Making Connections, Changing Minds
Judith K. Moses delivered this Keynote Address at the Women and Epilepsy: Breaking the Silence conference in Kingston, Ontario on 6 March 1999, sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation.
Good morning and welcome to this important and exciting conference. I'm pleased to be here this morning to share a few thoughts and ideas with you about some of the unique challenges we face as women with disabilities. Specifically, I will be talking about what it means to be a woman with a disability in Canada today and exploring some options and strategies for promoting meaningful personal and social change.
Let's begin by re-visiting and taking apart, or unpacking, the term "women with disabilities".
Although I will focus on the interplay and connections between our identities as women and our identities as persons with disabilities, it is important that we allow and acknowledge that these are only two of the many different components that make up our complex and multi-faceted identities. They may not even be the most central parts of our identity for some of us at particular times in our life.
For example, within the group we call women with disabilities, we find:
senior women with disabilities;
First Nations women with disabilities;
black women and women of colour with disabilities;
lesbians, and bi-sexual and transgendered women with disabilities;
large women with disabilities; and
poor women with disabilities (though it might be argued that this last point is somewhat redundant).
Women with disabilities are among the poorest of the poor in Canada. According to the statistical profile of disabled persons in Ontario compiled by the Ministry of Citizenship in 1990, the majority of women with disabilities in this province have a gross annual income of less than $11,000 – gross in more ways than one!
1 Many of you could probably list any number of similarly outrageous and disturbing statistics about women with disabilities.
We are nearly five times more likely than non-disabled women to have fewer than eight years of formal education.2
We are employed far less than non-disabled men, non-disabled women, and disabled men, regardless of our age or education. Nearly twice as many white men with disabilities participate in the work force as compared with white women with disabilities.3
Compared with non-disabled men and women and disabled men, we are less likely to be married and more likely to be divorced.4
We are at least 1.5 times more likely than non-disabled women to experience some form of violence during our lifetime.5
We move or are put into nursing homes approximately ten years earlier than non-disabled women.
Learning "the what" about a situation, or grappling with these kinds of statistics and facts – disturbing as they may be – is an important start. But it is not enough. Understanding "the why" and "the how" of something is an essential prerequisite to mobilizing for change. Exploring how these and other disadvantages and inequities are constructed and sustained over time helps us understand why the conditions of our lives as women with disabilities are what they are today and suggests possible strategies for promoting meaningful change.
We must be able to perceive both the parts and the whole of the carpet under our feet or wheels as the case may be if we are to unravel the problematic sections, strengthen what is wearing thin, and weave a better carpet for all of us.
Putting together the what, why, and how of our lives as women with disabilities requires that we integrate an analysis of sexism, as a form of oppression based on sex and gender, with an analysis of able-ism, as a form of oppression based on ability and disability. We must take up the struggle to identify and understand the connections between ourselves as individuals and ourselves as members of at least two disadvantaged or marginalized groups: women and people with disabilities.
Before we explore that integration or those connections further, I'd like to take a moment to define oppression. I use the term oppression to describe a system of historic and systemic discrimination that is actively and consciously maintained through the use of a wide variety of tools, such as misinformation, fear, violence, legally mandated and protected inequities, and economic control.
A system of oppression, such as sexism, able-ism, classism, or racism, is built upon and reinforces myths, negative assumptions, and stereotypes. It ensures that access to and use of various forms of power, control, and authority remain in the hands of the privileged group: men as opposed to women, non-disabled persons as opposed to people with disabilities, wealthy people as opposed to poor people, white people as opposed to black people and people of colour.
A detailed discussion of the many discriminations and disadvantages women face today, in Canada and globally, is beyond the scope of this address. But a quick look at some of the myths, negative assumptions, and stereotypes that continue to fuel the oppression of women because of our sex/gender will help us better appreciate the multiply-marginalized position we are assigned as women with disabilities.
As stated by Adrienne Harris and Dana Wideman in their article The Construction of Gender and Disability in Early Attachment:
"In the first moment of any infant's life, child and culture meet up in the matter of gender. The first social task of the surrounding adults... is to deliver the child into the sex-gender system. What this means for a female infant is that from the first moments of life she is ushered into and assigned a place in a system of rules, roles, and meanings. This system is perhaps better thought of as a code with one overriding, relentless feature: a woman's position is denigrated, undervalued, and organized around absence and lack."6
Some of you may remember hearing about a research study completed in the late 1970s in which half the adult participants were told that the 15-day-old infant seen on a videotape was male and half that the child was female. The adults were asked to rate the infant on some simple physical parameters, such as activity level, irritability, and alertness. The label "boy" or "girl" applied to the same child produced radically different behavioural ratings, interpretations, and judgements.
