Author: stevekuusisto

It’s autumn in Iowa City, Iowa where I teach courses in literature and disability studies at “the big state U” and like tens of thousands of my fellow Americans I find that I cannot square my conscience with the prevailing rhetoric that America must “stay the course” in Afghanistan. In my humble opinion it is time for our troops to come home from Iraq and Afghanistan and its time for our nation’s leaders to conceive of the serious multi-lateral diplomatic challenges that face all (and I do mean “all”) nation states in the post 9-11 world.

I do not believe Afghanistan can be usefully compared to Viet Nam. I do not believe that the Russians’ history there has any bearing on the current American situation.

But I do believe that we are wildly unpopular in 90 per cent of Afghanistan for the simple reason that we are outsiders. And the longer we stay and kill civilians whether by accident or design the fiercer will grow the resistance to our presence.

No call for additional troops can solve this. NATO has largely abandoned us.

I see no evidence that by staying American forces can win over the fiercely tribal rural regions which comprise most of Afghanistan.

Me? I’m just a minor league philosopher-poet in a small town. But if history is any guide we may win more loyalty from Afghans by leaving “as a military presence”.

“Almighty God, Father of mercies and giver of comfort: Deal graciously, we pray, with all who mourn; that, casting all their care on you, they may know the consolation of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Amen.

 

S.K.

 

 

The title of this post comes from Abbe Hoffman. The video speaks for itself I suppose…

 

May all your politics be absurd… 

 

S.K.

There’s an article in today’s New York Times about a woman named Stephanie Smith whose personal narrative is absolutely horrific. She ate tainted ground beef and was infected by e-coli and in the worst of all possible scenarios that infection left her in a coma for weeks. When she came out of the coma she was paralyzed. You can read the Times article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/health/04meat.html?hp

Stephanie Smith was a children’s dance instructor before this god awful catastrophe occurred. It is therefore entirely appropriate to say that her medical misfortune shattered her ideas about her career path. I can sign up for that. Please understand that my empathy and entire soul go out to Ms. Smith: paralysis is devastating and entirely unjust. Surely no sensible person would argue the point.

Still, the idea that Ms. Smith’s life is shattered is impossible for an old, grizzled disability rights advocate like me to endure. The article at the Times tells us that her life was shattered. The average “Pooh Bear” able bodied reader “reads this” and says to her or himself: “Yes, Piglet, her life was shattered. There’s nothing more for the poor lassie.”

Able bodied writers who convey disability as a shattered life engage in a cultural assumption that is wrong at best and destructive in the worst case scenario.

Suppose you were newly paralyzed? Would it help you to imagine that your life was over?

Who at the New York Times would tell you that you can teach dance and even perform dance with a wheelchair? Have you heard about The Dancing Wheels Company? How about The Axis Dance Company?

Did you know that people who use wheelchairs dance mightily, lustily, mythically? Did you know that the people who dance from wheelchairs do not have shattered lives?

God has indeed made a mysterious and contradictory image of Herself. And as Yeats tells us through the character of “Crazy Jane” who is a fool’s prophet in his latter poetry: “Nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent.”

Would the reporter at the Times concede that disability is an opportunity?

No one in her or his right mind will say this version of the story is not difficult.

Not at all…

 

S.K.

The photo above shows Leadbelly playing his famous Stella 12 string guitar. I imagine him singing “Good Morning Blues, Blues How Do You Do?” The next line says: “I’m doin’ alright, Good Morning How Are You?”

 

True blues are a call and response. Blues are more complicated than just feeling crappy and singing about it. The Blues talk back. Leadbelly’s 12 string guitar plays bass lines that run 4/4 while the high strings call back in 7th notes. The Blues are so much larger than a human being. The Blues are political and they are absorbed in fundamental psychological truth. There’s a lot of intolerance and fanaticism out there. Why listen to Leadbelly long enough and you get the sense that even the Blues can be Blue.

 

“I woke up this morning, the blues walkin’ round my bed.

I could not eat my breakfast, the blues were all in my bread…”

 

Some days the boss man gets in your bread; the demagogues get in your bread; the gun runners are in there; the Taliban and the John Birch Society; the bread is inedible and you were hungry…

 

Its raining. Its Saturday. The blues are personal. They are accidental. They’re part of a larger operation. But no matter. You have to sing. And as Leadbelly famously said about playing the 12 string guitar: “you got to keep something moving at all times.”

