All posts by Annaham

About Annaham

Annaham (they/them) is a feminist with several disabilities who occasionally updates their personal blog. They currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area with their partner, and an extremely spoiled Yorkie/Pom mix named Sushi. You can reach them by emailing hamdotblog AT gmail dot com.

Meet a Contributor: Annaham

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So everyone can get to know our contributors a bit better, we’ve decided to run a series called “Meet a Contributor”. Each Contributor will be interviewed by the others in turn.

Annaham

[Description: Black-and-white, low-angle photograph of a smiling white woman with shoulder-length, light brown hair. She wears a tank top with a long-sleeved print shirt over it, and a necklace that depicts Kali. Her arms are crossed.]

Greetings, FWD readers and commenters! I am Annaham; I am a feminist in my 20s with several disabilities, most notably fibromyalgia (it seems to be the one I write the most about, anyway). I have a BA in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of California, Davis; currently, I am getting my Masters’ in the same discipline at another fairly large public university in California. My focus is feminist disability theory, and I have a particular interest in disability narratives — particularly autobiography and representations/narratives in nontraditional formats — and how they intersect with feminist theory, as well as gender, race, class and sexuality. My other interests, academic and not, include cults and New Religious Movements, the body, visual art, cinema, popular music and performance art. In my spare time, I like to listen to music, read entirely too much, draw cartoons, occasionally blog, and watch ridiculous reality television.

Meloukhia: You are frequently in San Francisco! Where is your favourite place to eat there, and why? (Further to that: Do you have a favourite overall vs, say, a favourite cheap eatery, favourite fancypants restaurant, etc.?) Since I am both a vegetarian and pretty frugal, I highly recommend Ananda Fuara, a vegetarian and vegan eatery which is near the Civic Center in the city. I don’t go there for the ambiance, of course, but the food is incredible and many of their menu items are under $10. The waitstaff will also go out of their way to check ingredients if you, like me, have severe food allergy concerns. As far as fancier places go, I quite enjoy E & O Trading Company for a full meal, and Cako Bakery for the greatest cupcakes in Northern California.

Lauredhel: Annaham, you like shiny things. Would you dress head to toe in sequins, or glitter? Please show your work. Glitter would probably flake everywhere and make a huge mess, so I’m going to have to go with sequins. Were this sequined Rodarte for Target dress offered in full-length form, I would absolutely rock it (although I might have to get one if I can find it anywhere, just on principle, because it’s SEQUINED and features a ribcage).

Chally: What’s your favourite quote or saying? This changes frequently, but right now, my favorite quote is from extremely hippie-ish author SARK: “You are enough. You have enough. You do enough.” This statement is something of which I need to remind myself regularly–even if it is rather simplistic and definitely does not apply to everything (or everyone!) at all times.

Anna: If you had to go far far away from civilization and the internets for a hundred years, what five books would you bring with you, and why? Afterwards you get to come back and find out what you missed! Holy hell on toast, what a difficult choice! I have a huge list of books that I would consider “favorites,” so I’m just going to pick five from the list: Outlaw Culture by bell hooks (because reading it makes me happy to be alive, quite frankly); Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault (mostly so I could read it again and again…and again until I could understand all or most of it) ; Verses by Ani DiFranco (this collection of some of her lyrics is nothing short of exhilarating–and beautifully designed); Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (I know, it’s such a hipster/NPR liberal-cliche book to pick, but the guy really has major talent); and, finally, The Rejected Body by Susan Wendell (I cannot recommend this book highly enough — it helped me tremendously in claiming a disbled identity, and is kind of like philosophy, feminist theory and a disability manifesto all wrapped into one, with amazing results).

Thank Cthulhu that I’d get to come back from this hypothetical deserted island, because I have a feeling that after a while, I would get so bored and/or lonely that I’d start acting out meticulously-planned, one-woman versions of each episode of Lost to stave off said boredom and loneliness.

