Yearly Archives: 2010

Signal Boost: The Attitude Test discusses Screen Readers TODAY

Via email

On this week’s Attitude Test, we will, as usual take a look at the news and put our distinctive slant thereon, all ready for you to disagree with if you want to.

The main subject this week concerns screenreaders.

The simple question, though with, I feel some complicated answers is: are we witnessing the demise of the stand-alone screenreader such as JAWS and Window-Eyes? With Apple now putting a screenreader in many of their products as a standard part of their system, is this the way things will go.

Is there much left for the major screenreader manufacturers to do? A new version of JAWS is coming soon, but most of what has been done in this new version are fixes to existing problems. Could it be that Microsoft may well decide to incorporate one of the major screenreaders into their own products?

We want your views on this.

You can interact with the program in several ways: either by skype at
the.global.voice, by email and msn at yourvoice@theglobalvoice.info, or by using one of our three phone numbers you can find on our website:
The Global Voice.

That’s the Attitude Test live on Sunday at 18:00 UTC, that’s 2 pm Eastern, 11 am Pacific in the US, 7 pm in the UK and 8 pm in Central Europe

Let your voice be heard on the Attitude Test, on the one and only Global Voice.

Weekly Events Roundup

As always, these events are not endorsed by us in any way, and unfortunately I can’t tell you any more about them than what is at the applicable links.

Also, things are a little wonky on my end because of Hurricane Earl, but both Don and I are fine, having made it back to our apartment during a lull in the storm. But I’m a bit scattered right now!

Memorial Events (All in North America) – Conferences (All in Europe) – Art Show/Call for Submissions of Art (All in North America)

Memorial Events:

Canada:

Unveiling Ceremony
Memorial Wall Plaques Dedicated to Patient Labourers Past

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the oldest part of the patient built boundary wall, constructed in 1860, which stands on the south side of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) at 1001 Queen Street West, Toronto. These patient-built walls, along with the 1888-89 walls on the east and west sides, are a testament to the abilities of people whose unpaid labour was central to the operation of asylums in the Province of Ontario during the 19th & 20th centuries.

Join us as we unveil a series of nine memorial plaques in remembrance.

Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 1:00 p.m.
Corner of Queen Street West and Shaw Street.

A tour of the wall and all nine plaques will follow the dedication ceremony.

Sponsored by Psychiatric Survivor Archives, Toronto (PSAT), CAMH,
and the generous support of many community donors.

For more information or media inquiries, please call 416-595-6015; 416-661-9975. (via NEADS)

Conferences:

United Kingdom

The Lancaster Disability Studies Conference is taking place 7-9th September 2010. Over 150 presenters will be giving papers and showing posters.

There will be a live webcast of the keynote sessions which can be can be viewed at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/iss/digital/disability/
The recordings will also be made available on the conference website afterwards http://www.lancs.ac.uk/disabilityconference/

Tuesday 7 September 2010
11.30-12.30 Plenary – Caroline Gooding
17.30-18.30 Plenary – Liz Crow

Wednesday 8 September 2010
9.30-10.30 Plenary – Ruth Gould
13.30-14.30 Plenary – Adolf Ratzka

Thursday 9 September 2010
11.30-12.30 Plenary – Alana Officer

Details about the plenary talks and the full book of abstracts are available on the conference website.

Registration is open for the Currents in the Mainstream conference:

The MeCCSA Disability Studies Network presents a conference on current images of disability at De Montfort University, Leicester on the 22nd September from 9-30/10.00 until 4-30. This day conference aims to re-visit and re-evaluate the complex issues at stake in contemporary representations of disability and impairment from a variety of critical perspectives, investigating both continuities and new trends in representing disability.

Presenters include Paul Darke, Debs Williams and Sonali Shah.Papers
/presentations will include work on televison, film, journalism and
performance. For more details please see Currents in the Mainstream

Amsterdam:

Conference: ‘Diversity in Quality of Life’
December 2-4 2010
VU University, Amsterdam

Disability Studies in Nederland wants to celebrate its first anniversary and the start of its research program with an international conference in cooperation with VU University, which supports this event as part of the lustrum agenda Freedom and Responsibility, on occasion of its 130th birthday. To promote the disability studies approach in The Netherlands the conference will focus on a key concept in mainstream academic approaches to disability, namely ‘quality of life’. It raises the question of how this concept can be used in a disability studies perspective.