 

Don’t stand still. And whatever you do, don’t keep your mouth shut.

 

S.K.       

 

Tomorrow morning I will give a talk at the University of Iowa’s Center for Disabilities and Development entitled “Why No One is Normal Anymore”. The event is designed for a broad audience but in especial I’m hoping for a group composed of people involved in medicine, nursing, social services and rehabilitation.

Like many faculty who have been involved in disability studies my background is in the humanities. Indeed, disability studies as a grassroots academic field of inquiry began within the humanities. The best definition of “dis studies” (in my opinion) is to be found in the Bedford Glossary of Literary Terms in an entry co-authored by two of the pre-eminent scholars in disability studies, Professor Brenda Brueggemann of The Ohio State University, and Professor Rosemarie Garland-Thomson of Emory University. They say (in part) that disability studies is:

“The study of disability in both literary criticism and the humanities in general is a grass-roots scholarly movement that has emerged from the academic turn toward identity studies, an awareness of the need for diversity in scholarly topics, and the recognition that disability is a political rights and integration issue. Disability studies in the humanities seeks to overturn the medicalized understanding of disability and to replace it with a social model of disability. This view defines “disability,” not as a physical defect inherent in bodies (just as gender is not simply a matter of genitals, nor race a matter of skin pigmentation), but rather as a way of interpreting human differences. In other words, this critical perspective considers “disability” as a way of thinking about bodies rather than as something that is wrong with bodies. Within such a critical frame, disability becomes a representational system more than a medical problem, a social construction rather than a personal misfortune or a bodily flaw, and a subject appropriate for wide-ranging intellectual inquiry instead of a specialized field within medicine, rehabilitation, or social work. Such a critical perspective extends the constructivist analysis that informs gender and race studies. This approach to disability looks at such issues as changes in the way disability is interpreted over time and within varying cultural contexts; the development of the disabled as a community and a social identity; the political and material circumstances resulting from this system of assigning value to bodies; the history of how disability influences and is influenced by the distribution of resources, power, and status; and how disability affects artistic production. It also insists on the materiality of the body–its embeddedness in the world–by focusing on issues such as equal access for all, integration of institutions, and the historical exclusion of people with disabilities from the public sphere.”

Often when I think about disability studies I’m reminded of the grassroots movements in higher education to understand the cultural experiences of women and the early momentum to establish African-American studies–both turns were prompted by the simultaneous matriculation of women and people of color in post-secondary study. This is the “grassroots” nature of academic inquiry for if the history of ideas is both a retrospective occupation it is simultaneously the assignment of of value in cultural capital. One can fashion a long and distinguished list of scholars who have brought wide-ranging critical inquiry to bear on the political, cultural, and material circumstances of women and blacks–studies that have shown how matters of gender and race are socially constructed to the disadvantage of individuals. For my money W.E. Dubois’ “The Souls of Black Folk” is one of the pillars of the turn to identity studies for it brought forward the very first constructivist analysis of race to explore the materiality of race as a social construction. Liberation is the incitement for a field of study and when understood as a matter of political rights it is remarkable to see it unfolding. The list of scholars whose works have been influential in this turn is now a long one.

Some twenty years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act we now behold a generation of scholars in dozens of fields and from many continents who are devoted to broadening our understanding of disability.  Here is the announcement of my talk. Below I am featuring a partial bibliography for those who are interested in disability studies.

 

S.K.

 

  

Center for Disabilities and Development

GRAND ROUNDS                  

University of Iowa

Center for Disabilities and Development

GRAND ROUNDS                  

“Why No One is Normal Anymore:

An Introduction to Disability Studies”

Presenter: Professor Steve Kuusisto, UI Graduate Program in Creative Nonfiction Writing, UI Carver College of Medicine

Professor Steve Kuusisto will give a talk on the emerging inter-disciplinary field of Disability Studies. Attendees will be introduced to the following concepts:

· A brief history of the term disability

· How the medical model of disability and the social model of disability are defined and studied by contemporary scholars

· Resources and publications in disability studies

· Ample opportunity for dialogue and Q and A with Professor Kuusisto

8:00 – 9:00 am, Friday, October 2, 2009

Room 102 Center for Disabilities and Development

¨ The seminar will be of particular interest and value to health care professionals including physicians, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, psychologists, and therapists.