Amandaw: I want to hear more about Winston. How old is he? How did you get him? What is his favorite treat? What sort of silly doggy things does he do? Winston is 10, though he looks (and acts) like a puppy and is quite regularly mistaken for one. He was originally my family’s dog (along with our other Yorkie, Frank, who died in 2007), but after I moved into a place that allowed pets, he pretty much became my responsibility (not that I mind)! He loves cheddar cheese most of all, but will eat almost whatever you put in front of him, so long as it’s people-food. He also does many silly doggy things, but my personal favorites have to be his extremely loud snoring, and his propensity to squeeze himself next to my butt or under my feet as I sleep, or climb onto my shoulder and perch there while I’m sitting on the couch. Many of these things can be annoying if they don’t come at the right time, but I can’t stay mad at this face for long:

[Description: The photograph is of a small, large-eared Yorkshire Terrier’s face and upper body in front of a couch; the dog has the traditional Yorkie coloration of varying shades of blond and light silver/grey.]

Kaninchenzero: What-all are you studying and what about it interests you? As I mentioned in my introduction, I am currently pursuing my MA in Women’s and Gender Studies, with a focus on feminist disability theory. There are many, many things about the topic and the field at large that interest me, but most of all, I am interested in it because it has helped me make sense of a lot of things about my life, and I believe — like bell hooks — that social justice and theory, if made accessible and relevant to a wide variety of people, can be life-changing.

OuyangDan: You may answer in poem, prose, photo, interpretive dance or any other medium that you feel appropros: How did you get into cartooning? Is it a creative outlet for you? Just something you goofed around with one day and enjoyed? Hilariously enough, I was going to draw a cartoon in order to answer this question, but since I’ve already got multiple images in this post, I ultimately decided against it. It is a creative outlet for me; mostly, I use it to gather my thoughts and represent my everyday experiences in what is hopefully a funny and/or interesting manner. I’ve been cartooning on-and-off since around age 10, and it’s been an excellent medium to stick with, since one may not have to practice it every single day in order to say what one wants to say (unlike, say, life drawing, which is a type of drawing that I have always been spectacularly terrible at doing). This is not to say that I am against self-improvement or self-discipline when it comes to art — quite the opposite! — but since I have chronic pain that tends to flare up, it is nice to have a creative pursuit that is somewhat “forgiving” in terms of how much time and energy I can put into it without exhausting myself. Sometimes, I wish I could devote more time to drawing “realistically,” but life happens, and I already have so much that I want to put into my cartoons that I would never get any done, were I to devote untold hours to learning to draw “well” or “realistically.”

Dear Imprudence: Oh No, It’s the Pronunciation Police!

Dear Imprudence, language, normality, representations, shaming, social attitudes, , , , ,

The following appeared in Slate’s “Dear Prudence” advice column chat-room supplement fairly recently:

Chicago: We have a close friend who is prone to embarrassing malapropisms that surpass even the best Norm Crosby bit. These are not innocent and simple mispronunciations—but ugly mangling of words including misuse and lack of understanding of the meaning of some words. I know that many words have multiple pronunciations and meanings, but this is beyond brutal. Some of them are funny, some are faux pas that make you wince and want to help. We used to try to help by repeating the word correctly in conversation after she had mangled it. No success. We have tried the direct approach—like a teacher—but this was rebuffed. We never did any of this in public but in private, away from others. And we picked our spots—only bringing up the worst cases. But she takes offense and continues mispronouncing words and inserting them in conversation where they don’t belong. Recently, my wife used the word adept, and now our friend mispronounces it and uses it like apt. It is like she has her own language. My wife has stopped trying to correct her. Her husband is no help and does the same thing on a smaller scale. I refuse to throw in the towel as I can’t understand why anyone would not want to expand their vocabulary—correctly. I would want to know if I was saying tenor for tenure and FOIL-AGE for any of the many accepted versions of foliage. We are 57 and of sound mind. She does not have a hearing problem.

There are so many problems here, I don’t even know where to begin. This “friend” is SO EMBARRASSING, nor does she take kindly to being corrected by her “well-meaning” pals who think her misuse of language is just terrible! Horrors!

One part that strikes me as uniquely troubling is this: “We are 57 and sound of mind.” Yes, because being 57 is supposed to automatically mean that one becomes not sound-of-mind? Soundness of mind, additionally, is one of those things where the meaning changes depending upon whom you talk to. Combined with the letter-writer’s utterly condescending attitude toward his “friend,” this sounds suspiciously like a trope that has been leveled for ages at PWDs, mostly by the temporarily abled who are so concerned about their welfare: If you’d just take my advice/listen to me/let me HELP you, you would get better. As has been proven time and time again, this is rarely true.

