Category Archives: recommended reading

Recommended Reading for the Wednesday of My Discontent

recommended reading

I’m clearing out my backlog of awesome posts that I meant to link oh-so-long ago, but really: This stuff is always timely, and always worth reading. Also, today is the Wednesday of our discontent because I’m sick and miserable.

Disability & Protests:

Laura Hershey: Last Word on the MDA Protests (At Least For This Year):

Yes, the Telethon was bad again this year, at least the bits I watched. One thing that continues to amaze me is how big a role Jerry Lewis’ big ego plays, all the way throughout the Telethon. Here’s one late-night quotation that I bothered to write down:

“This child in the [Boston] Hospital had muscular dystrophy, and I went to see him, and he smiled when I walked into the room, and he grabbed my hand, and he said, quote, ‘I’m glad I got muscular dystrophy, because that’s why I met you.’ I rest my case. If there are naysayers out there, and if they’re uncertain as to the validity of my soul, trust me – it was a moment in time that takes me through the program in 2001 all the way through 2010.”

John R. Polito: Charleston’s 20th MDA Telethon Protest

Forget for a moment the worthiness of the MDA’s cause. Instead, reflect on the consequences of pity based fund-raising that gets viewers to dig deeper and give more by making them feel superior and different, by using differing muscular abilities and muscle disease to foster sorrow, pity and tears.

Imagine painting life with muscular dystrophy as hopeless and dark unless the MDA can raise enough money to “find a cure.” Imagine the indignity of someone handing you money on Labor Day simply because your means of mobility is a wheelchair. As Harriet often asked, what is the cure for stigma?

Bad Cripple: New Ways To Create Social Change

Perhaps it is because I teach college students but I think the only way to make effective social and political change today is through online, multimedia, and creative civil disobedience. Here I am thinking along the lines as groups such as Improv Everywhere to far more obscure though no less interesting approaches taken by cripzthecomic. I suggest those unfamiliar with Improv Everywhere take a look at their “actions”. Some are very funny, others stupid, but the mass appeal cannot be denied. As for cripthecomic he recently posted about something he called “stair bombing”. This London Ontario based person went to a local school, spread about one dollars worth of caution tape across the entrance and posted a sign “Sorry, no access Stairs out of Order”. When I saw this I laughed myself silly! All I could think of was all the “No access elevator broken” signs I have come across in my life time. I also could not help but wonder did people circle the building looking for stairs that were not out of order. I cannot help but think this caused a stir–and made people think. And this, making people think and laugh, is exactly what disability rights has failed to do lately. If we can do this, make people think and protest in a way that appeals to young people who do not separate political change from humor we might be onto something big–we might be able to make disability rights cool.

Disability & Etiquette

PatientC: The SmartAss Guide to Wheelchair Etiquette

Do not touch the damn chair! I do not know what kind of swoon overcomes the temporarily able-bodied, but they seem to forget everything they have learned about behaving in public when they come in contact with a person in a wheelchair. Do not touch the chair. Is it normally okay to mess with other people’s things without asking? No? Well, that is settled then. It is not your prop, leaning spot, or fucking toy. It is a tool, and part of a person’s personal space.

Do not touch the wheelchair user! For pete’s sake, if you would not normally casually touch a person, you do not get the right to do so when they sit down. It is okay to shake hands, the user of the chair will let you know if they do not want to or not able to do so. And I swear, if you pat me on the head, you may pull back a stump.

Static Nonsense has two Bingo cards up about Plurality. (They have provided a description of the cards as well): Dear World: BINGO! Plurality Edition #1 and Dear World: BINGO! Plurality Edition #2.

This particular one is very important to me because it shows a lot of the arguments used to invalidate the existence and identity of plural systems. They’re arguments that I have been fighting against for a long time and have forced me out of areas I had been a part of for even longer. These are the “skeptic” positions, the ones taken when people do just enough research to further justify their own prejudices. And if they’re not doing that, they’re spouting pseudo-science (fun fun).

In The News

Canada: Universal Pharacare Touted as a way to save billions [The last time I checked the comments they were pretty bad.] “But, above all, it says Canada pays too much for drugs – between 16 and 40 per cent more than other industrialized countries – in a bid to attract pharmaceutical investment.”