What was identified as an appropriate level of alertness and activity, and interpreted as an indicator of curiosity and intelligence for the "male" infant, was described as irritable, fussy and demanding by those adults who believed they were observing a female infant. What was identified as calmness and focus for the "male" infant was described as passivity and dullness, and interpreted as indicators of limited intelligence or potential, for the "female" child.7
Bottom-line: male is different, male is better. Boys are superior to girls.
What is laid down at birth is reinforced and maintained throughout our childhood and adolescence and into our adult life, as evidenced by an inter-office memo that was circulated in many organizations a few years ago: "He's assertive / she's aggressive; he's a family man / she's not a dependable employee; he's a team player / she can't make a decision on her own..."
Bottom-line: male is different, male is better. Men are superior to women.
Certainly, much has changed in our lives as women over the past 30 years, primarily as a result of the persistent efforts of feminists. However, many rigid assumptions and misconceptions about women remain evident in our society today. These negative attitudes and judgements are reflected in and reinforced by a wide variety of discriminatory practices and institutions. Our expectations and opportunities continue to be influenced, limited, and restricted by this systemic discrimination and misogynist belief system.
Women are intuitive, emotional, soft, and giving. Women are not rational or intellectual. Women are not in touch with the "real" world; women are obsessed with the trivial. Women are hysterical, bad in a crisis, can't be depended on to make a clear decision, don't know how to handle money. Women are push-overs. Women live to serve. Women are stupid.
Some of you may remember the talking "Barbie" [doll] that recently hit, and then was quickly removed from, the market. What did she say? "Math is hard. Let's go shopping".
Alternately, women are evil, carnal, and untrustworthy by nature. Women lie, especially about sex. Women can't be trusted. Women seduce men, entice men, provoke men. Women say "no" but mean "yes"... "She loved it, she wanted it, she deserved it".
We're left with the basic Madonna/whore dichotomy: either we can be all-giving, self-sacrificing; the perfect wife; the loving mother; the patient, caring, kind one; child-like and helpless (June Cleaver), or we can be the vamp; the slut; the mistress; the lying, cheating, sex-hungry one (Marilyn Munroe).
We are either dependent, mindless care-taker or we are insatiable, available sex object. Either way, we are nothing without a man. Our appearance – more specifically our attractiveness to men including our size, physical grace, and degree of flawlessness – determines our worth... even the Madonna is pleasing to the eye.
It may be tempting to dismiss or ignore the power of these negative and limiting attitudes and, instead, focus exclusively on the discriminatory behaviours fuelled by this misogynist belief system. It is essential that we fight for specific and concrete changes, such as equal access to all types of education and employment, fair wages, and just laws.
However, when we fail to identify, confront, and change the sexist attitudes that serve as rationalizations and justifications for discrimination against women, we may inadvertently compromise the depth, sincerity, and sustainability of any changes we secure.
Consider the anti-violence movement. Feminists worked long and hard to change the rape laws in this country: to ensure that a wife could charge her husband with rape; to ensure that the past sexual history of the victim could not be used to justify the recent sexual assault; to ensure that "no means no" and that the burden of proof for consent having been given rests with the offender; and to ensure that children receive the protection and extra care they need when they are sexually abused and used by adults in positions of trust and authority.
Each of these changes represents an important victory in the war against women. However, we continue to hear about judges who give convicted rapists light sentences because their victim "wasn't wearing any undergarments" and "behaved in a seductive manner" ...especially disturbing when we learn that the victim in one such instance was a three year old girl. We hear of appeal court judges who overturn a sexual assault conviction because the 17-year-old victim "implied consent" when she failed to fight "hard enough", despite the fact that she clearly said "no" at least three times. And we listen in dismay as lawyers argue, once again, for the right to introduce a victim's past sexual history during a sexual assault trial or for the need to dismantle the protections we have so recently gained through the "no means no" initiative.
These decisions and arguments are informed by the hateful and negative belief system about girls and women prevalent in our society today: we lie about sex; "no means yes" or at least "try harder"; once we've had sex, we're fair game for any man; we want it, deserve it, and like it when we are forced to do something against our will.
