Tag Archives: paid work

Recommended Reading for 24 December, 2010

bad advice, bodies, gender, medical practice, recommended reading, work, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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?

The Broken of Britain: The GP’s Story by Dr Jest

So there you have it. Neither Pete nor Dud would have chosen to be where they are now, and neither has asked not to work when they were capable. Indeed both have rather struggled on when reason would have suggested they ought not. And I could name you a dozen others in a similar position. All present talk of making it more profitable to work than rely on benefit may sound very noble and high minded in the marbled halls of power, where hard graft means having a lot to read and a few late meetings to go to. It completely misses the enormous efforts made by the likes of Pete and Dud to keep going against the odds, and any move to impoverish them is little short of scandalous and should be relentlessly pointed out for the evil narrow minded bigotry it is.

Sarah at Cat in a Dog’s World: PWD and TSA

From information I’d heard from TSA administrators, I thought that the body scanners would reducethe need for physical pat-downs. Little did I know that TSA would use the new technology as an excuse to conduct more invasive pat-downs! It is obscene, especially when one considers that many people with disabilities don’t have any “choice” at all. If someone is unable to stand independently for ten seconds with their arms up, or if one wears any number of medical devices or prostheses…there is no “choice.” (And no, for many people, “don’t fly” is not a realistic choice.) There is, additionally, reason for concern about the radiation from the body scanners, particularly for cancer survivors and people who have a genetic predisposition to cancer. It is now pretty clear that body scanners, far from being a panacea, are making things worse. And people with disabilities are being affected disproportionately.

At Spilt Milk: Thanks for your help, doctor.

Make no mistake: I know that this only happened to me because I am fat. If I were a thin person and I walked through his door with the symptoms I described, he would have been forced to dig deeper. To ask me more questions, to hopefully come up with a wider range of options. Maybe run more tests.

United States: Megan Cottrell at ChicagoNow: Got a disability? You’ll see the difference in your paycheck

A lot of people might assume that if you have a disability, you might not make as much money as someone without a disability. But how much less? How hard is it for people with disabilities in Illinois to get by compared to their neighbors?

India: An unnamed special correspondent at The Hindu: Social barriers keep the disabled away from workforce:

Persons with disabilities are the last identity group to enter the workforce, not because their disability comes in the way of their functioning, but because of social and practical barriers that prevent them from joining work, a study on the ‘Employment Rights of Disabled Women in India’ carried out by the Society for Disability and Rehabilitation of the National Commission for Women (NCW) has said.

Guillermo Contreras at Chron.com: State sued over care for disabled Texans

The federal lawsuit, filed Monday in San Antonio, alleges the state isn’t providing some mentally and physically disabled Texans the opportunity to move into community-based settings, which advocates say are less restrictive and more rehabilitative than nursing homes.

Lastly, here’s a transcript of a story on Australia’s 7.30 Report program called Setting Sail:

Known as the ‘Everest of sailing’ the Sydney to Hobart race challenges the most seasoned of yachtsmen on what can be a treacherous ocean voyage.

Most of the focus is on the big maxi-yachts competing for line honours. But a unique crew of blind and deaf sailors is also commanding attention.

The charity organisation, Sailors With Disabilities, has been gifted a half-million dollar fast yacht, making them eligible for the first time in the prestigious Rolex Cup.

Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited. And have yourself a fabulous weekend.

Kids these days! The “Generation Y” panic, privilege, and erasure

accessibility, age, autonomy, blaming, politics, social attitudes, work, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recently, I read this odd article, penned by Judith Warner, in the New York Times–one in a stream of many that detail how excessively awful the current generation of young people (read: young workers) is at putting its collective nose to the grindstone, sucking it up, and generally not acting like a bunch of brats, or something.

Many of us have heard about, or come into contact with, some of these bright young things. They are heralded — or, more commonly, blasted — as naive, entitled, too optimistic, and over-confident. In many of these articles, their numerous faults are listed: They don’t know how to dress professionally! They expect to march into the workplace of their choice and immediately start making a six figure-salary! They think they are perfect! They want praise all of the time! (Does no one who writes these sorts of articles stop to consider that many human beings want praise when they complete a task to the best of their abilities?) They have tattoos, dyed hair, and iPods! EVERYBODY PANIC, because the American workplace is apparently going to be dragged down by Generation Y’s entitlement, narcissism and laziness! This narrative, however, seems to apply mostly to a very specific subset of the population (and even the picture that accompanies the NYT article reinforces this): young, able-bodied, middle to upper-middle class, college-educated white people.

This erases, or conveniently ignores, a hell of a lot of folks who are not young, abled, middle/upper-middle class, and white. It erases young workers who may not have had the “expected” educational opportunities (such as college), or who had to take more than the expected four years to finish their degree, or who did not finish school. It erases people whose parents or family members may not have been quite so “involved” in their education, or in their lives at all. Of course, it also erases young people with disabilities — both those who cannot work, and those who want to work but who may be bumping up against various narratives such as that of the “entitled” Generation Y kid. Some of us have psychological issues or disabilities that put us completely at odds with the “overly-confident” and “entitled” stereotype that apparently befits the current generation — because we cannot stop worrying despite the fact that we are supposed to be totally optimistic and confident all of the time, always thinking that the roads leading to our perfect job will be lined with rainbows, fluffy bunnies, and gold.

Some of us have physical disabilities, chronic pain, or chronic illnesses that prevent us from working 40-hour weeks (or more); asking for accommodations or disclosing our condition(s), we fear, may make us look “entitled,” or like we do not want to put in the time necessary to work our way up — even if this is not the case. The fact is that many people, and many young people, with disabilities are already at a tremendous disadvantage when it comes to the labor market and making a living. Not only are many people with disabilities, at least in the U.S., more likely to face lengthy stretches of unemployment and/or live in poverty regardless of age, but many face additional hostility, discrimination, and unreasonable demands, both in the workplace and from society at large because of their disabilities.