US: Haunted House Exploits Real Horror “While the number of people confined to institutions has dramatically declined since then, a plan to turn Pennhurst into a Halloween attraction suggests the stigma of disability has not been erased.” (Also ‘Pennhurst Asylum’ project is an abomination)

Recommended Reading for September 21, 2010

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Natasha Tracy at Breaking Bipolar: Stop Minimizing Mental Illness: Worst Things To Say

I feel, sometimes, that I am at war with the mentally-well world. This isn’t to say that many of them aren’t lovely or that I have a desire to harm anyone, but I do feel embroiled. And it’s mostly because the well population just doesn’t understand what it is to be unwell. They demonstrate this heartily by repeatedly saying the worst things possible to a person with a mental illness.

The Guardian: Letters: Living on benefits is in no way ‘a lifestyle choice’

It is quite possible for a person from a very rich and privileged background to genuinely care about the plight of the poor, and to do something constructive to improve it (Osborne to cut £4bn more from benefits, 10 September). It is much harder for such a person to have any real comprehension of what it feels like to live in poverty, with little or no prospect of escape, no matter how hard they work.

Michael J. Berens at the Seattle Times: Hundreds of adult homes conceal abuse, neglect [strong trigger warning for content related to abuse]

In fact, a Seattle Times investigation has found, such cover-ups by adult family homes are not unusual. The Times found that over the past five years, at least 357 of the adult family homes in this state have concealed cases of abuse or neglect of their residents. Many of those cases involved serious injury or death. In dozens of these cases, untrained or unlicensed caregivers mishandled residents’ medications, sometimes giving them fatal overdoses. In other cases, residents became ill after being denied basic care and hygiene.

Ally at Every Crooked Step Forward: Courage…And Other Things I Don’t Have

That I am a person with a disability who identifies as asexual is not a forgone conclusion. That I belong to both groups is incidental, and that both groups have been mistakenly thought, by people who are not part of that group, to denote a lack of maturation or inability to understand one’s social or physical development, does not mean I am, in fact, immature, or that I do not know my own body. The fact that I am asexual is not proof about the presence, or lack of a sexual desire in a person with a disability, or zir understanding of zir sexuality, or zir ability to express that desire, if indeed it does exist. The fact that I have a disability is, similarly, not proof that all, or even most, people who identify as asexual suffer from some kind of physical, mental, or chemical deficiency.

Blackamazon at Having Read the Fine Print…….: We’re supposed to be impressed

However

I get less and less likely to feel solidarity with it when THAT phenomena where in your experimentation , goals for what inclusion looks like , and execution are serious matters and the stuff you got it from , the places it came from aren’t even notable .

As well as EVEN less likely to believe it’s just experimentation or poking and prodding when certain aspects of those personae like your race,class, sexuality are seemingly

a) ignored

or

b) only poked in ways that continually exhibit you as a edgy for a member of privileged class or consistent appropriator or chosen vessel.

It’s not my job to tell you haw to do it but if you wish to explore why is THAT section so often missed .

Recommended Reading for September 20, 2010

recommended reading

Today’s Recommended Reading focuses on Voting.

See image description below
s.e.'s absentee ballot from the 8 June 2010 statewide primary in California, sealed in its envelope and addressed to the registrar of voters. The ballot stub and an 'I voted' sticker are positioned on top of the envelope.

Canada: Blind voter lashes out over mail-in ballots

A blind voter has lashed out at politicians who chose mail-in ballots for an Oct. 25 Ontario city’s municipal election.

Geof Collis said he is “appalled” by the decision in Kawartha Lakes, in southeastern Ontario, which he says has “effectively discriminated against me and others, ensuring that my right to vote is neither private nor independent.

Faced with a mail-in ballot, he say: “How would it be possible to vote if you were blind without help from someone in one form or another?”

Canada: Voter access improved: city

Pauline Baker has always found it hard to vote for St. Catharines politicians.

No, she’s not particularly cynical about local politics.

