Daily Archives: 28 October, 2009

Ableism and the Aussie Battler

social attitudes,

I want to talk about how Australia’s ideas of the ideal Australian exclude people with disabilities. But first I have to explain a little about the Australian national myth.

The ideal Australian figure is known as “the Aussie battler”. Essentially this is an ordinary man working hard to get by and support his family without complaining. I guess it’s a bit like “the little guy”. I’m going to paraphrase how Queen Emily explained it (as we discussed this on Twitter with its 140 character limit): ‘It’s an idealisation of (implicitly working class) struggle, self-sufficiency. You work hard and get paid fairly – but not well. I think it’s different from the US rags-to-riches story, because it doesn’t imply that hard work produces social mobility.’

I’m not sure how to convey to you how ingrained the idea of the battler is in the Australian consciousness, but it really, really is. It’s everywhere from our popular culture to our political discourse. Our previous Prime Minister, John Howard, drew on it a fair bit. (In fact, in 2007, US President George W. Bush referred to him as a battler at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, a moment which caused a few raised eyebrows.) Our current PM, Kevin Rudd, doesn’t do so quite so much, but it is still very noticeable.

There’s a whole culture around cheering on the underdog and tall poppy syndrome (tearing down high achievers). But the Australian idea of the underdog – the “Aussie battler” – isn’t really who is at the bottom of the kyriarchal pile. If white, abled men represent the struggling Australian, that’s a pretty warped idea of hardship. It’s not about valuing the real battlers. A lot has been said about the racism and misogyny coded in the battler legend, and I could say a lot about the assumptions regarding family (structure); today we’re talking about the ableism.

The Aussie battler ideal is about a person working hard to get enough money for the family to live on. Every feminist knows how problematic it is to set up paid work as the only sort of real work. After all, women’s work in the home, raising children, running the household – the second shift – has been devalued in Western society as a matter of course. It also is very ableist. Many disabled people cannot fulfil the paid work requirements to be a battler, or not consistently, because those standards are designed to fit abled people, to privilege what they can do over what people like us can do. It would seem that only particular kinds and amounts of contribution to family and society will do. Setting up “typical” as “best” is just about always problematic, and there is no exception here.

And if you must be disabled, there’s a battler’s way to do that, too. Complaining is not the Australian way, you must be stoic and soldier on. Never admit that you need assistance, because not being able to do everything on your own is weak. Having to rely on anyone else is a matter of shame. If the Aussie battler must be self-sufficient, and a source of strength and support to those around them, then what of those people who require that support? The Aussie battler idea devalues those the battler is actually working for: wives, children… disabled friends and relatives, perhaps. It’s not that those people are valuable and worth fighting for, it’s that the battler gets to prove their toughness and reliability. For whichever group, it doesn’t leave a lot of room to just be human: needing help, giving help, everyone deserving of love and support regardless. That’s what archetypes do: set up impossible tasks and cut out those on the margins. It’s okay to lend a hand to a mate as a one-off, but you better get back on your feet straight away. Assuming you have that hand, and you are able to get back on your feet, of course (oh, bodily metaphors, how much you do assume).

In an effort to keep this less than novel length, I’m not going to explain any more about Australia’s notions of ideal citizenship, but if you’re interested, you can try looking up larrikins, the ANZAC spirit and mateship.

Do you have specific cultural features like the battler ideal that make life a bit tougher when you’re disabled?

Guest Post: Negotiating Disableism

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This is a guest from from Renee of Womanist Musings.

Disableism is very new to me. My chronic illnesses not only changed my status, but forced me to see just how pervasive ableism is. It has been a huge learning process, as I have sought to reduce the ways in which my language and behaviour support ableism. I have a physical disability which has caused me to more aware of the ways in which society is structured to benefit those that are able bodied, but it has not helped me to understand the ways in which those that are neurologically atypical face discrimination. Common phrases that I used to utter like bat shit crazy, must be erased from my vocabulary. I have struggled not to say that someone is blind to something, rather that pointing out that they are unable to see or understand.

What I have learned is that ridding oneself of disableism, is a process that is not easy but so very necessary. Each time I am reduced by the assumption of another, it causes me to examine the ways in which my language or behaviour support this. It took time to understand that though I am disabled, I still exist with privilege in certain areas. I can hear, I can see, I can get up and walk if I have to, I have all of my limbs, and people do not dismiss what I am saying because they deem me non-sensical due to being neurologically atypical. As long as they are not referring to my specific disability, many are quite comfortable displaying their disabliesm, as though it does not effect me.

I have sat and listened to the complaints regarding the accommodations that those who are disabled must have to participate in society. While most will not scream and carry on about a ramp, even a small thing, like getting more time to hand in a paper at school, is enough to cause a rant about favouritism and unfair standards. Disableism occurs when people feel as though they cannot take advantage of their able bodied privileges. It occurs when people resist that a task can be completed differently to allow a greater participation.