¨ CME Accreditation: The University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A Carver College of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

¨ CME Credit Designation: The UI Carver College of Medicine designates each program in this education activity for a maximum of 1 category 1 credit towards the AMA Physician’s Recognition Award.  Each physician should claim only those credits that he/she actually spent in the education activity.

¨ Everyone in a position to control the content of this educational activity will disclose to the CME provider and to attendees all relevant financial relationships with any commercial interest.  They will also disclose if any pharmaceuticals or medical procedures and devices discussed are investigational or unapproved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

For more information, contact Brenda Nosbish, 353-6008, brenda-nosbish@uiowa.edu

 

Partial Bibliography:

 

First, a bibliography on women and girls with disabilities prepared by Harilyn Rousso, a noted feminist and dis-studies scholar and activist:

 

Abu-Habib, L. 1997. Gender and Disability. Women’s Experiences in the Middle East. UK and Ireland: Oxfam

Asch, A. with Rousso, H. & Jefferies, T. 2001. Beyond pedestals. The lives of girls and women with disabilities. In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Axtell, S. (1999). Disability and Chronic Illness Identity: Interviews with

lesbians and bisexual women and their partners. Journal of Gay, Lesbian and

Bisexual Identity, 4(1), 53 72.

Berkeley Planning Associates. 1996. Including girls with disabilities in youth programs. Part of the larger project, Meeting the needs of women with disabilities: A blueprint for change. Oakland, CA: Author.

Boylan, E., Ed. 1991. Women and Disability. Atlantic
Highlands, NJ: Zed Books Ltd
.

Browne, S., Donnors, D. & Stern, N. 1985. With the Power of Each Breath. A Disabled Women’s Anthology. Pittsburgh: Cleis Press

Brownworth, V. and Raffo, S. (Eds.). Restricted Access: Lesbians on Disability

Seattle: Seal Press.

Campling, J., Ed. 1981. Images of Ourselves. Women with Disabilities Talking. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.

Chenoweth. L. and Cook, Sandy., Eds. 2001. Violence against women with disabilities. A special issue of Violence Against Women. 7, 4.

Clare, E. 1999. Exile and Pride. Disability, Queerness and Liberation. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

DePauw, K. 1997. Sport and physical activity in the life-cycle of girls and women with disabilities. Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal. 6: 225-237.

Dibernard, B. 1996. Teaching what I’m not: An able-bodied woman teaches literature by women with disabilities. In Mayberry, K. J., Ed. Teaching What You Are Not. Identity Politics in Higher Education. New York: New York University Press, pp. 131-54.

Disabled People’s International & Interessenvertretung Selbstbestimmt Leben. 1998. European conference for disabled women. Self-determined living for disabled women in Europe. Munich 15-18, 1996. (Conference Proceedings). Author.

Doe, T. 2003. Reworking benefits: Continuation of non-cash benefits for single mothers and disabled women. Canada: Status of Women Canada

Doe, T. & Kimpson, S. 1998. Enabling Income: Women with disabilities and the CPP disability benefits. Final Report. Canada: Status of Women Canada, 1998

Doren, B. & Benz, M. 2001. Gender equity issues in the vocational and transition services and employment outcomes experienced by young women with disabilities. In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Doucette, J. 1986. Violent acts against disabled women. Toronto, ON: DAWN (DisAbled Women’s Network) Canada.

Drieger, D., Feika, I., & Giron Batres, E., Eds. 1996. Across Borders. Women with Disabilities Working Together. Canada: Gynergy Books.

Driedger, D. & Gray, S., Eds. 1992. Imprinting Our Image: An International Anthology by Women with Disabilities. Canada: Gynergy Books.

Duncan B. & Berman-Bieler, R., eds. 1998. International leadership forum for women with disabilities. New York, NY: Rehabilitation International

Educational Equity Concepts, Inc. 1993. A report on women with disabilities in postsecondary education. Issue Paper Number 1.

Epstein, S. 1997. We can make it: Stories of disabled women in developing countries. ILO.

Fiduccia, B. W. and Wolfe, L. R. 1999. Women and girls with disabilities: Defining the issues – An overview. Washington, DC: Center for Women Policy Studies.

Fine, M. & Asch, A. Eds. 1988. Women with disabilities: Essays in psychology, culture and politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Finger, A. 1990. Past Due. A Story of Disability, Pregnancy and Birth. Seattle, WA: Seal Press.