Slovenia:

ENIL invites you to an international conference co-organized with YHD (Association for the culture and theory of handicap), 8 & 9 September 2010, Ljlubljana, Slovenia

The conference will be implemented under the
EDFEO programme for the year 2010 (European driving force for equal opportunities), within which YHD is coordinating the Eastern European group.

Location: City Hotel, Dalmatinova 15, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.

There’s more information at the ENIL website (scroll down).

Art Show:

United State

Mad Gifts: An Art Show
What:

An exhibition of inspired artwork by Icaristas throughout the Northeast; a celebration of our visionary talents and community; a fundraiser; and an opportunity to share TIP with others.

When:

November 5, 2010 – December 7, 2010

Opening Reception: Friday, November 5, 7PM-9PM

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: October 1

Feel free to keep us updated on events!

Pondering Illicit Usage of Accessible Spaces…

I was driving back from dropping Kid off at school today, and I noticed that a delivery truck at the public library was using the accessible parking and accessible ramp as parking and loading dock space…

We have been having some conversations about accessible parking spaces and the policing of those spaces, and the blocking of those spaces and/or using of those spaces by persons who do not need them or have the right to them.

What thoughts, have you, gentle readers, on this particular use of these spaces? I have seen this in other places around our base, though I can’t recall if I have seen such a thing in other non-base places, because I have just begun to notice them (perhaps this is a product of some kind of privilege of mine). Even if it is early morning, should delivery vehicles be taking advantage of these spaces like this?

Recommended Reading for 3 September, 2010: Transportation Edition

This edition was Anna’s idea!

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

United States Department of Transportation: AirTran Fined for Violating Rules Protecting Air Travelers with Disabilities.

Of the $500,000 penalty, up to $60,000 may be used to establish a council to help the carrier comply with federal disability rules and hire a manager for disability accommodations. Up to $140,000 may be used to develop and employ an automated wheelchair tracking system at AirTran’s major hub airports within one year that will generate real-time reports of the carrier’s wheelchair assistance performance.

Canada: CBC News: Brain-injured man mistreated on bus: family. (Yes, slightly strange headline.)

After a conversation with the driver of a bus he boarded in Lower Sackville, N.S., on Saturday, Wilcox said he was ordered to the back.

He said the driver then apologized to other passengers, telling them she usually kicks drunks off the bus. When Wilcox tried to explain he was not drunk, no one wanted to listen, he said.

New York City, USA: Transportation Access: Transit Advocates Announce Lawsuit Against MTA.

The lawsuit charges that the service reductions violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and state law by denying people with disabilities the right to accessible transportation. The plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction requiring the MTA to immediately restore lost service to buses, subways and Access-A-Ride.

United Kingdom: From The Guardian’s Letters section: Travel cuts will leave disabled and older people stranded.

Transport for All is extremely concerned about how these cuts will affect older and disabled Londoners. The threatened cuts of over 7,400 hours of ticket office staffing every week across the London network will have a disastrous impact on the freedom and independence of disabled and older Londoners.

Ashley’s Mom at Pipecleaner Dreams: Suggestions.

Yes, I know, I have written many times in the past about the issues surrounding bus transportation in my school district. Well this post is not going to dwell totally on the negative. Bus services were, for the most part, excellent this summer. They did however start to fall apart this last week of school. And, I have a few suggestions so that doesn’t happen in the future.

Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited.

Recommended Reading for 02 September 2010

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.

Sorry for the late post, folks! Pesky little Typhoon and all!

ITWeb: 1up for gamers with disabilities

It’s hard to say if there is any disability that limits someone from gaming, according to Coe. “With so many innovative peripherals such as over-sized buttons, muscle twitch sensors, and thoughtful customisation, I think we can modify anything for anyone.”