There is so much I love about women and there is so much I love about being a woman but it is not an easy thing to be a woman in this sexist world.
And to be a disabled woman? Well, let's take a look at some of the negative attitudes and stereotypes about people with disabilities that serve as the foundation for our able-ist culture.
First and foremost, despite the prevalence of disability in this society, disabled persons tend to be invisible. Either literally invisible –
...or, if not literally invisible, then rendered invisible by others. It's not like we don't notice when people move away from us, cross the street so they don't have to pass us, or turn their eyes away as we move toward them. It's not like we don't get it when people talk over or around or through us, or most likely, simply ignore us during the entire conversation.
I can't tell you the number of times I've overheard an adult "shush" a child who, with all the curiosity and boldness only a child can have, asks why that lady is wearing "casts" on both her legs, or why she is in that chair, or, when I am using my forearm crutches, why she is using those "arm things". I hear the adults say in countless different ways, "don't ask", "don't look". What are we really telling the next generation each time we "shush" them? People with disabilities don't exist, are not deserving of their attention, or at the very least, should be ignored.
Whether we are conscious of our own able-ism, and whether we intend to communicate this message or not, is irrelevant. The outcome remains the same. People with disabilities are invisible... or we can reasonably assume that people with disabilities wish to be invisible because they are so inadequate, disgusting, shameful, ugly... different.
And because we are these things, disgusting and shameful, people with disabilities are to be pitied. It is assumed that our lives are without pleasure, friendship, love, meaning, or accomplishment simply because we have a disability. It is not our disability that limits and narrows our lives. It is the socially constructed obstacles, inequities, and prejudices that handicap us.
We are either, as my mother has often said, "poor souls", or we are "so brave to carry on", "so strong", "so remarkable". Again, how many times have I heard, "I'd kill myself if I ended up in a wheelchair". What is that if not a judgement on the value of my life as a wheelchair user?
And why is my life, as a person with a disability, of so little value? Not only is it assumed that I will not contribute anything of value to my family, my friends, my community, or the economy, it is also assumed that I am an emotional, physical, and financial burden to others and on society at large.
Disability is strongly associated with dependence, helplessness, and uselessness in our society. People with disabilities are perceived as liabilities, never assets. People with disabilities are expendable.
It is now a commonly accepted historical fact that many of the death machines used by Hitler and the Third Reich during World War II, including the gas chambers and ovens, were developed, tested, and perfected on people with disabilities living in institutions. Without protection, without advocates, without any rights or perceived value, these persons were clearly some of the most vulnerable, available, and expendable members of that society.
While current messages regarding how expendable we are as persons with disabilities may not be quite so harsh or well-organized today, they remain extremely powerful. Consider the overwhelming grassroots support for Mr. Latimer after he confessed to killing his disabled daughter. Consider the millions of dollars spent on genetic research and foetal testing designed to prevent the conception and birth of children with disabilities.
So where does this leave us as women with disabilities? What does it really mean to say that we are doubly- or multiply-marginalized as women with disabilities?
Again, there are numerous "whats", concrete expressions of our status as doubly disadvantaged individuals, or facts that reflect and reinforce our position in society. For example, I mentioned earlier that women with disabilities are employed far less than non-disabled men, non-disabled women, and disabled men, regardless of our age or education. You may remember me saying that nearly twice as many white men with disabilities participate in the work force as compared to white women with disabilities.
The situation is even more bleak when we turn our attention to full time employment. Less than 10% of all disabled women work full time, year round, compared with nearly 25% of men with disabilities. And, average earnings of employed women with disabilities are far below those for non-disabled and disabled men, as well as non-disabled women.8
Each of these discriminatory practices functions as a thread in the carpet of oppression that is our lives. But it is when we turn our attention to the interplay and connections between the able-ist and sexist stereotypes and assumptions we've explored this morning that we begin to perceive the true pattern.
View me through either lens and I am flawed.
View me as a woman through the lens of disability and I am not only systematically cut off from productive, meaningful work but I am also denied access to the traditional, if now disputed, roles for women: wife, mother... care-taker; lover, mistress... sex object. While feminists have rightly argued that these gender-role prescriptions are oppressive, they do offer some women – primarily white, middle-class, heterosexual, non-disabled women – access to specific privileges. Women with disabilities rarely have the opportunity to experience, choose, or reject the limitations or the privileges inherent in these roles.