Now let’s look at the columnist’s response:

Emily Yoffe: Your friend probably has some sort of language processing disorder (there was speculation that the George Bush’s malapropisms, “I know you want to put food on your family,” etc., might have come from such a disorder), and all the schoolmarmish corrections in the world won’t “cure” her. It’s good you mention Norm Crosby, because he built an entire career on amusingly mangling language. I don’t know why you consider being with your friend “brutal.” It sounds as if you usually understand what she means, and when you don’t, you can ask for more context. Trying to keep a straight face seems like the biggest problem you face in socializing with her. So just be compassionate and let it go, and when you get in the car, you can laugh at her best neologisms.

Shockingly, I don’t totally hate this advice, despite Yoffe’s ill-fated attempts at snark/humor. She brings up an excellent point: If these “well-meaning” grammar cops think that being around this person (whom they call a friend) is such a trial, then why would they continue to be around this individual? To bolster their own sense of superiority? To show off their class privilege to this “friend” in the most ridiculous way possible? I have some issues with the “just laugh at her when she’s not around” suggestion, which seems almost needlessly rude–laughing at someone’s disability, furthermore, (which they often cannot control) is generally considered impolite for a reason.

But what the hell do I know? I’m just a person with several disabilities; if I’m lucky, perhaps a well-meaning TAB is writing a hand-wringing, oh-so-concerned letter to an advice columnist about me right this very second.

Question Time: Personal Care Items

Question Time,

Question Time is a series in which we open up the floor to you, commenters. We invite you to share as you feel comfortable.

Do you use any personal care items–“frivolous” things included–as part of your self-care? If so, what do you use? How have these items helped you with your condition(s)? Please feel free to include links/information and whatnot if you think other commenters and/or contributors may be interested.

Lines in the Sand: Daly, Showalter and Tactics of Exclusion

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The second-wave radical feminist theologian and professor Mary Daly died earlier this month, and there has been a veritable outpouring of eulogies from various feminist blogs.

Few of these eulogies have acknowledged Daly’s transphobia and racism.

I do not deny that Daly was an important figure in second-wave feminism, but to mourn her passing without a nod to her work’s more problematic aspects, or explorations of these aspects, are, to put it mildly, not good. In particular, the intense, hateful transphobia found in some of her writing, and her issues with unexamined white privilege and racism — which both QueenEmily at Questioning Transphobia and Sungold at Kittywampus cover very well in recent posts — strikes many as both deeply disturbing and an old pattern that has, and continues to, rear its grotesque head in certain segments of contemporary feminism. I include myself among those who are deeply troubled by Daly’s transphobic sentiments and her questionable record when it came to examining the entrenched racism and issues surrounding white privilege in the second-wave feminist movement.

I should probably mention at this point that I do not mean to appropriate or co-opt the struggles of trans* folks in any way, although my cis privilege will most likely be unintentionally reflected at points in this piece. Though the struggles of trans* people, trans feminists and PWDs and disabled feminists are not the exact same, some exclusionary tactics of certain cisgendered feminists and those of abled feminists sometimes take similar forms, especially within the mainstream feminist movement. The oppression of trans* folks and PWDs in cis, abled culture intersect in a number of ways; this post, however, barely scratches that surface. I believe that the many issues present in Daly’s work–as well as the reaction to her death around the blogosphere–can serve as just one entry point to discussions of the similarities in oppression(s) that trans* people and PWDs face. There are also clear differences, among them the fact Daly used language that can only be called genocidal, while many other feminists of her generation did not advocate such an extreme path when it came to keeping certain individuals out of feminism. I will be focusing on feminism’s exclusion of trans* and PWDs as reflected in the work of two very influential second-wave feminists here, but there is, of course, much more to these stories.

Daly’s penchant for exclusion and outright hatred (particularly of trans* individuals) couched in oddly phrased academic rhetoric unfortunately brings to mind another famous second-waver’s similar issues with people (particularly women) with disabilities. Princeton scholar Elaine Showalter — best known for bringing feminist literary theory to the fore in the academy at a time when such a discipline was, for the most part, inconceivable — dismissed disabling conditions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Gulf War Syndrome and mental health issues such as Dissociative Identity Disorder (referred to in the text as Multiple Personality Disorder) in her 1997 book Hystories.

