tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37485899023582901882024-03-09T03:55:21.945+05:30SkepFemRandom thoughts from a skeptic feministAnita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-44533215550411491492012-09-12T15:21:00.001+05:302012-09-12T15:25:32.014+05:30Stuff That Comes With Having A Disability<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Because "disability never just <em>is</em>".</div>
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Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-42265021976763496292012-09-11T13:13:00.000+05:302012-09-11T13:17:41.687+05:30Ten Signs You're A Fundamentalist Christian Or A Hindu Fanatic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Fundamentalist Christian:</u></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>10 - </strong>You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.<br /><br /><b>9</b> - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.<br /><br /><b>8 </b>- You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.<br /><br /><b>7</b> - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!<br /><br /><b>6</b> - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.<br /><br /><b>5</b> - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.<br /><br /><b>4</b> - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /><b>3</b> - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.<br /><br /><b>2</b> - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.<br /><br /><b>1</b> - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;"> (<a href="http://www.evilbible.com/Top_Ten_List.htm" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">source</span></a>)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><u>Hindu Fanatic:</u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>10.</strong> You believe anyone who wears even so much as a saffron underwear is a human incarnation of ’Jagat </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Brahman</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">‘ (God) and address them as “baba”, “swami”, “shri shri” finding the servile pleasure of touching their feet ‘intoxicating’. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>9.</strong> You defend militantly everything the saffron-clad swamis have to preach, no matter how illogical and ridiculous, and believe that he/she will solve all your problems only if you continue singing bhajans (devotional songs).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: Arial;"><strong>8.</strong> You eject out of your chair at the slightest noise of someone uttering the word ‘Hinduism’ accusing the person of ignorance and launching into a lengthy diatribe on why the fool needs to address Hinduism as ‘Sanatana Dharma’.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>7.</strong> You think all Muslims are “terrorists” and call any person who does not support the ‘</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hindutva</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">’ cause as an anti-Hindu, anti-India, pseudo-secular communist.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>6.</strong> You accuse Muslims of being intolerant and yet become endlessly peeved at the distorted displays of hindu symbols or the use of hindu deities in works of art or movies by non-hindus and take boundless pride in protesting against such distortions or threatening them with dire consequences.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>5.</strong> You spend hundreds of idle hours trying to find the ‘real’ meaning of different hindu symbols and slokas and take immense pride whenever the western media mentions something remotely Hindu – convinced that it is an undeniable evidence supporting the ‘greatness’ of “Hindu civilization” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>4.</strong> You accuse ‘goras’(whites, but typically means Christians) of being racist when they ridicule Hindus but find no problems cracking Chinese jokes, Sardar jokes or even supporting the caste system by deciding not to marry outside your caste.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>3.</strong> You find fairy tales of other religions amusing and entertaining but consider the epic fairy tales of Ramayana and Mahabharata as ‘itihaas’ (history).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>2.</strong> You have no idea what a ‘testable hypothesis’ is but proudly claim that the Vedas are scientific works, distorting slokas and quoting personal opinion of scientists to make your case.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><strong>1.</strong> You have never read the entire Bhagavad Gita or other hindu religious texts but feel you are competent enough to talk about them loudly just because you read a few </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">Amar Chitra Katha</span></span><strong><span style="color: #772124;"> </span></strong></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">comics when you were a kid.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"> (<a href="http://nitwitnastik.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/top-10-signs-you-are-a-hindu-fanatic/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">source</span></a>)</span></span></div>
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Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-83082269441513996852012-09-11T12:21:00.000+05:302012-09-11T12:21:25.880+05:30How Poverty In Africa Is Portrayed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
An interesting <a href="http://waterwellness.ca/2010/04/28/perspectives-of-poverty/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">photo project by Duncan McNicholl</span></a> shows how the mainstream media often portrays poverty in Africa. Frustrated by what he saw at home in Canada, he decided to take pictures of his acquaintances in Malawi "dressed to kill" and "dressed very poorly". <br />