The 68-year-old, who has multiple sclerosis and needs a scooter to get around, just has trouble getting into her local polling station.

“It’s not very accessible and it has been bugging me forever,” said Baker, who was left fuming outside a locked door at Prince Philip School during a previous election.

A wheelchair ramp led to the school’s side entrance, but safety rules prevented that door from being left open, even on election day. (A passing teacher eventually let Baker in.)

Tanzania: Disabled Persons Sidelined In Elections

The UN Development Programme (UNDP) conducted a two-day workshop last week to sensitize and educate people with disabilities on the forthcoming General Elections.

The workshop, which attracted about 100 special needs representatives from all regions in Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar, mainly dwelt on the Rights, Responsibilities and Roles of Voters in the country’s fourth multiparty election.

The UNDP election support project manager, Mr Oskar Lehner, said the government was duty bound to ensure special needs voters were equally involved in the entire election process.

Tanzania: Disabled Spell Out Their Reasons For Polls Apathy

Disabled people in Mwanza Region say they have not participated in this year’s General Election by contesting in various posts because of being stigmatized.

They made the remarks recently through the Nyamagana district chairman of the Tanzania Society for the Disabled, Mr Anthony Chacha.

Speaking to The Citizen after receiving five wheelchairs and
as many tricycles from the Mwanza City Council director, Mr Wilson Kabwe, he said the Tanzania society does not yet have confidence with disabled peoples’ ability to lead.

Recommended Reading for 17 September, 2010

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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?

From BBC’s Ouch, by Charlie Swinbourne, Deaf country life v deaf city life:

I’m soon to become a Dad for the second time, so we’ve started thinking about the long term, and where we want our children to grow up. With houses on the pricey side for anything bigger than a shed in our area of West London, we’re currently wondering whether we’d be better off bringing up a family outside the city. […] The capital is full of opportunities for deaf people, with weekly deaf pub meets, regular events, accessible cinema and theatre performances, and numerous deaf centres and sports clubs.

Badgermama presents Kids and wheelchair manners:

Please stop yelling at your kids just because they’re 20 feet away from a wheelchair! Nothing bad is going to happen. It really pisses me off when someone grabs their kid, yanks them “out of the way” and yells at them, just because I’m in the same grocery aisle or on the same sidewalk. Usually, the kids are nowhere near me. All these people are doing is teaching their children that people in wheelchairs are scary and weird.

Some good news from ysobel of i hear the voices when I’m dreaming in *sags in relief*:

So, there’s been this whole saga with trying to get a ramp to the front entrance of our church, made vastly overcomplicated by the fact that the church is a designated historical site blah blah blah. […] The church appealed to the city council, who had it on the agenda for tonight, after several postponements on their part.

Leah at Cromulent Words writes You Can’t See My Pain:

You don’t see me not talking about disability in class because I’m fraid of being silenced again. You see someone who doesn’t care about the assignment.

At random babble…, our own OYD writes Medical Autonomy Chronicles: The Virgin Pap Smear (do be warned, it’s graphic):

For all the talk of how having sex outside of marriage or whatever message had been pounded on me for however long, and how it would leave me hollow and leave me feeling worthless and damaged, and for all the ways I had been told that casual sex would leave me reeling and feeling depressed and with a hole of missing self-esteem, nothing I did in my consensual sex life has ever compared to the way that pelvic exam and pap smear felt to me, a fourteen year old girl. A person rising on the crest of womanhood, not yet there but ready to fly, and having had myself violated before I took my first steps.

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

Recommended Reading For 16 September 2010

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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.

Guiding Golden: Service Dogs as a Last Resort (Thanks to Sharon and Barnum for the link!)

There should be no correlation between a disabled person’s willingness, or lack thereof, to experiment with various options and others’ assessments of wether that person’s decision to use a service dog was made appropriately.  In the same spirit, a person who decides to use a service dog after alternatives have proven ineffective, should not be viewed as any more validated in their position than one who simply decides that the medication is not for her.

Planet of the Blind: No Wonder Blind People Have So Much Difficulty Getting Jobs, Have You Checked Out Their Computer Situation Lately?