In Hystories, Showalter attempted to debunk “modern media epidemics” such as the aforementioned disabilities as well as more traditionally disproven phenomena such as alien abduction and satanic ritual abuse. In the book’s chapter on Chronic Fatigue, Showalter rather disingenuously declared that she did not want to “disparage the suffering” of people with such conditions only a few pages before she called CFS an extension of Western “fin de siecle [end of the century] anxiety.” She followed this stunning assertion with the claim that the Western news media was primarily responsible for making CFS into an escalating “psychogenic epidemic” (117, 131).

Like Daly’s severe opinion of trans* people as dupes of the medical industry (which Kittywampus cites in her post), Showalter also seemed to be taken with the idea that people with CFS are somehow being duped into thinking that they are ill because of the media focus on their condition. She wrote that many CFS patients and their defenders are “hostile to psychiatric or social explanations” of the condition, and that many of them react in a way that is not friendly to the labeling of CFS as “psychiatric” (128). However, the reactions of these same patients make sense if considered from a non-abled perspective. Showalter also seemed completely mystified by these “hostile” reactions. If CFS is just a manifestation of “fin seicle anxiety,” as she contended (adding that “emotions have tremendous power over the body”) she seemed to push the conclusion — without any scientific or medical proof — that many people with CFS have somehow been brainwashed into believing they have it; thus, the media-driven “hysterical epidemic” has worked.

Nowhere are feminists with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or related conditions consulted; the not-so-feminist implication here is that feminists with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome either do not exist or are just victims of a “hysterical” media-led epidemic and therefore cannot be “real” feminists. This is similar to how trans* feminists were erased, excluded and castigated by Daly as somehow not “real” women or feminists, and as benefiting from patriarchy in a way that “real” women and feminists could not. To put it crudely: This is exclusionary bullcrap, and it does not do trans* people, people with disabilities, feminists who fit either (or both) of these categories, or the feminist movement as a whole any favors whatsoever.

Exclusion is not radical. It has never been radical. It is, in fact, extraordinarily status-quo. No one should be able to arbitrarily pick and choose who “belongs” in the feminist movement and who does not, especially if those who are being excluded because of their gender identity, sexual identity or disability actively identify as feminist. Feminism should be for a wide variety of people; exclusion, however, is something that is not — and has never been — very  feminist.

Author’s note: I will be moderating this thread with an iron fist; please have the courtesy to not try to tell me how Daly really was an ally to trans* folks, or how Showalter didn’t mean what she said about CFS *that* way, or that either author’s influence on the feminist movement somehow excuses their hatred and bigotry. Thank you.

[Cross-posted to Ham.Blog]

Quoted: Karl Michalak, “Face Value” (excerpt)

autonomy, blaming, bodies, creative work, disability activism, justice, language, normality, Quotations, resistance, sexuality, social attitudes, , , , , , , ,

Everything healed up
but in a very strange way
Years later
when it was very obvious
that something was very wrong with my face
everyone
said one or more of the following:

It’s the Lord’s will.
Just learn to live with it.
It’s all in your imagination.
Don’t be so self-centered.
Shut up and do your homework.
Other people are worse off than you.

[Full text available in the 2004 anthology Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories, edited by Bob Guter and John R. Kilacky.]

Does Outright Speculation Make This Disabled Feminist Angry?

autonomy, blaming, For Cereal?, intersectionality, media and pop culture, medical practice, normality, shaming, social attitudes, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

Answer: Yes.

Let’s talk about this piece-of-crap article recently published on that oh-so-“liberal” news n’ culture site, Salon.com. I’m prefacing this post with a warning for ableist language and concepts on the part of the article’s author, Rahul K. Parikh, M.D. The article begins as follows:

There was a time when a celebrity’s sudden death almost invariably meant illegal drugs…[a]nd so it seems with Brittany Murphy, the bubbly and bright actress who died of cardiac arrest at 32.