Fries, K., Ed. 1997. Staring Back. The Disability Experience from the Inside Out. New York: Plume

Froschl, M. Rousso, H. & Rubin, E. 2001.. Nothing to do after school: More of an issue for girls. In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Froschl, M., Rubin, E. & Sprung, B. November, 1999. Connecting gender and disability. WEEA Equity Resource Center Digest, pp. 1-2.

Garland Thomson, R. 2002. Integrating disability, transforming feminist theory. NWSA Journal, 14, 3, pp. 1-32

__________ 2001. Re-Shaping, re-thinking, re-defining: Feminist disability studies. Washington, DC: Center for Women Policy Studies.

__________ 1997. Disabled women as powerful women in Petry, Morrison and Lorde: Revising Black female Subjectivity. In Mitchell, D. T., & Snyder, S. L., The Body and Physical Difference. Discourses of Disability. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press

_________ 1997. Extraordinary Bodies. Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Disability. New York: Columbia University Press. Especially chapter 1, Disability, Representation, Identity.

Galler, Roberta. 1984. The myth of the perfect body. In C. Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. Boston: Kegan Paul, 1984. pp. 165-172.

Gill, C., Kirschner, K, & Panko Reis, J. 1994. Health services for women with disabilities: Barriers and portals. In Dan, A., Ed., Reframing women’s health. Multidisciplinary research and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, pp. 357-66.

Grandin, T. 1996. Thinking in Pictures and Other Reports from My Life with Autism. New York: Vantage Books.

Grealy, L. 1994. Autobiography of a Face. New York: Houghton Mifflin

Groce, N.E. 1997. Women with disabilities in the developing world. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 8, 1&2:177-93

Hall, K. Q., Ed.. 2002. Special Issue: Feminist Disability Studies. NWSA Journal 14, 3.

Hannaford, S. 1985. Living outside inside. A disabled woman’s experience. Towards a social and political perspective. Berkeley, CA: Canterbury Press.

Heppner, C. 1992. Seeds of disquiet: One deaf woman’s experience. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press

Hershey, L. 2003. Caregiver advocates miss the point. Off Our Backs. 33, 1-2, pp. 31-32

__________ 2003. Disabled women organize worldwide. Off Our Backs. 33, 1-2, pp. 16-18.

__________ 1995. False Advertising (article critiquing charity advertisers’ portrayal of disabled women). Ms. Magazine, March, ‘95

Heumann, J. 1992. Growing up. Creating a movement together. In Driedger D. & Gray, S., Eds. Imprinting Our Image. An International Anthology by Women with Disabilities. Canada: Gynergy.

Jans, L. & Stoddard, S. 1999 Chartbook on women and disability in the United States. An InfoUse Report. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.

Keith, L. 1996. What Happened to You? Writings by Disabled Women. New York: New Press.

Kent, D. 1999. Coming to terms. Women’s Review of Books, XVI, 8:10.

__________ 1988. In search of a heroine: Images of women with disabilities in fiction and drama. In Fine, M., & Asch, A. Eds., Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture and Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press

Kirshbaum, M., & Olkin, R. (2002). Parents with physical, systemic, or visual disabilities. Sexuality and Disability, 20(1).

Kittay, E., Schriemb, A., Silvers, A. & Wendell, S., Eds. 2002. Hypatia. Special Issue: Disability and Feminism II. 17, 3, Summer, 2002.

__________ 2001. Hypatia. Special Issue: Disability and Feminism I. 16, 4, Fall 2001.

Kleege. G. 2000. Helen Keller and the empire of the normal. American Quarterly, 52, 2, 322-25.

__________1999. Sight Unseen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Klein, B. 1997. Slow dance: A story of stroke, love and disability. Berkeley: Pagemill/Circulus Publishing.

Krotoski, D. M., Nosek, M. & Turk, M. A. 1996. Women with physical disabilities. Achieving and maintaining health and well-being. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes

Ladouceur, B. & and Doe, T. 1993. To be or not to be: Whose question is it anyway? Canada Women Studies, Summer.

Lee, J. & White, S. 1999. Economic self sufficiency of women with disabilities International Rehabilitation Review. 49, 1-2:22-23.

Lewis, C., Sygall, S. & Crawford, J., Eds. 2002. Loud, proud and passionate: Including women with disabilities in international development programs. Eugene: Mobility International USA.