Like my friend William Peace the administration at Iowa has come to think of me as a “bad cripple” who is simply a thorn–largely because I keep insisting that we need to have accessible campus buildings and a dignified disability culture that stands for true inclusion. Call me a thorn if you must. I simply believe that 20 years after the ADA people should be able to work and go to the bathroom by golly. When I think of how low my utopian dreams have fallen I could just cry.

Wibbly Wobbly Ramblings: A Serious Case of Discrimination against Students with Disabilities

Being forced to take a full course-load despite a diagnosis that says otherwise, forces students with disabilities to play the system and risk mental stress and burnout, to which their studies suffer and creates for them the issue of repairing the damage to their GPA.

Refusing to play the system, and, following a diagnosis, being considered part-time limits a student who cannot handle working at a job to support oneself at the same time as going to school.  It restricts students from grants, services, and the benefits of a full-time student.

Healthy Place: Sorry, Too Busy Panicking to Breathe

Right now I’m doing a little bit of all of the above. Who said multitasking’s just for the highly efficient? It’s one of the few skills that comes free as part of the anxiety package (No steak knives I’m afraid. They take away the sharp things when you shake as much as I do). If you’re panicked enough, you can do 5 million things at once. Adrenaline is just homemade speed.

Comment is free: Unemployment is no “lifestyle choice”

After 18 months, the job centre was forced to pass me on to an “Employment Zone” – a private company paid by the government for every client it got into work, suitable or not.

It offered nothing that I was not already doing: I have internet access and know how to fill in forms and write CVs. My “adviser” was the Scots incarnation of League of Gentlemen’s Pauline, who relished humiliating people better qualified than herself: “We have to find ways of hiding the fact you’ve got a PhD,” she said. I wondered how she would explain away six years. I told her that I had been applying for jobs to which I was suited in skills. She replied: “If you were suited to them, you’d be getting them, wouldn’t you? Try cleaning or call centres.” Fortunately, just as she was demanding that I come in twice a week (on pain of stopping my benefit), the temping agencies with which I was registered began coming up with short-term work in academic administration.

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.

Recommended Reading for Wednesday, September 15, 2010

accessibility, events, how to be accessible, make the world a better place, recommended reading, social attitudes

Today’s Recommended Reading focuses on how to make event-sites more accessible to people with disabilities, and experiences people with disabilities have had with accessibility at events and in their communities.

Accessibility Discussions: How To

This list is no where near comprehensive (I went a hunting for a few specific ones I know I’ve read and couldn’t find), so please feel free to leave more links in the comments!

Via Ms Crip Chick’s five fav tools to dialogue about justice: Accessibility Checklists at the National Youth Leadership Network:

Are you looking for ways to outreach to more people? Are you trying to get people involved? Are you trying to keep them involved? How a document reads and looks affects whether people can understand the information being shared. This is a checklist for document accessibility. It also includes some tips to think about when making programs or services accessible to all people.

Glenda Watson Hyatt at Do It Myself: A Checklist for Planning an Accessible Event

Whether planning a meeting, workshop or multi-day conference, your goal, no doubt, is to assist all participants, including those with disabilities, to feel welcomed and able to fully participate in the event

This checklist is intended as a starting point in planning an accessible event, which likely requires more than ramps and wheelchair washrooms. The key is to consider every aspect of the event and what barriers a person with a disability – whether it be physical, mobility, hearing, sight, or cognitive – might face, and how you can eliminate or minimize those barriers to ensure all participants feel welcomed.

The Access Fandom Wiki

Access Fandom Wiki is a tool to help make Science Fiction conventions and conferences more accessible to people with disabilities. Within you will find specific instructions and resources for carrying out these aims.

Planning an accessible meeting

When you are planning a meeting or event, you want to make sure that everyone can participate, including people with disabilities. By planning ahead, you can build accessibility into every aspect of the meeting.

The two main areas you need to consider when planning an accessible meeting or event are:

  • physical access to the meeting space
  • access to the meeting contents and proceedings.

Here are some general things to keep in mind.

Disability Access @ Stanford – Planning an Accessible Event (One of the things I like about this one is the “questions you should be able to answer” section, because I’m amazed at how many people cannot tell me where their barrier-free entrance is, even when they have one.)