The Living Artist: Accessibility FAIL: Ross Park Mall

17th in line, 90 minutes to go until opening. Feeling my back starting to twinge, I sat down on the floor. A minute or two later, mall security guards came over and told me I had to stand. Even when we explained that I had a back injury and couldn’t stand for very long, they cited “safety issues” and said again, I had to stand. Since I didn’t feel like getting into an argument (and possibly getting all three of us kicked out), Aiden and I left.

Think Progress: Alan Simpson Says Veterans Who Are Agent Orange Victims Are ‘Not Helping Us Save The Country’

The system that automatically awards disability benefits to some veterans because of concerns about Agent Orange seems contrary to efforts to control federal spending, the Republican co-chairman of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission said Tuesday.

Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson’s comments came a day after The Associated Press reported that diabetes has become the most frequently compensated ailment among Vietnam veterans, even though decades of research has failed to find more than a possible link between the defoliant Agent Orange and diabetes.

“The irony (is) that the veterans who saved this country are now, in a way, not helping us to save the country in this fiscal mess,” said Simpson, an Army veteran who was once chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Rolling Around In My Head: The Battle

Three days ago we went to our local grocery, which had just opened after going through a several month closure due to renovations, and I noticed something slightly odd and yet wildly infuriating. They have 7 or 8 checkout aisles, one of which is designated as a wheelchair lane. It’s a lovely lane for me especially when I am in my power wheelchair. I’m wide, it’s wider, the lane is widest – a lovely fit wouldn’t you say. It’s so much better than what they had before. So, anyways, back to being annoyed – which through a mammoth act of will I manage NOT to be all the time. They had all the aisles open, that’s ALL of them, except the wide wheelchair aisle.

New York Times: Study Says Brain Trauma Can Mimic A.L.S.

A peer-reviewed paper to be published Wednesday in a leading journal of neuropathology, however, suggests that the demise of athletes like Gehrig and soldiers given a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, might have been catalyzed by injuries only now becoming understood: concussions and other brain trauma.

Although the paper does not discuss Gehrig specifically, its authors in interviews acknowledged the clear implication: Lou Gehrig might not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease.

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.

Girls in Pants: The Very Special Lesson on How to “Draw the Chair”

Cover for "Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood" By Ann Brashares, a light orange cover with the title in bright blue, authors name at bottom, and a pair of well worn blue jeans centered over the names of several universities "Brown, RISD, University of Maryland, Williams) in the background in darker orange.Gentle Readers! It has been a long time and I know you were afraid that I had forgotten to read and review Ann Brashares’ third installment of the much beloved YA series The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants! Well, fear not! I managed to fit it in whilst chewing my way through Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series (don’t you worry, I have something for all of you on that, as well!), which is not a small feat. Sometimes it is nice to read a book that isn’t beating me about the head with an Ayn Rand-ian philosophy cudgel.

*ahem*

*stops derailing her own post*

For those of you who haven’t read The Sisterhood of the the Traveling Pants series, I can give you my brief brush up, and if you have, feel free to skip ahead to the rest of this post.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a wonderful series about four young women: Bridget (Bee), Carmen, Lena, and Tibby, born withing seventeen days of each other. They are more than just friends, having grown up together due to their mothers being best friends, and having grown so close that they forget where one ends and the other begins. It is not uncommon to find Tibby tapping her foot on Lena’s leg or Bridget leaning her chin on Carmen’s shoulder while playing with her hair. They can tell when each other are hurting or hiding something or bubbling over with joy or exciting news. They have grown up sharing in each others’ joys, triumphs, losses, and sorrows. They have experienced growing pains and growing up as a unit and have leaned on each other for support through things like Carmen’s parent’s divorce, Tibby’s parent’s decision to have more children when she was much older, and Bridget’s mother’s suicide. Even as the other three mothers drifted apart, they seemed to hold tighter to each other Continue reading Girls in Pants: The Very Special Lesson on How to “Draw the Chair”

The “Gifted” — Who Needs Assistance When You Just Work Hard Enough?

Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, recommended to me by The Guy, my partner of several years now, whom I thought loved me, seemed innocuous enough. I thought it a simple fantasy series woven with a love story (“woven” here should read more like a nice cudgel to the head), which I was looking for. I thought it would be a nice epic fantasy, like Kushiel’s Dart, or something to sate my need for a good run of fantasy novels.

I however, didn’t heed Anna’s warning, when she asked me whywhyWHY would someone who loves me recommend a book series to me where a chicken is written in as EVIL personified (this is actually a simplification of the storyline, but it is true, nonetheless…), and as it turns out I think Anna may love me more. Who knows. Maybe I was hooked by the way the first two books ended with just the most convenient and precious heterocentric endings ever (there is one brief nod in the fourth book to homosexuality that seems it could be positive, but then it ends sadly, and seven books later there is no happy ending for this character).

The Sword of Truth series, however, does have many good qualities. It has several well written female characters whom I fell in love with, but, as I will write more about at my home blog, all seem to be written to be smitten with and to be in the service of the central protagonist, Richard Cypher/Rahl. They simply fall all over themselves to serve him, to love him, and to swear their lives to protect him with everything they have. Even if they were once evil or if they have tendencies to be evil (it’s just their way, you see, some women can’t help it), they somehow over come it because his presence is enough to ignite a spark to make them want to fight for their own lives him. I mean his cause.

But the Sword of Truth series isn’t just an innocent fantasy series. It isn’t even a series filled with tropes about women characters that I love that happens to beat me upside the head with forbidden romance and a love forbidden to procreate. It is a cautionary tale that warns of the evils of allowing communism to take over your life. This strange story of caring for your fellow man is bent into a monolithic monster of a machination that kills everything it touches. It simply asserts that you must live in misery for that is the only way that everyone can possibly meet the needs of every human evil, and makes the horrible and incorrect logical leap that religion is somehow tied to it, that this life is meaningless and that goodness can only be obtained in the hereafter. I can’t say I disagree with the atheistic themes, but really, a horse can only be beaten so many times before I glaze over and gloss over entire pages of exposition and soliloquy.

To be righteous in this world that Mr. Goodkind has created you must be willing and — key word alert here — able to fight for your own life and protect it with everything you have, up to and including killing those who would take it from you. With sword, with your bare hands, with magic if you are … gifted.

Yes, “gifted”. Being born with the ability to use and be touched by magic is considered a gift, which is not an uncommon theme in fantasy fiction and pop culture, but Goodkind takes it a step further, it seems to me. It is almost as though magic is another sense, an ability above and beyond that makes up for any other sense you may lack. Because if there is one thing that is all but lacking from this world that Mr. Goodkind has created, it is disability on the side of the bringers of good.

Even Adie, the “bone woman” (who oddly enough, having the speech pattern “I be” in the books*, is depicted as a non-white woman in the television series equivalent Legend of the Seeker even though that is now how she is described, but she is All Exotic! with Bones!), who had her vision stripped from her in her youth by a group of anti-magic zealots known as The Blood of the Fold by pouring bleach in her eyes, has learned to see. Her “gift” has enabled her to see. In fact, her vision, as is noted many times in the books, is often better than those who must rely on their ‘non-gifted’ vision.

I am going to drop the quotes from here on out, because it is getting tedious, and I think you get the point.

Adie never had to learn how to access the world around her. She never had to learn how to stumble around and feel with her other senses. She did, however, have to learn how to see with her magic, which made up for the vision which wasn’t there. This gave her the ability to be worthy, in the world that Goodkind created, to be able to fight for her life, and be allowed to live. People should just try harder, as Adie did. If you can’t get by in life, it is your own fault, and you are not contributing properly to the artwork that is the nobility of man!

You can understand why I was having a problem here.