Linn, E. & Rousso,

H. 2001. Stopping sexual harassment in schools. In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Linton, S. 1998. Claiming Disability. Knowledge and Identity. New York: NYU Press

Lonsdale, S. 1990. Women and disability. The experience of physical disability among women. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Luczak, R. Ed. 1993. A Deaf Gay and Lesbian Reader. Boston: Alyson Publications.

Mairs, N. 1996. Waist-High in the world: A life among the nondisabled. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

__________ 1985. Plaintext. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

Matthews, G. F. 1983. Voices from the shadows: Women with disabilities speak out. Toronto: Women’s Educational Press.

McBryde Johnson, H. 2003. Unspeakable conversations or how I spent a day as a token cripple at Princeton University. The New York Times Magazine, February 16, 2003. 50-55.

Morris, J. 1991. Pride against prejudice. Transforming attitudes to disability. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.

__________1989. Able lives: Women’s experience of paralysis. London: The Women’s Press.

Muccigrosso, L., Scavarda, M., Simpson-Brown, R., & Thalacker, B. E. 1991. Double jeopardy: Pregnant and parenting youth in special education. Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children

Murdock, N. 1988. Disabled women and public policies for income. Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture and Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press

Neumark-Sztainer, D., Story, M., Toporoff, E., Cassuto, N., Resnick, M.D., & Blum, R.W 1996. Psychosocial predictors of binge eating and purging behaviors among adolescents with and without diabetes mellitus. Journal of Adolescent Health, 19, pp. 289-296.

Neumark-Sztainer, D., Story, M., Resnick, M.D., Garwick, A., Blum, R.W. 1995. Body dissatisfaction and unhealthy weight control practices among adolescents with and without chronic illness: A population-based study. The Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, 149, pp. 1330-1335.

Ngai, K. Survey on women with disabilities in Hong Kong. International Rehabilitation Review. 49, 1-2. June, 1999, p. 26.

Nosek, M.A. 1997. National study of women with physical disabilities. Houston: National Center for Research on Women with Disabilities

Nosek, M. A., Young, M. A., Rintala, D. H., Howland, C.A., Foley, C.C., & Bennett, J. L.. 1995. Barriers to reproductive health maintenance among women with physical disabilities. Journal or Women’s Health. 4, 5, pp. 505-18.

Off Our Backs 2002; 2003). Nos. 11-12 of Vol. 32 (Nov./Dec.) and Nos. 1-2 of Vol. 33 both contain special sections on women with disabilities.

O’Toole, C. J. 2002. Sex, disability and motherhood: Access to sexuality for disabled mothers. Disability Studies Quarterly, Fall 2002, 22(4), 81-101.

O’Toole, C. J. & Brown, A. 2003. No Reflection in the Mirror: Challenges for

Disabled Lesbians Accessing Mental Health Services. Journal of Lesbian

Studies, Vol 7, No. 1, 35-49.

O’Toole, C. J. & D’aoust, V. (2000) Fit for motherhood: Towards a recognition of multiplicity in disabled lesbian mothers. Disability Studies Quarterly, Spring 2000, 20(2), 145-154.

O’Toole, C .J & Doe, T. 2002. Sexuality and disabled parents with disabled children. Sexuality and Disability. Spring 2002, 20(1), 89-102.

Panzarino, C. 1994. The Me in the Mirror. Seattle, WA: Seal Press.

Parens, E. & Asch, A., Eds. 2000. Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Perkins, T. with Rubin, E., Froschl, M. and Sprung, B. 2001. Building community: A manual exploring issues of women and disability. Revised Edition. New York: Educational Equity Concepts

Raye, K. n.d. Violence, Women and mental disability: Human rights abuses perpetrated against women with mental disabilities. A paper prepared for Mental Disability Rights International.

Rousso, H. 2001. Strong proud sisters: Girls and young women with disabilities. Washington, DC: Center for Women Policy Studies.

__________ 2001. What do Frida Kahlo, Wilma Mankiller and Harriet Tubman have in common? Providing role models for girls with (and without) disabilities. In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

__________ 2000. Girls and Women with Disabilities: An international overview and summary of research. Oakland, CA: World Institute on Disability; and New York, NY: Rehabilitation International.