Yes, it seems. Point is, we don’t know much yet. There are other health-related issues or conditions that can lead to cardiac arrest, but is this acknowledged? Of course not! Parikh continues:

The coroner’s notes allegedly claim a pharmacopia in Murphy’s bathroom cabinet: Topamax (for seizures or migraines), methylprednisolone (a steroid), fluoxetine (an antidepressant), Klonopin (for anxiety), carbamazepine (for seizures or bipolar disorder), Ativan (for anxiety), Vicoprofen (pain reliever), propranolol (for hypertension, migraines or anxiety), Biaxin (an antibiotic), and hydrocodone (a narcotic pain reliever). Gone are the days of shameful crack pipes and empty gin bottles.

OH MY GOD, EVERYBODY PANIC.

Murphy’s medications, like those of [Heath] Ledger and Anna Nicole Smith, are on the shelves of your local drugstore, available with a simple trip to the doctor — or doctors — whom you merely need to convince that you need the stuff. Did one doctor prescribe her those meds? Did 10? We don’t yet know. But as a doctor myself, I just kept wondering (and not for the first time): What if doctors were more like librarians? Would Brittany Murphy still be alive?

Cue scary music! THE DANGER IS ON THE SHELVES OF YOUR LOCAL DRUGSTORE. Nevermind that people with chronic pain conditions and disabilities have to jump through numerous, often ridiculous hoops just to get, say, a month’s supply of medications that help them function and/or live life to the fullest extent possible. As one of these people, I am of the opinion that Parikh is being rather disingenuous here; these drugs, at least for us “average” folk with chronic pain issues, are usually not easy to obtain.

After nattering about how the medical field should follow the example of public libraries when it comes to monitoring people and their books meds, he continues:

One of the many negative consequences of such fragmentation is how ridiculously easy it can be to get drugs. Most doctors know patients who have desperately angled to get a prescription they don’t need, usually highly addictive pain medicines like Percocet or OxyContin. This is what we call “doctor shopping,” hopping from one physician to the next until they find someone willing to write a script. When the supply dries up, they go to another doctor, and then another. One 53-year-old man in California visited 183 doctors and 47 pharmacies in one year to support his addiction to painkillers.

Hey, nice use of anecdata there! What on earth does one 53 year-old guy in California have to do with Brittany Murphy’s situation? As for “most doctors” knowing a patient who has “angled” for meds they “don’t need” (who makes that judgement, I wonder?): cry me a goddamn river. The endless Helen Lovejoy-gasping about ADDICTION!!1 in fact makes it incredibly hard for some of us who need these medications to obtain them, and no amount of 1984-esque War is Peace anecdata–from someone, no less, who is supposed to help people in pain as part of his chosen occupation–is going to change that.

In short, the experiences of people with chronic pain are going be different than those of an able-bodied doctor, but nowhere is this acknowledged in this article–nor is it mentioned in many larger conversations about  painkillers and (possible) ADDICTION!!11.

Most of us who need these medications do not have the energy to doctor-shop. I do not wish to deny that painkiller addiction is a serious problem; it is, for some. Sadly, these sorts of “conversations” on the specter of supposedly widespread PAINKILLER ADDICTION!!!1–much like those focusing on the OBESITY CRISIS!!11–tend to focus entirely too much attention on extreme cases and anecdata, leaving out those who need these medications for legitimate medical reasons, and, I might add, some of whom spend a great portion of time proving said legitimacy in order to show that they are not addicts or doctor-shoppers.

But if “preventing” ADDICTION!11 in able-bodied people via endless hand-wringing about who “really” needs these drugs versus who doesn’t is the number one priority here, that is a problem. Yet again, the needs of those who are judged by society as most “important” or productive or fitting into able-bodied society are taken seriously, and the needs of those who do not fit this mold–because they need painkillers for actual pain and are therefore bad/unproductive/just a bunch of whiners–are ignored, or worse, actively shamed and castigated for things or circumstances that they cannot control.

And, as OuyangDan pointed out so eloquently on this very blog, there are a lot of things that we don’t know about Brittany Murphy’s death. Using her death as a poorly-researched, almost totally speculative “example” of the dangers of painkiller ADDICTION!!11 is not only tasteless, but it distracts from how ridiculously the concerns about painkillers, “legitimacy” and the specter of addiction are often framed by (mostly privileged) people who do not deal with these things in their daily lives.

Less infuriating: Many of the commenters seem to agree that this article and its “speculation” went too far, which is unusual for Salon commenters, as most of them tend to exemplify the worst of privileged white “liberalism” on a regular basis (as you would expect, this includes loads of abled privilege and the anecdata to back up their uninformed opinions).