This weekend, on the way to Destructions hockey game, I ran into an old friend. She had not seen me since I contracted my illnesses but her first comment was that she had to get herself a scooter. To her it seemed a cool toy, while to me it is a reflection of all the things I cannot do. There is a man in my neighbourhood who uses a manual wheelchair and he has commented on more than one occasion, that he wished he had a motorized scooter to get around in. Though I am hurt by the ableist comments of a former friend, my class privilege is part of what allowed that pain. When I needed a scooter to facilitate my activities, we were able to afford one.

Though I am differently abled, I am barely at the 101 level. I went through anger, denial and finally acceptance but negotiating this life is something I must begin again like a newborn babe. I have isolated myself because I viewed my body as the great betrayer, refusing to see the ways in which I could and can still participate. When someone is racist against me, it is easy to find my voice because this is something that I have lived with all of my life, whereas; disableism, even when clearly directed at me, brings about silence and sense of shame. For now I count on the unhusband to speak when I cannot and this again is a marker of how blessed I really am. Even in times of weakness and sorrow, I can count on my family to do the heavy lifting. When I need comfort, each one of them is quick to run to my aid. They may not understand what I am feeling but my pain is enough for them to intervene or try to comfort.

I have learned that disableism cannot be reduced to a simple Black/White binary. Even as I struggle against it, I perpetuate it. Just as we understand that society is inherently racist, classist, or sexist, it is also highly ableist. If this were not an absolute truth, the various barriers that block or limit participation would not exist. My task is to now unlearn that which I have accepted as truth. For me it becomes difficult when I begin to look beyond the limited experiences I have had as a differently abled person. There are issues of race, class, gender and even differing abilities to contend with. This task would not be so difficult today, had I made a conscious decision to acknowledge my various privileges in the past. I allowed my privilege to dictate what I learned and studied, thereby reinforcing the very hierarchies that I claimed to struggle against. Today I understand is that there is no universal experience and it is this very rainbow of difference that I must commit myself to embracing.

Recommended Reading for October 28

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Join Marlee Matlin in Demanding Captioning of Online Video Content

Academy-Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin has been using her Twitter account to actively lobby for captioning of all the digital video content that is flooding onto the Web. The issue has rightfully hit a boiling point for the deaf community because Netflix and other services are now streaming video online without captions.

The National Association of the Deaf sent a letter to Netflix Oct. 5 complaining about the lack of captioning for “The Wizard of Oz,” which was available for download free at the Netflix Web site as a promotion.

Matlin points out the irony of a recent video about the Helen Keller statue unveiling at the U.S. Capitol on the CNN Web site that has no captions!

Related: How to add Subtitles and Translations to your Vids, Captioning Sucks!.

Ableism in 30 Rock [Includes an embedded video from HULU that is not available outside of the US]:

A lot of feminists love 30 Rock. As they should: it’s a funny show, and a rarity for television – a women-fueled enterprise with a two main female characters, written and conceived of by a woman. That is Cool, full stop. And 30 Rock has many deft explorations of the many facets of being a white, middle-class, straight, woman with able privilege. But persons with disabilities don’t fare quite as well.

30 Rock trades on ableism on an almost episodic basis. The show’s disrespect towards folks with disabilites, particularly those with visible disabilities, is constant and unrelenting from side gags to b-plots to regular characters. 30 Rock constantly places bodies with able privilege in a position of supremacy above bodies with visible disabilities through humiliation and devaluation. Its abuse of persons with disabilities in the name of comedy goes beyond the casual ableist language like “lame” or “retarded”. Such language is unfortunately ubiquitous to even shows that have been critical of ableism (eg, The Office has critiqued ableism through Michael Scott’s typical obliviousness on a couple of occasions, but, as in life, “lame” and occasionally “retarded” is still a consistent presence) but 30 Rock’s ableism is constant, humiliating, and dehumanizing.

An Example of an Article about FSD [FSD = Female Sexual Disfunction]

I’m still not fully understanding the claim that FSD is profitable. If that’s the case, why is it so difficult for me, someone who falls into the pain category, to find a doctor who is equipped to handle me? My experience is that often, my first line of defense doctors get tired of seeing me after I don’t respond to conventional treatments. I think right now my local gyno probably never wants to see me again.

The article goes on to talk about hysteria. For the most part I don’t find this section of the article to be inherently problematic. Except for the part about “pelvic congestion,” being in quotes, since it is mentioned as a real thing in Heal Pelvic Pain (p. 16)

Identifing:

But the real reason it followed me and stayed there in the back of my mind was the times I thought, “Wait. That’s me.” And then my guilt complexes came in full-force, telling me no, you can’t call yourself that, that’s for people with real problems, any problem you have is just in your head. And maybe most of them are in my head, but well, it doesn’t make them any less real. It doesn’t make it any less hard to me to function or to try and figure out how to fit into society. It doesn’t make my very concrete limitations disappear.

In the news:

Clem7 Tunnel Labeled a death trap for the disabled [Australia]:

BRISBANE’S Clem7 tunnel could be a death trap for the aged and infirm, a disability group has warned.

Queensland’s Spinal Injuries Association said the 4.8km-long tunnel’s emergency exits were too far apart and too narrow for people with mobility problems to escape an underground disaster.

…

Mr Mayo argues there are no design rules for tunnels but believes this infrastructure should follow the Australian Building Code which mandates emergency exits at every 60m in buildings.