__________1988. Daughters with disabilities: Defective women or minority women? In. M. Fine and A. Asch, Eds. Women with disabilities: Essays in psychology, culture and politics. Pp. 139-171. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M. 2002. Gender matters. Training for educators working with students with disabilities. Newton, MA: WEEA Equity Resource Center/Education Development Center

__________ Eds. 2001. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press

Russo, N. and Jansen, M. 1988. Women, work and disability: Opportunities and challenges. In Fine, M. and Asch, A., Eds., Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture and Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Saxton, M. 1998. “Disability Rights and Selective Abortion,” in Ricky Solinger, Abortion Wars: a Half Century of Struggle (1950-2000). University of California Press. pp. 374-393

Saxton, M. & Howe, F., Eds. 1987. With Wings. An Anthology of Literature by and About Women with Disabilities. New York, NY: The Feminist Press

Shakespeare, T., Gillespie-Sells, K. & Davies, Dominic. 1996. The Sexual Politics of Disability. Untold Desires. New York & London: Cassell

Shapland, C. 1999. Sexuality issues for youth with disabilities and chronic health conditions. An occasional policy brief of the Institute for Child Health Policy, Gainesville, FL

Sherer Jacobson, D. 1999. The Question of David. A Disabled Mother’s Journey Through Adoption, Family and Life. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Co.

SinisterWisdom. Winter 1989-90. On Disability. Vol. 39. Entire volume.

Snyder, S., Brueggemann, B. & Garland Thomson, R., Eds. 2002. Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities. New York: MLA of America.

Sobsey, D. 1994. Violence and abuse in the lives of people with disabilities. The end of silent acceptance? Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

Stewart, J. 1989. The Body’s Memory. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Stimpson, L. & Best, M.C. 1991. Courage above all: Sexual assault against women with disabilities. Toronto, ON: DAWN (DisAbled Women’s Network) Canada.

Thierry, J. M. 1998. Observations from the CDC. Promoting the health and wellness of women with disabilities. Journal of Women’s Health. 7, 505-507

Thomas, C. 1999. Female forms: Experiencing and understanding disability. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Traustadottir, R. 1990. Women with disabilities: Issues, resources, connections. Syracuse, NY: The Center on Human Policy, Syracuse University.

Wagner, M. 1992. Being female – A secondary disability? Gender differences in the transition experiences of young people with disabilities. 1992. Menlo Park, CA: SRI International.

Wahl, E. 2001. Can she really do science? Gender disparities in math and science education. . In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press

Walsh, P. N. & Heller, T., Eds. 2002. Health of Women with Intellectual Disabilities. Okford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Wates, M. & Jade, R. Eds. 1999. Bigger Than the S
ky. Disabled Women on Parenting. London: The Women’s Press

Watson, N., Shakespeare, T., Cunningham-Burley, S., & Barnes, C., with Corker, M., Davis, J., & Priestley. 1999. Life as a disabled child: A qualitative study of young people’s experiences and perspectives. Unpublished paper.

Wehmeyer, M.L. & Schwartz, M. 2001. Research on gender bias in special education services. In Rousso, H. & Wehmeyer, M., Eds. Double jeopardy: Addressing gender issues in special education. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Wendell, S. 1996. The rejected body. Feminist philosophical reflections on disability. NY: Routledge

Willmuth, M. & Holcomb, L., Eds. 1993. Women with Disabilities: Found Voices. Binghamton, NY: Harrington Park Press.

Women in Action. 2001. Theme for issue 2, 2001: Women and disabilities (www.isiswomen.org/pub/wia/wia201/)

Women with Disabilities Australia (WWDA). 1998. Women with disabilities and violence. Information kit. Australia: Author.

Websites (A beginning list)

http://www.cripcommentary.com – Crip Commentary – Online column on disability rights written by disabled feminist Laura Hershey

http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/crowd/ – CROWD (Center for Research on Women with Disabilities), based at the Baylor College of Medicine/Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Engaged in a range of research on women with physical disabilities.

http://dawn.thot.net – DAWN – Canadian-based activist organization of women with disabilities.

www.disabilityworld.org – DisabilityWorld online. International e-zine that includes regular coverage on women

www.disabledwomen.net – Disabled Women on the Net – still under construction but has some useful resources

www.miusa.org/intdev/publications.htm/ – Mobility International USA resources on disabled women and development

www.gimpgirl.com – Queer Ladies, Girlies and Queer

www.disabledwomen.net/queer – Queer disability

www.ragged-edge-mag.com – Ragged Edge, an activist disability e-zine

www.lookingglass.org – Through the Looking Glass website, a resource on mothers/parents with disabilities

www.edfwomen.org.uk – UK Disability Forum Women’s Committee

www.disabilitystudies.com/feminism.htm – Whirlwind Wheelchair International Disability and Feminism Resource page

www.wwda.org.au – Women with Disabilities Australia. Winner of the National

Human Rights Award December 2001 and Winner of the National Violence Prevention Award 1999.