Men spurn women with disabilities as workers and partners because we fail to measure up on the grounds of appearance or of perceived abilities in physical and emotional care-taking. Many women with disabilities, whether our disability is apparent or invisible, fall short (no pun intended) of the fantasized ideal of female beauty. We may be missing entire body parts, scarred, or shaped in an unusual way. Our movements, not to mention our bodily functions, may be limited, awkward, or out of our control at times. And the very devices so many of us value because they enhance our independence, movement, or communication – our braces and crutches, our hearing aids and prosthetic limbs – repel men seeking the ideal woman.
If you believe that I am dependent, helpless, and useless, a liability rather than an equal with a unique collection of limitations and strengths, challenges and skills, then is it any wonder that I am not seen as a suitable choice as co-worker or partner? If I need a care-taker, how on earth could I possibly be a care-taker, either paid (as a nurse or social worker) or unpaid (as a wife or mother)?
For these reasons, when you view me as a woman through the lens of disability, I am flawed.
And it is an extremely powerful lens. It is not only heterosexual, non-disabled men who judge and reject women with disabilities. Men with disabilities also demonstrate a strong preference for non-disabled partners, often with conscious awareness of their desire to confirm or improve their own status.
For example, in one study, blind men reported that they had deliberately sought sighted wives to complement them; to confer upon them a status of normal, successful, integrated; and to ensure their smooth navigation, literally and figuratively, through the world.9 In yet another study exploring the coping strategies of male scientists with disabilities, many participants reported that they had deliberately set out to acquire an attractive, non-disabled woman/wife as a way to offset any real or perceived disadvantage relating to their disability.10
Sadly, disabled lesbians also describe being dismissed, shunned, or relegated to the status of friend and confidante rather than lover, just as have been heterosexual disabled women. Disability is a powerful lens.
Alternately, what happens when I am viewed as a person with a disability through the lens of womanhood and femininity?
Assumptions of dependence and helplessness are projected on to all persons with disabilities. However, disabled women find it especially difficult to challenge this stereotype because it resonates so strongly with the traditional definition of feminine: dependent and child-like. The compliance, silence, and invisibility demanded of all persons with disabilities are mirrored and entrenched in the expectation that "real women", "good women", will do what they are told, keep the family secrets, protect their man, and sacrifice their own interests, needs, and well-being for others.
While many parents feel especially protective toward a child with a disability, it is evident that the socialization process differs for disabled boys and girls. Boys with disabilities are more often encouraged to develop their unique strengths and meet the world on their own terms whereas disabled girls receive less formal education than their disabled male peers and are more likely to be sheltered from the external environment.
When disabled girls and women strive for emotional, physical, and/or financial independence, we must not only fight against the idea that we are unable, but also, that we are unnatural.
The tendency in our society to blame women for just about everything, including our own oppression, has been well documented over the past three decades. Women in the work force are responsible for high rates of unemployment among men. Mothers are responsible for any problems their children might have. Wives are responsible for their husbands' violence. Seventeen year old girls are responsible for sexual assaults because they wear shorts and T-shirts. And this goes way back: after all it was Eve who got us all kicked out of paradise because she insisted on getting an education.
Attitudes towards people with disabilities are overwhelmingly negative and often hostile. However, women with disabilities tend to be judged more harshly by both non-disabled men and women when compared with similarly disabled men. For example, it is most often assumed that men who use wheelchairs became disabled as a result of external events or situations, such as war, accidents, or work injuries. But for women who use chairs? Our disability is more likely to be attributed to internal causes, such as disease, and we are more likely to be perceived as somehow responsible for and deserving of our fate.11
Not surprisingly, given that women are blamed for just about everything, we tend to internalize negative messages and blame ourselves when something goes wrong. "I failed the test because I didn't study hard enough; stupid me". Men, on the other hand, tend to blame any shortcomings or problems they might have on others or on external factors. They are more likely to say, "I failed the test because the teacher didn't review the right material; stupid teacher".
And not surprising in our able-ist culture, many people with disabilities wrestle with negative self-images and demonstrate low self esteem. It is extremely difficult to love and accept yourself when you are told repeatedly and in a multitude of ways that you have no value and are a burden to society.
