If you’re disabled, from a marginalised group, or you’ve done this work long enough, you’ll have heard it:
“Why do <insert marginalised group here> always seem to have a chip on their shoulder?”
It usually gets said with a shrug or a laugh — a throwaway comment that frames frustration as the real problem, rather than the barriers that caused it.
But here’s the thing: that so-called chip is not about bitterness or oversensitivity. It’s about the cumulative weight of trying to move through systems, workplaces, and communities that weren’t designed with disability in mind.
Where the “chip” comes from
That “chip on the shoulder” is built from layers of experience, often repeated day after day:
- Proving legitimacy. Having to justify why you need an adjustment, sometimes more than once, to more than one person.
- Minimisation. Watching barriers being brushed off as “not a big deal” when you live with the impact every single day.
- Erasure. Sitting in meeting after meeting where disability is missing from DEI conversations altogether.
- Pity or charity frames. Hearing colleagues frame inclusion as kindness rather than rights.
- Punitive consequences. Knowing that disclosing a disability can mean being seen as less capable, less promotable, or more “difficult.”
None of these things on their own might be catastrophic. But added together, they create a constant background noise of exclusion. And when people speak up about it, they’re often told they’re the problem.
A quick story
A client once told me about a staff member who asked for flexible start times because of their chronic health condition. The response? “Well, we all have things to deal with — don’t make it a bigger issue than it is.”
Six months later, that staff member had left. Not because they couldn’t do the job, but because the cumulative message was clear: your needs are inconvenient, your presence is conditional, and your voice won’t be taken seriously.
When leaders later asked why staff turnover was high, the very feedback that could have given them the answer had already walked out the door.
The problem with the phrase
“Chip on the shoulder” is a dismissal. It turns lived experience into attitude. It reframes legitimate frustration as a personal failing.
Sociologist Erving Goffman wrote about “stigma” as something society attaches to individuals, shifting the focus away from the system that created the barrier in the first place. Fiona Kumari Campbell (2009) describes this as ableism’s sleight of hand: flipping the script so that disabled people are framed as oversensitive, rather than workplaces being called to account.
It’s easier to say, “they’re just angry” than to ask, “what in our culture is creating this anger?”
What’s underneath the frustration
What gets dismissed as a “chip” often reveals some of the most essential truths about an organisation:
- Exhaustion. The invisible labour of navigating inaccessible systems, buildings, or policies every day.
- Courage. Speaking up when you know it might backfire — because staying silent means nothing changes.
- Investment. The pushback itself is a testament to care. If disabled folks didn’t care, they wouldn’t waste their energy speaking up at all.
This aligns with research on workplace microaggressions. Studies by Sue et al. (2007) and more recent work in organisational psychology show that when marginalised staff repeatedly encounter minimisation or dismissal, the cumulative impact is burnout, disengagement, and higher turnover.
Paradoxically, the very people dismissed as “too angry” are often the ones handing organisations a ready-made roadmap to improvement.
Why this matters
If organisations write off disabled people as “difficult,” they miss critical opportunities to learn.
Every time frustration is dismissed, the message is clear: your voice doesn’t count here. And every time that happens, the organisation not only loses trust but also loses the chance to actually solve the problem.
On the other hand, when leaders are willing to sit with discomfort, listen deeply, and look beyond the surface, they uncover insights that can reshape their culture.
That’s when Disability Inclusion Action Plans stop being paperwork. That’s when “inclusive workplaces” move from vision statements to reality.
Reframing the “chip”
So what would happen if we stopped calling it a chip and started calling it what it really is?
- Feedback.
- Insight.
- Lived expertise.
- A signpost pointing directly to where change is needed.
Because inclusion doesn’t happen through silence. It happens when people are willing to say, “This isn’t working.” And it happens when organisations treat that frustration not as a threat, but as an invitation.
References
- Campbell, F.K. (2009) Contours of ableism: The production of disability and abledness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
- Sue, D.W., Capodilupo, C.M., Torino, G.C., Bucceri, J.M., Holder, A.M.B., Nadal, K.L. and Esquilin, M. (2007) ‘Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice’, American Psychologist, 62(4), pp. 271–286. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.62.4.271
Over to you
Have you ever had your feedback or perspective written off as having a “chip on your shoulder”?
👉 What was really going on underneath?