 

Some Further Reading:

http://www.disstudies.org/

http://disabilitystudies.syr.edu/resources/bibliography.aspx

 

S.K.

By Andrea Scarpino

 

Los Angeles

I leave for Germany on Thursday to visit one of my best friends, Chris, who is amazingly astute, isn’t afraid to discuss difficult topics or act silly, to drink wine and eat s’mores until we both feel sick. She once brought me an entire birthday cake to celebrate my cat’s birthday. She visited me when I lived in France, and didn’t bat an eye when I let the bidet overflow in our hotel room. When my father died, she flew to the funeral immediately, no questions asked. I remember standing at the back of the church with my family and his coffin, and beginning the processional down the church aisle. I wasn’t expecting to walk my father’s body down the aisle, and I felt myself begin to disintegrate. Then, I looked up and saw Chris’ face. It’s okay, she mouthed to me. And I knew it would be.

There are moments like that in any friendship that I don’t think you ever forget. Days after Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election, I met with Steve on campus. He knew how hard I had worked, not necessarily to get Kerry elected, but to get Bush out of office, ignoring my thesis to register voters, make sure their registrations went through, offer them rides to polling places on election day. Campaign workers from out of state slept in my living room for weeks at a time. Knowing all that work had only meant four more years of Bush as president was devastating.

I don’t remember why he had to leave, but Steve left me in his office with his guide dog Vidal to sit as long as I wanted. So I sat in his office filled with towering shelves of poetry and an amazing dog and I read parts of books and listened to Steve’s opera CDs, and Vidal snored in his sleep and let me pull him onto my lap and I felt so grateful to have a place of beauty like that to sit in quietly when feeling so sad, so useless in the world.

Another best friend let me live with her for an entire year in high school, let me share her bathroom and shoes, gossiped with me about boys as we studied for our SAT’s, fell into giggling fits with me at exactly 9 every night. And another helped me get through graduate school, still reads all of my poetry, still helps me be kind to myself. Once, I called her semi-hysterical after slicing deeply into my hand while trying to cut a sweet potato. The first thing she said was, Sit down. The second thing, Breathe. And that remains some of the smartest advice I’ve ever received. I have friends who have baked me muffins and cupcakes when I needed them most, introduced me to now-favorite music, let me sleep on their floor or sofa or bed much longer than I deserved, given me money and plants and clothing, taken me to concerts and plays and improv theater, let me laugh louder than anyone else in a restaurant without ever shush-ing me in shame, helped me think through relationships.

If you watch too much reality TV, you might think friendships are disposable things, that they come and go with the season based on whomever most fits your needs at the moment. But I like to think of friendships as lasting into old age, of calling a beloved friend on the phone from my nursing home and laughing, still, about the time we got lost and drove hundreds of miles out of our way. Which happened, one time, when driving home with Chris from a music festival. When we finally saw the Cincinnati sign, it read, 100 miles. We’d already been driving for something like nine hours. I remember turning to Chris and saying, Oh, we’re not far now at all. And then we both laughed. And kept laughing.

 

Andrea Scarpino is the west coast Bureau Chief of POTB. You can visit her at:

www.andreascarpino.com

Watching the senate disport itself on the matter of a public health insurance option is like watching very very old children drawing lines in the sand. In a very real sense the lines don’t mean anything. The real estate is so much larger than the superegos involved. The tide will come soon and wash the whole thing away. The tide in this instance is whatever you want to call it. If you’re a staunch supporter of the status quo and believe that big insurance should be left alone then you also believe by extension that those without insurance are provisional citizens with provisional rights. Certainly Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley feels this way. As he so aptly put it to a citizen at a town hall meeting anyone who doesn’t have good health care should just get a job with the government. The incontestable cynicism of the position is, well, incontestable. That’s why it is a line in the sand. By further degrees one may suppose that when the tide finally comes none of us will be here to experience the results. Of course to continue with this tortured figure the children who can’t leave the beach will drown. That of course is too bad. They shouldn’t have gone to the beach in the first place.

