acceptance. And having that constant journey to acceptance, a level of awareness about what words you’re associating in your own head, whether it be disability or whether it be your own body. And when you’re looking at it, or looking at different races. By having that level of awareness of that word association and creating a narrative that is definitely more self aware and more more accepting of the world as a whole. And having that level of consideration. You probably understand this more than most that from an advertising space, you can see false bullshit.

Lisa Cox
Oh, yeah. for miles away

Rowena Preddy
So what can we do in our everyday lives to really start to understand disability more and really understand how we can be better?

Lisa Cox
Exactly what you did at the very start of this interview, is to go into it with an open mind of I don’t have all the answers, but I want to learn A curiosity. But not not this this curiosity of Oh, what happened to you? The weird man that comes up to me at the shopping center. It gets a bit strange, but again, I get a few of them time to time. But there’s an ongoing debate in the disability sector about questioning. I personally, I can speak only for myself, I don’t mind questions like because it’s only through questions that you learn. I don’t mind people asking me what happened, especially in a setting like this, it’s just when there’s no context around that. So If I’m ordering coffee and you took you turn around to me and go Oh, sweetheart, what happened to you what I’m just here to order coffee? I personally don’t mind. But other people are really, really funny about questions ever. I can only ever speak for myself. If you’re curious for the right set of reasons going into it with an open mind. I used to be that person without disabilities who was terrified of putting a foot wrong of wanting to do better and genuinely wanting to educate myself but shit I was scared I’m tiptoeing around and thinking what do I say how do I say it shit shit shit shit, I would hate for anyone to be tiptoeing around me and walking around me in the shopping center so that they could avoid eye contact with me because they were too scared. that would be horrible. So

Rowena Preddy
save that for the people that are trying to like sell you a timeshare. Use your eye avoidance for good purpose.

Lisa Cox
all I can say is that I really im only one person, I don’t speak for everyone. And if you see me ask me all the questions you want, but I’m only one person so.

Rowena Preddy
And I think approaching anything as in life like approaching anything with kindness. Yes. And openness. Yeah, finding a way to have that conversation and be open to it. be honest about how you’re feeling on the situation as well. And just saying, you know, I see you and I want to know more, removing some of those boundaries and feeling the fear and doing it anyway, I remember as a child, I felt very uncomfortable. I would do the eye avoidance though, remember, it was a generational thing. I feel like it was something that was just, you don’t talk about things like this. Whereas with my kids these days, I want them to talk about everything with me, at least they can have that space to have that conversation with me and know that it’s completely okay. And I feel like sometimes having that childlike curiosity and just being really honest, is something to get back to a lot. I’ve come to my last question and this question, I feel like it’s been the elephant in the room, you found yourself seem to stage literally what is commonly known as paper gate. Now recently, you were a part of Australian fashion week and you found yourself the center of a controversy which you handled, like a queen. decorative paper that was on stage got stuck in your chair preventing you from moving freely and then the designer that you were on stage for Camilla Frank. She jumped up and she helped you. But Then I won’t say went the shit hit the fan, but let’s just say the paper hit the fan. And the world lost its goddamn mind around a whole bunch of things. And I read your article for Mamma Mia and it just hit home so many things. Can you give us a little bit of a summary of what happened after paper gate?

Lisa Cox
Oh, fuck. Paper got caught in my wheel. I was fine. Camilla was awesome. It’s all over the end. No, seriously, I don’t want to minimize some really big issues. First of all though can we just celebrate the fact that something that many of us have been calling for for years and years years happened? disability was at the Australian fashion week for the first time ever. Yay. We had been working behind the scenes for that for years and years and years. I’m not talking about me on the catwalk but that was just a small thing that happened out of the blue surprise. I’m talking about multiple representations all over the place behind the scenes for the first year ever. So yes, there’s a long way to go. But Yah, that was awesome. And we’re looking at next year already. So firstly, let’s celebrate that. They did a good job. Yes, there were misstakes. No one is denying that. But considering now this was the first crack at it if a little bit of paper. is all that went wrong. Jeez I reckon that’s alright. Secondly, yes the paper was a mistake. No one is denying that it wasn’t Camilla’s fault. Some of the absolutely horrible comments that are online, nothing short of bullying, just disgusting comments. She’s a beautiful woman and is open to learning and sat down with me before the event and said, What can I do? How can I make this right for you? And we talked about things getting caught in my wheels, funnily enough, not assuming that it will be paper and then paper gate happened. So I suppose a bubble the one the one takeaway is that, apart from paper in the wheels, accessibility is happening every single day of the year for people with disabilities, it’s still here for me and anyone else with disabilities or with some disabilities. Regardless of whether or not it’s Fashion Week, that does not go away. So even though Twitter and Instagram and social media has quieten down and all the journalist so one of the journalists have put away their their keyboards, accessibility is still an issue. So everyone stopped talking about Paper gate. But let’s not stop talking about accessibility because that is still a really, really important issue that needs that spotlight. Everyone seems to have stopped talking now. So thanks for giving me this opportunity to continue the conversation about something that’s far more important than some paper on a runway.

Rowena Preddy
And I think you summarized it perfectly in your article that came out after this. That happens to me every day. Yeah, thats exactly right. That’s an Every day occurrence I sort it out and then I go get another coffee. Yeah, that is actually just your life.

Lisa Cox
I got caught in a gutter yesterday at the shopping center where Was media then. Where were all the people on social media when? Where were the hundreds and 1000s of people calling out ableism. where were they. nobody nobody

Rowena Preddy
If you gonna be stuck. Someone hand me a coffee. Now the very last question that I have for you today, and I feel like this has been a really interesting question to hear everyone’s answers to, after everything you’ve been through and what you go through on a day to day basis in your life and just being your amazing self. What does brave mean to you?

Lisa Cox
Yeah. So years ago, I wrote an article because everyone kept coming up to me at the gym going, you’re so brave, you’re so brave. Im thinking what the fuck is going on. Why Am I brave, I’ve been going to the gym for 20 years. As a non disabled person, not once did someone call me brave, the only difference is now I’m doing it in a wheelchair. All of a sudden I’m brave because I’m going to the gym in a wheelchair. This makes no sense to me. And I sort of read this thing about how to me anyway, and this is going back sort of I wrote this about five eight years ago before my my language around disability and was sorted out more. To me soldiers are brave and firemen were all these other people were great. Just being in a wheelchair did not make me brave. being disabled was not an automatic trajectory to being brave. That was the whole point of the article. But back to my answer, in terms of being brave, we often think of bravery or Hollywood portrays bravery as you know, there’s going to be guns and machines and smoke and explosions and all this all these battles involved and really strong men and God knows what else as well. But in my experience, it wasn’t a lot of the big things that happened. I was knocked out cold during one of my really, really big things like having my leg chopped off and being in a coma and all of my big things that to me wasn’t the brave stuff that I’ve done. It was all other really, really small things that I’ve done, like going to the doctor and saying, I need help. My mental health is not okay. I don’t think I’ve slept for a week. I think I need help. And to put that in context for your audience. It’s not the really big, big things with explosions or wrestling a crocodile or something like that. That doesn’t have to be the brave thing. Of course it can be but sometimes it’s just texting back. No, when a friend says is everything. Okay? That can be the biggest act of bravery for someone that week.

 

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