By Annaham on 4 May, 2010
RMJ: Disability and birth control, part 1 Widespread (rather than individual) centralization of birth control in feminism alienates and marginalizes their already problematized bodies: trans women, intersex women, older women, women with disabilities that affect their reproductive system, asexual women, women who want to get pregnant. Not to mention the loaded history of otherwise non-privileged [...]
Posted in autonomy, bodies, class issues, gender, global, introspective, invisibility, justice, medical practice, mental health, news, policy, race, recommended reading, representations, reproductive justice, resistance, work | Tagged bad science, communication, depression, global, health care, health care is an accessibility issue, intersectionality, invisible disability, news, race, racism, reproductive justice, reproductive rights, science, social inclusion, work
By abby jean on 22 April, 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 [...]
Posted in global, justice, mental health, policy, recommended reading
By Annaham on 20 April, 2010
Scott Carney (Mother Jones magazine): Inside India’s Rent-a-Womb Business Despite the growth in services, surrogacy is not officially regulated in India. There are no binding legal standards for treatment of surrogates, nor has any state or national authority been empowered to police the industry. While clinics have a financial incentive to ensure the health of [...]
Posted in activism, bodies, disability activism, gender, global, justice, news, race, recommended reading, reproductive justice, violence | Tagged advertising, awareness, awareness campaigns, bodies, global, health, health care, India, media and pop culture, news, reproductive, reproductive rights, shaming
By s.e. smith on 28 March, 2010
A little photo field trip: In the Bahamas, children at the Bahamas Association for the Physically Disabled preparing for the summer play. Creative Commons-licensed photo by obi1323. In Athens, Greece, lack of sidewalks and curb cuts forces wheelchair and scooter users into the street. Photo by Flickr user Ermis Kasapis, Creative Commons license. In Cambodia, [...]
Posted in global, representations | Tagged photography
By abby jean on 25 March, 2010
An excerpt from a New York Times article – click through for the whole piece. Inside this city’s earthquake-cracked psychiatric hospital, a schizophrenic man lay naked on a concrete floor, caked in dust. Other patients, padlocked in tiny concrete cells, clutched the bars and howled for attention. Feces clotted the gutter outside a ward where [...]
Posted in global, justice, mental health, poverty
By s.e. smith on 25 March, 2010
The Balkans are a hub between East and West. This diverse region of Europe has rippled with conflict for centuries and like other areas repeatedly subjected to violent conflict and military actions, a significant legacy has been left behind. Rates of disability are higher in war torn regions for all the obvious reasons, support is [...]
Posted in global, military, policy | Tagged Balkans, depleted uranium, pollution, war
By Annaham on 17 March, 2010
Here at FWD, it is not unusual for us to get quite a few comments in mod that question, take issue with, or outright berate our fairly rigorous comments policy and iterations thereof in varying degrees. Many of these comments are some variation of “But what about my right to express my opinion?” or “But…free [...]
Posted in activism, class issues, disability activism, global, i'm right here, intersectionality, justice, language, meta, normality, othering, social attitudes | Tagged activism, blog, bloggers, blogging, comments, comments policy, communication, derailing, first amendment, free speech, global, internet, Internet use, it's about you, language, law, myths and misconceptions, privilege, privilege-check, problematic attitudes, representation, rights, USA
By abby jean on 13 March, 2010
The Big Picture, one of my very favorite photo blogs, in which the Boston Globe collects a set of stunning photos on a single topic or theme, recently had a series on Indonesia. Two of the photos especially caught my eye, as they depicted scenes from mental health institutions in the country. The leg of [...]
Posted in global, medical practice, mental health, poverty
By s.e. smith on 25 February, 2010
It is difficult to find demographic statistics on Iraq. The population has experienced considerable upheaval as a direct consequence of the war my government started there, and it was already tremendously unstable before the United States invaded in 2003 with the ostensible goal of “fighting terrorism.” Seven years later, we are still in Iraq, and [...]
Posted in feminism, global, politics | Tagged cancer, chemical weapons, depleted uranium, dioxins, DU, Gulf War, Iraq, Iraq war, mental health, nuclear waste, pollution
By abby jean on 21 January, 2010
Nobody knows how many people with disabilities there are in the world. In doing some basic research, I saw estimates ranging from 300 to 600 million. This is partly a definitional issue – it’s hard to get people to agree what “disabled” means – but mostly is because nobody has ever tried to figure it [...]
Posted in global, intersectionality, poverty | Tagged rwanda
Yeah, what *about* your free speech “rights”?
By Annaham on 17 March, 2010
Here at FWD, it is not unusual for us to get quite a few comments in mod that question, take issue with, or outright berate our fairly rigorous comments policy and iterations thereof in varying degrees. Many of these comments are some variation of “But what about my right to express my opinion?” or “But…free [...]
Posted in activism, class issues, disability activism, global, i'm right here, intersectionality, justice, language, meta, normality, othering, social attitudes | Tagged activism, blog, bloggers, blogging, comments, comments policy, communication, derailing, first amendment, free speech, global, internet, Internet use, it's about you, language, law, myths and misconceptions, privilege, privilege-check, problematic attitudes, representation, rights, USA