Normally with pop-culture and fiction, there aren’t really absolutes, and I admit that there are multiple ways of interpreting things, but Goodkind has done a unique thing here: he has created a world of moral absolutes. This is right and this other things is wrong. What Richard Rahl (the protagonist) believes is right, and what he is against is wrong. There is clear good and evil, and the lines are rarely blurred. This use of a gift of magic allows people who otherwise have flaws to remain on the correct side of Richards moral compass. Richard, and Goodkind himself, could be described as Objectivists, which I think would clear up my frustrations. It should have set off alarms as soon as the philosophy lessons started to seep into my fantasy novel. Except OOPS! Mr. Goodkind says he is not a fantasy writer, merely a fiction writer he says (fuck you, fans!), so I have been wrong all along…

But Adie couldn’t be useful to the story, she couldn’t be the powerful and badass sorceress that she is depicted as being if she was indeed blind, amirite? Because if she was wasting all of her time trying to adapt to a world that was refusing to make accommodations for her she wouldn’t be able to fight for her individual life, or for Richard’s noble cause of laissez faire Capitalism freedom for all mankind (and I guess some of those womenfolk too).

The only time that her magical eyesight didn’t work was when she was faced with a woman, Jennsen, who was born without even a spark of the gift, called a “pristinely ungifted” person. She can not be touched by or interact with magic. Turns out, that Jennsen is Richard’s half sister, and her being ungifted is the bi-product of Richard’s gift. There can be only one! She has to be ungifted so that he can be gifted. It is very complicated, and there is an entire race of people on whom Adie’s magical eyesight doesn’t work! And Jennsen had to help Richard rally them up, because they were blind (oh the tropes and ableist language abound!) to evil, and their pacifist asses wouldn’t raise a finger to fight for their artwork of individual self interest.

I was just frustrated beyond all belief.

So if you want a nice stew of -ism and fuckery passed off as philosophy and disguised with characters that you will certainly love, I recommend Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. All eleven (soon to be twelve!) books of it!

EDIT: 01 Sept: I forgot a couple of links when I finished this post. Apologies!

Recommended Reading for August 31, 2010

Pamela Paul for the New York Times: Can Preschoolers be Depressed?

In the winter of 2009, when Kiran was 5, his parents were told that he had preschool depression, sometimes referred to as “early-onset depression.” He was entered into a research study at the Early Emotional Development Program at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, which tracks the diagnosis of preschool depression and the treatment of children like Kiran. “It was painful,” Elizabeth says, “but also a relief to have professionals confirm that, yes, he has had a depressive episode. It’s real.”

Mary Crawford for the APA Monitor: Parenting with a disability: The last frontier

Social psychologist and bioethicist Asch says that a lack of familiarity may be one reason for professionals’ biases toward people with disabilities. “Very few professionals know people with disabilities as peers,” says Asch, who teaches at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. “Their only contact with people with disabilities is in a crisis situation, where the professional is [called on for help]. So the notion among some professionals is that people with disabilities always need help and can never give help or nurturance to another human being or provide a child with security or protection.”

Naomi Jacobs for the Guardian‘s Comment is Free: Disabled people do have sex lives. Get over it.

This is not a story about “taxpayers’ money” – most disabled people who have local authority-funded care plans are only allowed to spend these on basic services such as help with washing and dressing. What it is really about is moral outrage over an isolated case, which is also a smokescreen for much more disturbing attitudes towards disabled people’s lives.

CBC News: Down Syndrome group slams Emmys

“With race, sexual orientation and disability, you are talking people’s core identity — things that are unchangeable,” she said. “What do we get out of making fun of things that people cannot change, other than degrading them and making them feel they are not part of society.”

Amber Dance for the Los Angeles Times: In the Works: Microneedle patches could take the sting out of shots

The Band-Aid-like patches, coated with microscopic needles, generally don’t hurt. Moreover, they may actually work better at delivering vaccines and some medications, according to recent research.

I Wonder If I’ll Get Delay of Game…

I received an email from my Primary Care Manager the other day.

She responded to my message that I needed refills even though it wasn’t time for me to come back in for a visit yet to let me know she had arranged for all of my scripts. At the end was something that winds up keeping me awake with worry.

“I’ll be leaving [the hospital] 10 September.”

Fuck.

“I’ve told [new doctor taking her place] about you to make sure he is up to speed.”

