Warning: Offsite links are not safe spaces. Articles and comments in the links may contain ableist, sexist, and other -ist language and ideas of varying intensity. Opinions expressed in the articles may not reflect the opinions held by the compiler of the post and links are provided as topics of interest and exploration only. I attempt to provide extra warnings for material like extreme violence/rape; however, your triggers/issues may vary, so please read with care.

abledbody: Five Tips for Disabled Job Seekers

The federal government has stepped up efforts to help the disabled find jobs. President Obama has called for 100,000 people with disabilities to be hired in the federal workforce in five years, and now requires federal contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action and open employment to people with a disability including disabled veterans. Consider a federal job or a job with a company that does business with the government. The federal Office of Personnel Management has job listings.

BBC — Ouch!: Wheelchair wedding, fun, and love

We wanted a place with enough crip loos and space to accommodate over 150 people, many of them wheelies. When we asked venues if they were wheelchair accessible, most of them assumed we meant for our grandparents, not one of the brides. And as for their definitions of ‘access’: “No problem! Just come in through the kitchen and we’ll find two strapping young waiters to carry you upstairs to the lift…”.

Donna Jodan: Barriers to recreational sports

I am not sure if these barriers could be overcome but they can definitely be made easier to deal with.  How so?  We need to enlist the assistance of the sighted world.  We need to make our requests and ask for help.  We need to convince the sighted world that there is a definite benefit to making recreational sports available to the blind and sight impaired.  A few months ago, I attended a Ski for Light event in Utah and what an experience it was.  I invite you now to visit this website and see for yourself. www.skiforlight.org.

Women and Hollywood: I am an actor. I am also deaf: Guest Post by Shoshannah Stern

I am an actor. I am also deaf.

I have played roles written for deaf actors and roles written for hearing actors, when I was lucky enough to have people who believed in me enough to rewrite them to suit me. I am very grateful to have been in this industry for eight years.  During that time, I’ve experienced challenges, triumphs and changes – some relating to being deaf, but most related to being an actor in Hollywood searching for the right parts at the right time. I always try to learn what I can with every experience I encounter and hope at the end of the day, that I have done my best to overcome them.  It is my sincerest hope with all that I have learned and been fortunate enough to do, I will continue to do everything I can to accept strong roles and positively represent the deaf community on and off the screen.

Two Links, One Topic Bonus!

Change.org’s Health Blog: IRS Does Not Consider Breastfeeding To Be Medical Care

Ask any pregnant woman or mother, and she’ll be able to recount the numerous health benefits of breast feeding. It can pass along mom’s antibodies, imparting important immune defenses that can prevent sickness and even death in newborns. It’s the most complete form of nutrition for a baby, far exceeding formula. And breastfeeding may even help mom’s health; research indicates that women who breastfeed may have lower rates of certain breast and ovarian cancers.

Yet that’s not good enough for the Internal Revenue Service, who won’t allow nursing mothers to use their tax-sheltered health care accounts to pay for breast pumps and breastfeeding supplies. As reported in today’s New York Times, this is because the IRS ruled that breast-feeding “does not have enough health benefits to qualify as a form of medical care.”

From the Women’s Rights blog: IRS Denies Breastfeeding Qualifies as Medical Care

Yet as Brie Cadman writes on the Health blog, the IRS has decided that breastfeeding “does not have enough health benefits to qualify as a form of medical care,” and thus cannot be included in the tax-sheltered health care accounts that many companies offer their employees. But support hose? Totally qualifies.

Breastfeeding equipment can tally up to $1000 a year, which isn’t anything to sniff at. Yet the only way a woman can get tax breaks on this expense is to secure a doctor’s note calling breastfeeding a medical necessity in her case. This deters women from breastfeeding, despite its host of medical benefits, passing on immunities to the baby and reducing the risk of certain breast and ovarian cancers in mom. The idea that a woman needs to secure a doctor’s note calling her individual case of breastfeeding medically necessary is absurd: while breastfeeding is not the sole option for women, it is without a doubt medically beneficial for just about any mother to decide on, and certainly as necessary as pimple cream.