Book Review: Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Has Undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich

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A word of caution: This review is going to be quite short, as I have been struggling with “getting words out” for the past few days. Regardless, I think this is an important book, and might be of interest to my fellow FWD-ers (bloggers and commenters!).

I touched upon the whole positive thinking movement (and why it offends me) at this very blog a while back; I’ve long had problems with the “Just think POSITIVE!” suggestion and attendant movement, and one piece that really got to the root of things, at least for me, was Ehrenreich’s 2001 essay, “Welcome to Cancerland,” which is about how positive thinking–bejewelled and be-ribboned with a heaping helping of traditional femininity and stereotypes about women, and particularly women who have survived breast cancer–has, for lack of a better word, swallowed the breast cancer “awareness” movement. [The essay is available at her website.] A revised version of the essay appears as the opening chapter to Bright-Sided, and Ehrenreich adds just enough salient facts to make reading the newer version worthwhile and not at all confusing to non-sciencey types like myself. (Ehrenreich has a PhD in Cell Biology.)

That said, the remainder of Bright-Sided proved to be a fast, engaging read. In fact, I wish it had been longer, and one chapter that could have used an expansion was the closing chapter on positive thinking’s effect on the recent U.S. economic crash. The book is also extremely U.S.-centric, but since positive thinking is one of those things that seems to have really taken flight in the North American consciousness, this is not particularly surprising. Unfortunately, with the exception of the breast cancer chapter, Ehrenreich does not specifically cover disability and/or chronic illness issues as they relate to the positive thinking movement. However, her book as a whole may have been designed to be rather “general” since the positive thinking movement impacts many people (for better or worse), not just those with disabilities. This generality is both a strength and a weakness, and I think Ehrenreich’s writing saves her points from being too non-specific.

I will leave you with a quote that stuck with me, from the book’s second chapter:

But in the world of positive thinking other people are not there to be nurtured or to provide unwelcome reality checks. They are only to nourish, praise and affirm. Harsh as this dictum sounds, many ordinary people adopt it as their creed, displaying wall plaques or bumper stickers showing the word “Whining” with a cancel sign through it. There seems to be a massive empathy deficit, which people respond to by withdrawing their own. No one has the time or patience for anyone else’s problems…When the gurus advise dropping “negative” people, they are also issuing a warning: smile and be agreeable, go with the flow–or prepare to be ostracized. (56-57)

Disability 101: Treatment Suggestions and Why They Are Not a Good Idea

101, autonomy, blaming, bodies, identity, life changes, normality, resistance, shaming, social attitudes

I suggested a treatment/”cure” to a PWD for her/his/zie’s condition, and they ignored my suggestion/did not throw themselves at my feet with gratitude/got upset. Why? I was only trying to help!

Many people who do not live with chronic health issues, perhaps in a spirit of wanting to help those they know who are in pain, disabled, chronically ill, or affected by a neurological or mental health condition, may suggest different treatments or ways that they believe the person with the condition, illness or disability should use to “get better.” Many PWDs and chronically ill people, however, have experienced this exact process before, and often to the point where such “well-meaning” pieces of advice get…well, annoying; a stranger, acquaintance, co-worker or relative might suggest something that has been suggested many times before. Such “well-meaning” suggestions may imply some very different things to the PWD, chronically ill person, person with a mental health condition, or non-neurotypical person, namely:

…that they cannot be trusted to manage their own health, disability/disabilities, or course of treatment. Many people with disabilities and chronic illnesses have found treatments that improve their quality of life. Even with these treatments, they will probably still remain disabled/ill or still have their condition; the treatments that they have worked so hard to find, additionally,  most likely work for them. It is not your job, whether you are a friend, relative or other person concerned for the PWD’s “well being,” to bombard them with suggestions for different treatments, or push them to “just try” treatments (some of which may even be questionable in their effectiveness). There is a long history of people with mental health conditions, the non-neurotypical, persons with disabilities and chronically ill people being forced into undergoing treatments, into hospitals, and even into institutions by able-bodied people who presume that those with the health problems are not pursuing the “right” kind of treatment, and that this must be corrected—even at the expense of the individual’s humanity. Unless you are a professional, doctor or other specialist working with the person who has one of these conditions, and/or unless the treatment that they are undergoing is actively damaging their health, it is probably best to keep your recommendations about what course of treatment that you think the individual should be undergoing to yourself.