*panic begins*

“I wish you well.”

I’ve made bad sports metaphors about the way that good health care goes when you have a chronic condition, and your doctor leaves. Basically, my center is out for the season. The thing is, pucks just started flying in from all directions as very slight things have started to go awry, and we’ve been trying new things to fix them. I’ve agreed to a few new referrals that I’ve declined in the past (such as seeing the Neurologist when in the past I’ve been shamed and yelled at by them), some alternatives to my current regimen.

Now, I feel not only ill-prepared for the season, but naked on the ice for the game.

A change of doctor, especially when it is unexpected is alarming. When things have been going well for so long. When my current doctor has done so well advocating for me. When she has insisted that I not be ashamed to ask for more pain medication. When she has listened, not only to my medical concerns, but to my life concerns, because she really believed that they were equally important.

Perhaps the new doctor will be just as wonderful. Perhaps he will storm onto the ice and intercept the puck and make a saving play, and find answers we didn’t see before. Perhaps things will continue and I will notice little or no difference. I might get lucky and this new doctor will allow me to email him for prescription refills to.

But what if he isn’t?

It’s the “what if?” game that is causing the voice inside to shriek that everything is going to fall apart. If for some reason this new doctor turns out to be a nightmare the process of finding another one is not simple. It takes time. It takes spoons. It takes a calm place in my mind that I am not sure I can achieve during this stream of events.

*The title refers to this hockey penalty. In keeping in the spirit of my bad sports metaphor, for fussing about a new doctor…

Recommended Reading for 30 August 2010

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.

Venus Speaks: Despair

Now, I don’t have a good history with the social security office. The two times I visited one, I was brushed off. I don’t know if they took one look at a mostly able-bodied young girl and said, hey, she must be trying to trick us, but it sure as hell felt like it – they told me that I needed to apply online, entirely online, and that they were so far booked into the future that there was just no point in scheduling. As in they refused to schedule me.

And lo, as I am filling out the disability report tonight, not only do I lose the internet and all my progress, but I just happen to notice before it goes down that you can’t apply for SSI online, you can only fill out the adult disability report, print off a few forms, and schedule an interview. You know, that interview that my local office couldn’t afford to give me.

Those Emergency Blues: The Title is About the Power

Titles, in short, are about establishing status and power. Why else worry about them? They are utterly irrelevant to actual patient care and one’s ability to do the job. Insisting on their use can create an atmosphere of professional intimidation that suppresses the free exchange of information. Health care professionals expressing power over patients is definitely not a good way to create therapeutic relationships. Implicitly saying (or believing) the title makes you a better person or supplies you with definitive or superior knowledge about patient care is dangerous as well as destructive to collaborative relationships with other health care professionals. In the end, it results in bad care of our patients, and of each other.

Pipecleaner Dreams: A Modicum of Sense

Well, at least the Academy of Arts and Sciences haven’t completely lost their minds. I was appalled when I first heard that the TV show, Family Guy, got an Emmy nod for their song, ‘Down Syndrome Girl.’

Haven’t heard it? Well, here is a sampling of the lyrics:

And though her pretty face may seem a special person’s wettest dream. […]

You must impress that ultra-boomin’, all consumin’, poorly-groomin’, Down Syndrome girl. […]

ABC News: Too Special for the Special Olympics (via Patricia E. Bauer, thanks to Nightengale for the link!)

The problem arose when Jenny’s school district entered an agreement with the Special Olympics, promising to abide by the organization’s rules. That meant no court time for Jenny, though the organization won’t say whether it’s because of the oxyen, or Simba, or both. [sic]

Ablegamers: Bungie Punishes You For Quitting Early

The fear is that disabled gamers who need to quit in the middle will be labeled as rage quitters. Certain people’s disabilities can hit at a moments notice, forcing them to quit out of a game. While according to the statement Bungie is only punishing those who habitually quit, it doesn’t discuss how they gauge that. Is that a certain percentage of total games? Frequency? What?

What has gone so wrong that it has come to this? Has Bungie exhausted all other options before walking down this path? Not really.

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.