If you’re on Delicious, feel free to tag entries ‘disfem’ or ‘disfeminists,’ or ‘for:feminists’ to bring them to our attention! Link recommendations can also be emailed to recreading at disabledfeminists dot com. Please note if you would like to be credited, and under what name/site.

Moderatrix Note: Please kindly consider this the 05-06 November RR. I simply added the incorrect date in the title. My apologies. Also, thanks to Indigo Jo for pointing out that I forgot to add the Daily Record link, which has now been added.

pinkpjs guest posts at Where’s the Benefit?: ‘Not Really Disabled’

As part of my job I had to attend a meeting with a manager working with
the DWP who told me that their role was to support disabled people to
receive benefits they are entitled to.

I asked them about the changes to DLA in particular and the impact of
people in residential care and was shocked to be told that ‘they don’t
really need the mobility allowance as most of them rarely go out except
to medical appointments and then the staff are more than happy to take
them, so it is only fair that they shouldn’t get this’.

Then, the response to my question about any other changes to DLA which
the condems have hinted at, was ‘well, we all know that many people
currently getting this really aren’t disabled and shouldn’t be getting
it’.

Planet of the Blind: Shame On Ohio’s Cedar Point

[Excerpt] Call ’em crazy, but Cedar Point won’t alter or remove any of its attractions, despite a request from mental health advocates to do so.

A Cedar Point spokesman said “changes are not required.”

On Thursday, the National Alliance on Mental Illness asked the amusement park to immediately remove two offerings focusing on fictional mental health patients: Dr. D. Mented’s Asylum for the Criminally Insane, and The Edge of Madness: Still Crazy.

One is a haunted house, the other is a separate show.

The attractions promote the false stereotype that the public should fear mental health patients, the alliance said.

Navy SEASs Blog: VA Releases Suicide Prevention Street Ad

One of the resources available to service members or friends and loved ones of those who need help is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – 1-800-273-TALK.

A post on the website of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) shared the efforts of the VA to ensure that people know about the Lifeline. Last week, almost 1,200 ads that carry messages of hope for service members facing emotional crises, and details for the Suicide Prevention Lifeline, were put up by the VA on city buses, bus shelters, rail and subway stations across the country.

Daily Record: Parents tell how every day is a battle to care for teenager struck down with chronic fatigue syndrome (sent in by Indigo Jo)

Just getting a diagnosis of ME, otherwise known as myalgic encephalomyelitis, was a battle for the family. When it finally came in October 2005, Carol said she was shocked by their GP’s reaction.

She explained: “Eilidh was being treated for asthma but I knew something wasn’t right and her teachers agreed.

“When I took her to the GP he said, ‘Right, that’s enough of all this’ and told Eilidh to go and run round the building three times.”

Minutes later dad Blyth, also 46, found Eilidh outside in a distressed state but the GP wouldn’t accept that she couldn’t carry on.

Carol said: “He told her to run through the waiting room. After that, they said she had chronic fatigue syndrome and would recover in six months.”

Four years on, her parents had to fight to stop Eilidh being treated as a psychiatric patient. Now the family, from Glenrothes, Fife, complain doctors seem to have washed their hands of them.

Carol said: “The paediatrician told us the ME has been dealt with and it’s all down to anxiety. They always fudge over the physical illness.”

ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): Social networkers switch off for autism awareness (sent in by Kathryn Bjornstad)

Ms Bjornstad says the people behind the Communication Shutdown “meant well”.

“But it’s more of the kind of advertisement and philosophy that is harmful to the autistic community,” she said.

“It ignores the fact that autistic people are actually less socially isolated because of inventions like the internet, and it does a poor job of explaining what autism is like.

“Staying off of Facebook will not mirror the social isolation that many autistic people face. I don’t think that anything they do could mimic this.”

Ms Harvey says she can understand why members of the autistic community have expressed concern.

“Our aim was to create empathy in the wider community. There’s no way that we would ask autistic people to give up their tools of communication,” she said.

“There are a wide spectrum of opinions.”

Ms Harvey says she is glad the Communication Shutdown has prompted events like Autistics Speaking Day.

“Although our executions are paradoxical, we believe we have the same goal,” she said.

“I would hope that the two events can complement each other,” she said.