Q: How do I get from [point A] to [point B]?

Familiarize yourself with stair-free pathways in the vicinity of the event (e.g., parking lot to main entrance) and to notable locations…

Q: Where is the nearest wheelchair accessible bathroom?

Know ahead of time where the accessible bathroom is, and how to get to it from your event location.

Accessibility Discussions: Experiences Of

alias_sqbr: Using a Mobility Scooter at WorldCon

Walking is easy on the brain and hard on the legs. Using the scooter is the reverse, the level of concentration required is somewhere between walking and driving, and by the time I got back to the hotel after my first excursion I needed a mental break and did the rest of my (much less taxing) exploration on foot. It got easier with practice, and was also much less taxing indoors in a familiar space without the worry of cars etc. The convention centre was perfect, lots of big empty flat carpeted areas. I got up now and then when it was more convenient but still ended up doing MUCH less walking than normal and as a result was much less tired and in pain than I would otherwise have been, and got to enjoy a lot more of the con as well as being able to go out to dinner etc. One issue was that all that sitting gave me a sore bum/lower back/legs, and I became quite uncomfortable on the plane trip back. I’ve been doing a lot of half lying with my legs out since getting home and am fine now. My brain is also less fatigued, once I got used to the scooter the general lack of fatigue made me more mentally awake than I usually am at the end of a con.

Lisy Babe BADD 10: Discrimination by ignorance and the myth of the DDA

“But I thought everywhere was accessible now.”

How I loathe that sentence. It usually follows my asking “so why did you hire somewhere inaccessible for your event? Because now I can’t come.”

For example, I’ve just spent the last 3 days at a film festival/conference tied to my course… I arrived on Thursday, picked up my ticket and was told by cinema staff “it’s in screen 2, which is not accessible.”

Joy.

And, of course, the “but I thought…” line swiftly followed from the director of the event who’d hired the venue.

Ira Socol at SpeEd ChangeTo be fully human

I move through a lot of schools, and through a lot of public spaces, and everywhere I go I see people who are made to be less than fully human. The high school kids who can not read sitting in classrooms during “silent reading” time. The girl in the wheelchair set off to the side of the middle school choir because everyone else is on risers. The poor reader at the bank or hospital faced with piles of incomprehensible paperwork. The man or woman denied the ability to go out to eat because of too few or badly placed “handicapped” parking places. The child who struggles with writing who is denied the right to communicate in his classroom. The university students forced to spend large amounts of money and time to “prove themselves” “disabled.”

Codeman38 at Normal is Overrated: Of Privilege and Auditory Processing

The Normal Auditory Processing Privilege Checklist

  • I can watch first-run movies in any theater and still understand a majority of the dialogue without having to attend a specially scheduled screening with subtitles.
  • I can understand messages broadcast over PA systems without a lot of difficulty.
  • Lectures are just as easy for me to comprehend without visual feedback such as PowerPoint as they are with visual feedback.

Heather Farley at Oh Wheely… Blogging Against Disablism Day

These people have no idea of the impact they have on my sense of worth. And they don’t care. That shrug of ‘it’s not my problem, it’s yours’ means that I am excluded from that part of life. I’m apparently not worth their effort. On the flip side I have to say that for every person who shrugs there are another five people offering help, opening doors, and keeping my faith in humanity alive. Unfortunately it’s the ‘shruggers’ who stick in my psyche.

For every little battle I fight there are ten more that I have to let pass by. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to argue the toss every time. And every time I do I become less important in my eyes, less worthy of my effort, less deserving of theirs.

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.

Recommended Reading for September 14, 2010

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Astrid van Woerkom at Astrid’s Journal: “Exercise For Mental Health!”

Bakker forgets the barriers to exercise that some people encounter. Due to the construction going on, I cannot take walks on grounds unaccompanied anymore. I cannot navigate the busy gym during fitness class. If I want to bike, I need to go on a tandem. I cannot participate in my institution’s running therapy program. None of this is due to anxiety. All of it is due to my disabilities, and the barriers to access that stand in the way.