While I am not saying that these over-entitled Generation Y-ers don’t exist (I’ve had run-ins with quite a few of them, myself), I am struck by the fact that the narrative surrounding them is so dependent upon erasing or ignoring certain people whose bodies and experiences do not fit the “expected” attitudes about labor that have been traditionally upheld by American culture. Many of these attitudes, furthermore, rely heavily on binaries that reinforce who “counts” and who does not: You either work full-time, or you’re lazy. You’re willing to be mistreated in the workplace and do whatever it takes “for the job,” or you’re a wimp. Suck it up, or go home. If you’re not making enough money to live on or are poor, you just aren’t working hard enough. If you ask for “accommodations,” you’re asking for too much — just do your job! You have to work hard to “make it,” and if you don’t work hard enough, it’s your fault. If you don’t like your job or face daily mistreatment, you can always quit and find another one, right? But if you can’t, it’s your fault, and why did you quit that job, anyway? These attitudes surrounding work affect people with disabilities in a wide variety of age groups and generational cohorts, and this is a crucial part of why they are so important to critically question and examine.

The message for Generation Y, in general, may be “Get over yourself,” but the message for those who do not fit the characteristics of the “average” Generation Y worker is more severe — and ultimately more dire.

[Cross-posted at ham blog]

Aware of what exactly?

media and pop culture, representations, work,

Cross-posted at Zero at the Bone and Feministe.

Well, it’s Disability Awareness Month in Indiana, USA. Sound Bend, IN, network WSBT are raising awareness with a story about Sarah Schelstraete, who has Down Syndrome. It’s called Sarah’s Story: Hard at work despite disabilities. One thousand points if you can anticipate from the title what my major problem with the article was.

Now, impairments can make particular kinds of work, or work at all, difficult for people with disabilities, particularly when accommodations – be they ramps or particular lighting or a chair or whatever – are not provided. Leaving aside any accommodations Ms Schelstraete might utilise (it’s irrelevant and really none of our business) there’s no indication as to what impact her impairment might have that would make it hard for her to work at her job as the article title suggests. In fact, the article doesn’t tell us what her job actually is, but moving right along. Now, I’m not saying she definitely doesn’t have challenges related to her impairment, but rather that I have a problem with a particular narrative that this article taps into. This is a narrative that erases Ms Schelstraete’s individual situation, whatever that might be, in favour of conveying disability as something the poor dears must overcome! in their tear-inducing (to abled people) efforts! to live a normal life! which includes paid work!

Perhaps it is that push to gloss everything over that skews the narrative here, but let’s take a gander at the actual information the article provides. Ms Schelstraete is clearly a ‘dependable employee,’ as her supervisor Donna Martis says. She does her job well; interviewees are enthused about her being good at her job. There is not really a need, it would seem, to say that she is doing a good job in spite of her being disabled. She is good at her job. And she is disabled. Just like she is good at her job and a woman, good at her job and a daughter, good at her job and a resident of Indiana, good at her job and, I don’t know, maybe she likes detective shows or cupcakes or whatever. But time and again when disabled people are featured in the media, there’s a kind of shock that “those people” could achieve anything of worth – worth defined according to ableist standards around paid work, of course.

As such, I have a problem with wording like this in the article:

‘Martis said Sarah is a valuable employee who knows how to do her work, and requires little supervision.’

Or how about this?

‘Like any hard-working employee, Sarah knows one big benefit of having a job is making money. She often uses her paycheck to buy DVDs and CDs.’

Yep, just like everybody else – yet her competence must be uniquely examined and confirmed by all these people, despite her having been employed by the same laboratories for seventeen years. This is yet another example of the media trope in which PWD are achieving! through! the hardship! Would you like to know what a hardship is? For many PWD, sometimes more than our impairments themselves? Putting up with that condescending bullshit and fighting to be approached as actual people who should be approached with respect. Because handing out “well done!” stickers has nowhere near of the same value as does being treated like a person with things to offer.

These kinds of awareness-raising stories do little more than give abled readers/viewers/listeners a lift, a feel good story they can tuck away out of mind when they’re done. It’s easier for PWD to be a one-dimensional story, those people put there to light up abled people’s worlds with inspiration, prompting a whispered gratefulness that they’re not one of them. How about we raise some awareness of the social oppression attached to being disabled? Awareness ought to be raised about how many disabled people are out of work because, as Ms Schelstraete’s employment consultant Stacey Simcox says, many ‘don’t give someone the chance because they already have the mindset that they’re not going to be able to do the job even with the support’. About how disabled people so often are treated as though they’re being done a favour by being employed at all. About how work can be a struggle or impossible because of workplace bullying. Because of refusal to provide decent wages. Because employers won’t grant equitable working conditions or accommodations.

And let’s raise awareness about the valuation of work. There’s a nasty thread that runs through these kind of stories that holds disabled people to be societal leeches, a drain on resources. This kind of thinking defines human worth in terms of money, as though people are only good for how much money they contribute and how little they take from welfare or healthcare programs and such. It’s the kind of argument used against poor people who need that assistance, it’s the kind of argument that has led to women’s unpaid work in the home being so devalued. It’s thinking that tries to shame those who utilise thoroughly deserved government assistance, as though it doesn’t exist for a reason.

I am continually astounded by negative reinforcement of difference, but barely ever really surprised. You’d think efforts to raise awareness would require being aware.