…that you are frustrated by the individual’s inability to “get better.” You may not say or even think this outright, but in some cases, actions speak louder than words.

…that you want to be given cookies/be thrown a parade/told you are fantastic for suggesting something that, in actuality, has probably been suggested to the individual many times before. In its more severe forms, this tendency is known as the “savior” or White Knight complex. Here’s the problem: Disability, chronic illness, mental health conditions, non-neurotypicality and pain, for the most part, are not things that can be cured. They can be dealt with, but it is oftentimes up to the person with the condition—-with appropriate support from family and friends-—to decide which treatments he/she/zie would like to pursue. Though you might like to, you cannot be the affected person’s able-bodied savoir. It is not the job of PWDs/chronically ill people to make you–an able-bodied person–feel better about yourself, whether by following your every treatment-related suggestion, or being uber-thankful whenever you deign to offer well-meaning advice that is related to their condition(s).

In addition, finding the right treatment(s) to improve quality-of-life can be a long, tiring, and agonizing process for many persons with disabilities, chronic illnesses, health conditions, mental health conditions, and neurological conditions. For many, starting an entirely new treatment for their condition(s) would, on some level, entail starting all over again; since getting to the point to where they are able to function and where their quality of life has been improved takes a long time, do you think that many non-able people would want to start from square one again to “just try” a treatment that’s been suggested, offhand, by a “concerned” person in their lives, that might not even work for them—-or that, in some cases, may make them worse? Because of each individual’s limitations when it comes to things such as time, finances, energy, tolerance/intolerance of additional discomfort or pain, or medication/treatment side effects, starting over with a “new” treatment might actually be a huge inconvenience for some people with disabilities, chronic health conditions, non-neurotypicality, or mental health conditions.

An earlier version of this piece was posted at Faces of Fibro on July 6, 2009.

Disability 101: What is Able-Bodied or Abled Privilege?

101, blaming, bodies, identity, intersectionality, mental health, normality, ,

What is able-bodied or abled privilege?

The term able-bodied/abled privilege refers to the numerous benefits—-some hidden, many not—-that many societies and cultures accord to able-bodied and/or abled people. Despite many folks’ paying lip service to notions of equality for PWDs, the chronically ill, people with psychiatric conditions, and those with chronic health conditions, abled privilege still exists, and there are still a lot of people who are resistant to the idea of a truly equitable, accessible society. Able-bodied and abled privilege is often hard for non-disabled people to spot; yet, in the words of the famous Palmolive dish soap ad, [YouTube link] most of us are “soaking in it.”

Many cultures have social expectations, structures, cultural mores, and institutions that are set up to accommodate able-bodied and/or abled people with the most ease; this is, of course, problematic for those who do not fit the standard of “able-bodied,” or “fully able,” whether in whole or part. Able-bodied or abled privilege also encompasses things like not having to worry about one’s energy level and/or pain level on any given day, the possible negative reactions of others to one’s needs due to his/her/zie’s disability or chronic condition, being stared at or questioned about (with varying degrees of invasiveness) his/her/zie’s disability or condition by strangers, her/his/zie’s ability to move for long distances or on a variety of surfaces without inconvenience/discomfort/pain and at a pace considered “appropriate” by others, being able to make decisions about the course of one’s medical, psychiatric, or other type of treatment without being questioned by others as to whether he/she/zie is making “the right choice” or can make a “rational” decision about his/her/zie’s own treatment-related choices, or being ignored by able-bodied people when one needs assistance in public; these kinds of able privilege masquerade as “the norm” for those without disabilities. For more examples, see Rio’s update on Peggy McIntosh’s famous article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” [link goes to Amptoons].

An earlier version of this post was originally posted at Faces of Fibro on May 6, 2009.

Quoted: Barbara Smith

feminism, Quotations,

“Feminism is the political theory and practice that struggles to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, disabled women, Jewish women, lesbians, old women–as well as white, economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this vision of total freedom is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement.”

–Barbara Smith, “Racism and Women’s Studies,” 1979 (text is available at JSTOR; unfortunately, it’s subscription-only)