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We’ve all seen it: the photo of a teary-eyed African child, dressed in rags, smothered in flies, with a look of desperation that the caption all too readily points out. Some organization has made a poster that tells you about the realities of poverty, what they are doing about it, and how your donation will change things.<br />
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I reacted very strongly to these kinds of photos when I returned from Africa in 2008. I compared these photos to my own memories of Malawian friends and felt lied to. How had these photos failed so spectacularly to capture the intelligence, the laughter, the resilience, and the capabilities of so many incredible people?<br />
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The truth is that the development sector, just like any other business, needs revenue to survive. Too frequently, this quest for funding uses these kind of dehumanizing images to draw pity, charity, and eventually donations from a largely unsuspecting public…<br />
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This is not to say that people do not struggle, far from it, but the photos I was seeing only told part of the story… [To contribute to correcting this,] I am taking two photos of the same person; one photo with the typical symbols of poverty (dejected look, ripped clothes, etc.), and another of this person looking their very finest, to show how an image can be carefully constructed to present the same person in very different ways. I want to bring to light some of the different assumptions we make about a person, especially when we see an image of "poverty" from rural Africa.</blockquote>
<br />McNicholl's acquaintances participating with their own choice of clothes and posing as they like:<br />
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It is not uncommon to see similar depictions made by charities for other purposes as well, be it for providing education to women in rural areas, financial assistance to persons with disabilities who need them, etc. The idea is to appeal to the better off groups by presenting those in need as objects of pity and completely at the mercy of donors. This is not only denying of dignity and highly dehumanizing for those at the receiving end, but it often also serves to remove a sense of responsibility those making the donations may have to take. Such representations tend to go in line with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">just-world hypothesis</span></a> where conditions like these are seen as simply matters of circumstance or cases of exception and often restrict identifying the reasons why these condition continue to exist or challenging oppressive systems that may be at work. Perhaps the worst thing is, whatever it is that these people are in need of, it is rarely shown that they have a RIGHT to get it. Not as an act of mercy from others or as a given.</div>
Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-46620433010446264652012-09-11T11:58:00.000+05:302012-09-11T11:58:39.725+05:30Body Positivity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is important to emphasize body positivity. We live in a culture where we are constantly bombarded with fake, Photoshopped body images as the ones "truly" desirable and pressured to achieve unattainable beauty standards. I wish more people didn't have to grow up in an environment where they were always reminded how ugly they are or how less attractive they are, and how much more effort they need to put in to alter what they have, just to fit in with the narrow external ideals. I wish people (women in particular) didn't need to have their self-esteem built around every small step they take towards what seemed to be closer to those standards, instead of celebrating what they already have. I wish the mainstream media messages we are surrounded with were more open and inclusive of diversity instead of sticking with only white, cisgendered, able-bodied men and white, cisgendered, thin, able-bodied women as the 'norm'. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when I say inclusive, I mean positive representations. Not stereotyped or bullying stuff, because there's absolutely no shortage of that. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">The following is a video from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/ThosePeskyDames" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">ThosePeskyDames</span></a> on body positivity. </span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">(I've written a transcript, because I realize accessibility is much more than just ramps. And this was possible because it was of short length so that I was able to download it. I apologize for not doing the same for other videos I've shared, its only possible when my slow net lets me.)</span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">TRANSCRIPT:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Two things I wish I'd known as a teenager, and that are often still hard to remember today: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">1) People are going to have all sorts of opinions about how you look, there is nothing you can do to control this, so it's pointless trying to.<br /><br />2) The only person whose opinion matters about how you look is your own. Don't rely on other people to give you worth, they won't always be there.