One More Voice
Friday, October 9th, 2009 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jesse_the_kAny reader of this journal won't be surprise to hear how I feel about feminism and disablism. I've ranted many places about the harm caused by disabling metaphors.
I care about feminism because it saved my life: provided connections with women who helped me think and learn the world. It was feminism that taught me to challenge received wisdom; that the personal was political; that language mattered. As my impairments worsened, I began to experience disablism on the job, among my friends, from the medical establishment, on the bus, and most troubling of all, in my soul.
Women are definitely more likely to live with impairment in all societies. Our lives are longer, so we have a better chance of experiencing hearing and vision and stamina losses. Women get significantly more auto-immune illnesses (arthritis, diabetes, MS).
Even if you have no impairment now, chances are excellent you will be later in life. Losing one's typical privilege is a difficult experience without battling the bad attitudes inside one's own head. Learning why disablism is wrong now will make your life easier later.
The occasion of impairment offers Western society ample opportunity to poke into women's lives, even if we are ourselves typical. Three top intrusions:
1. The default responsibility to provide unpaid care to family members
2. Our duty not to have disabled children
3. The expectation that the final years of our lives are "useless."
I care about feminism because it saved my life: provided connections with women who helped me think and learn the world. It was feminism that taught me to challenge received wisdom; that the personal was political; that language mattered. As my impairments worsened, I began to experience disablism on the job, among my friends, from the medical establishment, on the bus, and most troubling of all, in my soul.
Women are definitely more likely to live with impairment in all societies. Our lives are longer, so we have a better chance of experiencing hearing and vision and stamina losses. Women get significantly more auto-immune illnesses (arthritis, diabetes, MS).
Even if you have no impairment now, chances are excellent you will be later in life. Losing one's typical privilege is a difficult experience without battling the bad attitudes inside one's own head. Learning why disablism is wrong now will make your life easier later.
The occasion of impairment offers Western society ample opportunity to poke into women's lives, even if we are ourselves typical. Three top intrusions:
1. The default responsibility to provide unpaid care to family members
2. Our duty not to have disabled children
3. The expectation that the final years of our lives are "useless."
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-10 01:41 pm (UTC)