Spilt Milk at Feministe: Fat acceptance: when kindness is activism

Body shame is a great tool of kyriarchy and we often get it from our mothers first, as we learn how bodies can be reduced to a collection of parts and how those parts can be ranked in order of acceptability. Thighs and bums, boobs and upper arms, back-fat and belly-rolls can all be prodded and critiqued, despaired over, disparaged, loathed. This is often a social activity, too. Who doesn’t love normalising misogyny over a cup of tea and a (low calorie) biscuit while the kids play in the next room?

Clarissa at Clarissa’s Blog: Asperger’s: Daily Experiences

As I mentioned earlier, I have “good days” and “bad days.” On bad days, it becomes more difficult to manage my autism, while on good days I make use of a variety of strategies that make it difficult for most people who know me to guess that I am in any way different. In this post, I will describe the techniques I use on my good days, of which today was one. I remind you that my form of Asperger’s is pretty severe, which means that not everybody who has it needs to go through a similar routine.

Cripchick at cripchick’s blog: the politics of mobility

there are so many times when i feel deep resentment for the mobility that (most) nondisabled people our age have. not physical mobility as in moving your arms, but the privilege of being able to move through the world so easily. never having to ask permission. never being dependent on access their support systems provide. never worrying about where they will stay, how they will get around, or who will hire them if they need cash.

Kim Webber at Croakey: How to boost the rural/remote health workforce? It’s not all about the dollars… [via tigtog at Hoyden About Town]

After a year-long consultative effort, the WHO document proposes 16 recommendations on how to improve the recruitment and retention of health workers in underserved areas.  You can see what they are at the bottom of this post (only one of the recommendations relates to financial incentives).

Finally, this week — September 13-19th —  is National Invisible Illness Awareness Week in the U.S. You can find out more by visiting the NIIAW website.

Recommended Reading for 13 September 2010

recommended reading

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.

The Quixotic Autistic: Early Intervention: My two cents and my many apprehensions

The way I see it, early detection is the ultimate Pandora’s Box for people on the spectrum.

HP Blog: I Have Dissociative Identity Disorder: Disclosure DOs and DON’Ts

What’s comfortable for you may be unhealthy for someone else, and vice versa. With that in mind, what I offer you today isn’t advice on whether or not to reveal your DID diagnosis, but a short list of DOs and DON’Ts – things to keep in mind when considering disclosure.

Disability Scoop: Employment Gains Seen For People With Disabilities

Not only were more people working last month as compared to the month before, but more people were considered part of the workforce, meaning that they had work or were actively looking for it.

UN News Centre: At UN, countries call for strengthening of rights of persons with disabilities

Hundreds of delegates and civil society representatives took part in the three-day conference at UN Headquarters in New York to see how to better implement the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into force in 2008.

The convention, among other elements, asserts the rights to education, health, work, adequate living conditions, freedom of movement, freedom from exploitation and equal recognition before the law for persons with disabilities.

Midlife and Treachery (Thanks to Penny from Disability Studies at Temple U. for the link! Again!)

Disagreement on issues? Fine, lets.  But don’t decide I’m not a person if you disagree with me.

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.

Recommended Reading for 10 September 2010

recommended reading

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.

Clarissa’s Blog: So you’re telling me you don’t have autism?

I really admire you, you know. Not having autism must be so tough. My friend’s son was diagnosed with not having autism and she was heartbroken. She cried for three days. What do you mean why? Of course, you seem completely normal but have you seen those neurotypical people they show on TV? (In a dramatic whisper.) They are all freaky and weird and they keep banging their heads against the wall. Well, you are right, of course, anybody would bang their head against the wall if their mother cried for 3 days because they are the way they are, but still . . . It’s tragic for a parent to realize their child will never be happy, or have a career, or get married. Yes, it’s true, you seem pretty happy, and your career is great, and you even have a husband.

Switchin’ to glide: Maybe it’s the anti-depressants working

And now… I’m sitting here crying the biggest cry I have in years, wondering what life could have been like if I had been allowed to feel validated, or if I had ever been allowed to validate myself; because all of these small things together form a picture of person who has actually done alright, but I have felt–been made to feel–the whole time like a perpetual failure.