As women with disabilities, we report more negative feelings and lower self esteem than non-disabled men, disabled men, and non-disabled women. We are, literally and figuratively, the lowest of the low when sex-gender meets ability-disability or when sexism and misogyny meets able-ism.
View me through either lens and I am flawed.
View me as a woman through the lens of disability and I am unacceptable as either colleague or partner.
View me as a person with a disability through the lens of womanhood and the passive compliance you demand in exchange for your assistance is suddenly part of my nature.
And this is why we want to turn away from feminism. This is why we want to distance ourselves from anti-oppression ideologies.
Analysis demands insight. Analysis insists that I open my mind and my heart to the painful reality of what it really means to live as a woman with a disability in a sexist, able-ist world.
Analysis strips away any illusions I might have had that I am not like the others, that I am not hated and despised, rejected and oppressed.
Analysis exposes the connections between my pay-cheque and my sex; between my housing and my disability; between my sex, my disability, and the likelihood that I will be victimized by violence more than once in my lifetime; between every aspect of my day-to-day life and my disadvantaged status as a woman with a disability.
Analysis exposes the connections between me and you as women, and between me and you and men with disabilities.
And because each of us is a complex, multi-faceted being within the group we call women with disabilities, we will find connections to women with children, First Nations women, senior women, large women, lesbians, and bisexual and transgendered women, among others.
This then is the pattern we must use as we work together for change, as we work together to weave a better carpet for us all. A carpet that reflects the beauty of sameness and difference.
Each of us will bring a unique collection of privilege and prejudice, advantage and struggle, to the process. And even as we challenge others to change their minds about us as women with disabilities, to acknowledge and eliminate their hateful attitudes and discriminatory behaviour towards us, so too must we open ourselves to their reality. So too must we re-examine our ideas, assumptions, and stereotypes. So too must we accept responsibility when we behave in a discriminatory or oppressive manner. So too must we change our minds and open our hearts.
Today, we demand attention to the lives and experiences of women with disabilities, be it on the streets, at school or at work, in bed, in maternity wards, at feminist events and celebrations, within the ranks of the disability movement, or across grass-roots and anti-oppression movements.
Today, we challenge the expectation that we remain silent, compliant, and invisible. We demand representation and participation in the academic community and the legal community, in the media and popular culture, in the arts and in social arenas, in sports events and at the gym, in trades and on the construction site, in all aspects of the economy and in our local, provincial, and federal governments.
Today, we're breaking the silence. And as you share your experiences with one another in whatever way you choose during this conference and in the months to come, I invite you to open yourself to the countless threads that join you to other women with disabilities and to other oppressed and disadvantaged peoples in our country and around the world. What we lack in power, we more than make up for in numbers. The base of the pyramid is always wider than the top.
Make connections, change minds, and be part of a social transformation that honours and celebrates diversity.
Join me at the loom. Come weave the changes with me.
References
1. Ministry of Citizenship, Office of Disabled Persons. Statistical Profile of Disabled Persons in Ontario, Volume II. 1990. p18.
2. Blackwell-Stratton, Marion; Breslin, Mary Lou; Bymne Mayerson, Arlene; and Bailey, Susan. "Smashing Icons: Disabled Women and the Disability and Women's Movement" in Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture, and Politics. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1988. p319.
3. Asch, Adrienne; and Fine, Michelle. "Introduction: Beyond Pedestals" in Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture, and Politics. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1988. p11.
4. Asch and Fine. "Introduction". p13.
5. Sobsey, Dick. Violence and Abuse in the Lives of People with Disabilities: The End of Silent Acceptance? Paul H. Brooks Publishing Company, Toronto. 1994. p69.
6. Harris, Adrienne; and Wideman, Dana. "The Construction of Gender and Disability in Early Attachment" in Women with Disabilities: Essays in Psychology, Culture, and Politics. Temple University Press, Philadelphia. 1988. p115.
7. Harris and Wideman. "Construction". p115-6.
8. Asch and Fine. "Introduction". p11.
9. Asch, Adrienne; and Sacks, L. "Lives without, lives within: The autobiographies of blind women and men". Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness. v77(6). 1983. p242-7.
10. Asch and Fine. "Introduction". p18.
11. Asch and Fine. "Introduction". p15.
Judith Moses may be contacted at
Radical Revisioning Consulting Services
which specializes in issues of violence against women and children:
PO Box 2152
Kingston, Ontario K7L 5J9.
613-542-7255
613-542-8053
fax