Meanwhile if you’re a supporter of a public health care option you believe that Medicare and Medicaid offer good examples of responsive government health care but you likely will overlook the disaster that is repeatedly represented by the Veterans Administration. Some who oppose a public insurance option are simply Social Darwinists who would let the children drown on the beach but others see in the failure of the VA good reason to doubt the efficacy and the humanity of government run health care.

This is of course another line in the sand. But the ultimate question as the President keeps saying is that by adopting a public option we as Americans have the opportunity to save money, deneiro, smackeroos, sawbucks.

The shame alluded to above rests with the fact that once the argument becomes strictly a matter of dollars we are no longer talking about the quality of life of our citizenry. The statistics that show our national infant mortality rate and the terrible inequities of medical care for minorities and the elderly are disgraceful.

Those in the senate who voted today against a public health insurance option have not proposed any way to redress the matter I’ve just brought to the page. Not at all. And this is a national shame.

 

S.K. 

The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) has a “Justice for All” blog that examines civil rights from a disability perspective. Of course civil rights are for everyone and Lo and Behold, “everyone” belongs among people with disabilities at one time or another. A “disability” perspective on civil rights speaks to issues of race, gender and sexual orientation, aging, veterans affairs, medical care, education, economic life, even matters of family and leisure. Our own recent post on inequalities in higher education has been reprinted at the JFA blog and we are pleased to have been invited aboard. See: http://jfactivist.typepad.com/jfactivist/2009/09/higher-educations-studied-indifference-to-people-with-disabilities-reflects-the-rehab-model-ad-nauseum.html

 

S.K.     

 

The stories arrive from every quadrant. Not long ago we received news of a blind woman who was harassed by her neighbors in a condominium complex in Westchester County, New York. The neighbors complained because the blind woman in question was, well, blind, and not only that, she was old and for crying out loud she wasn’t always accurate when cleaning up after her guide dog out there on the lawn.

Her young and fully sighted neighbors, or some of them, excuse me, I’ll just say it–the neighbors who drive imported automobiles were inconvenienced by an occasional turd out there on the grass. The point is they had to “see” it.

They insisted that this elderly woman should have to take her dog to an unseen location.

Discrimination against people with disabilities is not new. Nor is the vulgarity of entitlement, the exaggerated posturing of privileged citizens who find physically challenged people unacceptable a new thing. The “Ugly Laws” that once prohibited physically challenged people from appearing on America’s streets come to mind.

Why are people with disabilities so interesting to neo-vulgarists? I’ll take a stab at the matter by positing that the new vulgarity is not economic in the old way. It doesn’t have to do with the cost of installing a ramp or retrofitting a bus.

Instead this new intolerance is driven by “trickle down” fundamentalism. Just as there are structural conditions that restrain people with disabilities there is a new and revised inhibiting attitude in our domestic affairs–an absolute denial of abnormal bodies in public. Americans are seeking the Puritan village. A Puritan village is after all a “pure” location uncontaminated by any kind of deviance.

The entitlement of “new vulgarity”–or, if you will, of Puritan self-congratulatory standards of social utility depends on dressing well, being slim, and keeping tidy. If you can’t manage these things you better get out of sight.

As for economics, in the world of popular culture banishment sells. Shows like “The Biggest Loser” or whatever MTV happens to be handing out are fine examples.

The blind woman mentioned above was commanded to appear before her condominium’s board of directors for a review.

This was a matter of considerable disgrace. Ultimately the matter was settled with all due apologies once the lady and her guide dog “lawyered up”.   

Are the “ugly laws” back? Your guess is as good as mine. But certainly the rhetoric of aesthetic exceptionalism is all over the place.

 

S.K.  

The following excerpted article from The Progressive comes to us via The Inclusion Daily Express. Go to the Progressive’s link below to read the full essay.

S.K.

 

Ervin: People With Disabilities Left Out Of Health Care Debate
(Progressive.org)
September 28, 2009
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS– [Excerpt] There is one huge constituency being left out of the health care discussion: Americans with disabilities.

Many Americans who require the daily assistance of others to live in our homes and communities must turn to Medicaid for help covering the cost of that care.

But first we usually have to impoverish ourselves just to become eligible. Then we may well find that Medicaid will pay for the assistance we need only if we enter a nursing home. Medicaid rules require states to pay for nursing home care but not for more humane community alternatives.

Entire article:
People with disabilities left out of health care debate
http://www.progressive.org/mpervin091809.html