Ms. Marx: On Pop Culture: Anorexia jokes and celebrity diets

I don’t think there is ever an appropriate time for anorexia humor… it just isn’t funny. It is a very serious medical condition that kills women (and men, but mostly women). With websites purposefully encouraging anorexia, it needs to be clear that none of this is funny.

Please Tape Me Back Together: My head is spinning with questions

I’m frustrated.  My neurologist told me he thought I had a mini-stroke (TIA) but ran no tests.  He just told me to take an aspirin a day and asked me to show him my EDS.  Actually he didn’t ask he grabbed my hand and tried putting it backwards.  I don’t like people touching me so I took my hand away and bent it backwards.  It was a painful day anyway and that caused even more pain.  I was kinda pissed that he didn’t seem to believe me.  He’d never heard of EDS, either.  How could he not believe me when he didn’t even know what EDS is?

HR Morning.com: Employee commutes: New area for ADA accommodations? (Thanks to Codeman38 for the link!)

Would changing an employee’s commute qualify as a “reasonable accommodation” under the Americans with Disabilities Act? A federal appeals court says yes.

The case involves a woman who worked for a retail chain in Oregon as a wine steward. She developed a visual impairment that affected her depth perception in low-light conditions, which made it difficult for her to drive after dark.

She requested — and was granted — a schedule that allowed her to come in and leave work during daylight hours. The company didn’t run into any problems with her working the modified hours — indeed, sales in her department went up.

Nonetheless, the company reversed its decision.

When the woman refused to work her new shift — which would have required her to commute home after dark — she was fired.

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.

Recommended Reading for 09 September 2010

recommended reading

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.

Raising my Boychick: Musings on mental health, in-patient therapy, and ableism: or, why isn’t there a “Hooha Behavioral Center”?

There is so much broken in mental health services, I hardly know where to begin unraveling it. Should I have sought this sort of care? Certainly in a less-ableist society, it would have occurred to me far sooner. But what sort of “care” would I have received, even with relative protections of being a male-partnered middle-class white woman? What sorts of traumas might I have risked acquiring through the experience? Would I even have been admitted, or dismissed as not-crazy-enough, and what would the pain of failed help-seeking have done to me?

Jack and Dilley: Thoughts on Therapy: Right Livlihood: Veteran Farms (Thanks to SavvyChristine for the link!)

Veterans Farm, an organic blueberry farm in the Jacksonville area of Florida, takes a life-affirming approach to empowering disabled veterans to heal, return to work, and reintegrate into American society. It was begun by Adam Burke, a veteran who came back from Iraq with PTSD and a closed head injury. Seeking to come to terms with his disabilities and wartime experiences, he remembered peaceful and satisfying work on his family’s farm growing up. He realized “horticulture therapy” provided an ideal environment for rehabilitation, and talked his wife into buying a small farm.

JF Activists: ‘The Closed Digital Door:’ State Benefits’ Websites Inaccessible to PWD

The report, “The Closed Digital Door: State Public Benefits Agencies’ Failure to Make Websites Accessible to People with Disabilities and Usable for Everyone,” describes barriers to access for people with disabilities when applying for cash and other benefits online, requesting an application, searching the website, or contacting the agency by email. These accessibility problems violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and many state web accessibility laws and policies.

The Globe and Mail: Caregivers suffering depression, rage

“The message here is that if we’re going to help seniors stay in the community – and we should – then we critically have to look at the needs of caregivers,” said Linda Jackson, executive director of community and ambulatory programs at Baycrest, a Toronto health-care facility that specializes in care of the elderly.

CBC News: OxyContin worries misplaced: pain experts

In Quebec, opioid use doubled over 14 years, said Kristen Reidel, a master’s student in epidemiology at Montreal’s McGill University.

When Reidel presented her findings on opioid prescribing trends in Quebec at the World Congress on Pain in Montreal this week, she said she didn’t find an increase for the youngest age group.

Rather, the highest increase in opioid use was among people over the age of 80, who tend to suffer more chronic pain.

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.