Archives

  • Ableist Word Profile: I Feel Your Pain!
    Welcome to Ableist Word Profile, a (probably intermittent) series in which staffers will profile various ableist words, talk about how they are used, and talk about how to stop using them. Ableism is not feminism, so it’s important to talk about how to eradicate ableist language from our vocabularies. This post is marked 101, which ...
  • Quotations
    Being discriminated against or exploited because one is female may be painful and dehumanizing, but it may not necessarily be as painful, dehumanizing, or threatening as being without food or shelter, as starvation, as being deathly ill but unable to obtain medical care. – bell hooks, Feminist Theory From Margin to Center
  • Recommended Reading for October 30
    Recommended Reading for October 30, 2009
  • How to Be a Good Doctor
    Update: It was pointed out, correctly, that part of this post contained a statement that made a generalization based on age. That statement has been removed and the post updated with this message. It’s not feminist, and it doesn’t belong here. I’m sorry. I actually had a really good experience with a physician ...
  • Recommended Reading for October 29
    Recommended Reading for October 29, 2009
  • Finding Myself in Unexpected Places
    On the way home from work the other day, the classical music station in Dallas, WRR 101.1*, played a really good performance of Beethoven’s Bagatelle for Piano in A minor, WoO 59 “Für Elise”. It’s pretty, of course, which is all it needs to be. But every performance (and every work of art ...
  • Law & Order: “Dignity”, Worth, and the Medical Model of Disability
    As a feminist, I am pro-choice. Abortion should be safe, legal, and accessible. As a feminist, I look at more than whether single, individual women have access to abortion. There is a much broader reproductive justice framework that must be scrutinised, critiqued and repaired so that all women have access to informed, supported reproductive choices. Women who ...
  • New Blog: You Make Me Feel Less Alone
    Samantha Schultz is the author of I Don’t Want to be Crazy, a free verse recounting of her struggles with her anxiety disorder. I haven’t personally read the book, but several of my friends speak highly of it and the Amazon reader reviews seem quite positive. (Although I would skip the School Library Report review, ...
  • Ableism and the Aussie Battler
    I want to talk about how Australia’s ideas of the ideal Australian exclude people with disabilities. But first I have to explain a little about the Australian national myth. The ideal Australian figure is known as “the Aussie battler”. Essentially this is an ordinary man working hard to get by and support his family without complaining. ...
  • Guest Post: Negotiating Disableism
    What I have learned is that ridding oneself of disableism, is a process that is not easy but so very necessary. Each time I am reduced by the assumption of another, it causes me to examine the ways in which my language or behaviour support this. It took time to understand that though ...