</span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">Whatever you look like, there's always going to be people who think you're unattractive and misguidedly, think its their business to tell you so. Ignore them. Because there are others who think you're the most beautiful person in the world. And not even in spite of your so-called flaws and imperfections, often <i>because</i> of those things you think are so hideous and awful about you. This is something I was struck with, particularly while filming for the TV show that we're going to be in on Wednesday. We had talked to people about hair and the whole group of people we talked to, I'm not even exaggerating, physically recoiled when we showed them our armpits and leg hair. As far as they were concerned, any woman with body hair was disgusting. It didn't matter what she looked like, if she had body hair that was it, that was the deal breaker. And honestly, that's fine. Don't like women with body hair? Fine, don't date them. There's plenty of other people out there who either don't care, or for whom its a massive turn-on! This is a lie that we've been tricked into believing for our entire lives that beauty is some objective standard that we have to aspire to, when its entirely relative. We're told if you have body hair, no one would want you. Or if you're fat. Or if you're too skinny. Or if you have spots, or scars or stretch marks. Or if you're skin's too light, or too dark... the list is just endless! (My colleague I've always talked about my weight too, and there's a link in the description to my dieting week video which says a lot similar to what Holly said in her body positive video yesterday). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">But body positivity is so much more than weight. When I was in secondary school, I got teased for a lot of things. I was a chubby, gingerish kid with braces, and I was a nerd. But one of the things that hold of me was I was teased quite a lot for my nose. Its not particularly huge but its not exactly dancy either, and that made me hate it. And I knew if I ever go for plastic surgery it wouldn't be to lose weight or anything like that, it would be to fix my nose because there was nothing else I could do about that. And then when I met my current partner, one of the first compliments he gave me completely out of the blue was that he really loved my nose. He thought it made me look distinguished. So I promise you, that part of yourself that you hate, that you think no one could ever find attractive, there is someone out there who thinks that's what makes you so incredibly gorgeous. And anyone who tries to convince you otherwise just isn't worth your time. You want to tell me that you think I'm fat, that I'm spotty, that I'm hairy, that I'm disgusting? Fine. I don't particularly want to sleep with you either. You kind of seem like a douche.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">That said, you can't rely on other people to make you feel beautiful. They're too effectless. Yes, there's someone out there who thinks your fat rolls, and your stretch marks, and your hairy armpit and your giant nose are gorgeous. But there are seven billion people in the world and only a tiny percentage of those people are going to pass in and out of your life. The only person who's going to be there with you for the rest of your life, is you. And if you hate you, it doesn't matter if someone else thinks you're gorgeous. Because in all likelihood, one day they're not going to be there to tell you so. And you're going to be left with yourself and what you think of yourself, and you're going to be miserable. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't feel that you can change your body. If you want to be thinner, go for it. If you want to gain weight, go for it. If you want grow your hair, shave your hair, wear make-up, don't wear make-up, whatever. But you need to question why you want to make these changes. And they need to come from a place of acceptance and not from a place of desperation of trying to conform to external ideals that you feel you have to fit in with. Acceptance and change takes time. But that's ok, because the way you look at the moment and the way you look between A and B is fine because there's nothing inherently wrong with the way you look. And accept that there are things about your body which you can't ever change. Or that it may be dangerous or difficult for you to change. And whether in the long run its really worth those risks just to make yourself look different. And it's hard. It's so fucking hard to be surrounded by a sea of messages that tell you the way you look is wrong, to not be represented as beautiful or represented at all, and to be continually reminded that you're not the supposed ideal. Which is where the second effects of this comes in and it relates to what Holly was saying in her video. Because just like you can’t rely on someone else to tell you you’re beautiful, we can’t keep dragging other girls down to try to make ourselves feel better. We need to stop making comparisons, saying “At least I don’t look like her.” Or buy into this ‘real women have curves’ bullshit like what skinny girls are just imaginary fairies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">We need to do everything we can to make it easy for each other, not harder. And more than that, we need to challenge the industry that makes us feel this way. We need to ask why so much of our media features exclusively white, exclusively skinny, exclusively able-bodied girls. We need to demand that we see ourselves and other women represented. And tell them that we are <i>fucking fabulous </i>exactly the way we are regardless of what they think. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;">I won’t feel this way on Wednesday. I know how loudly the demons in my head will be screaming “I look too fat” “I look too pale” “I look ugly compared to the other dames”.. But I’m going to keep fighting those demons, because I have to. Because we all have to. And the hopefully one day, we won’t have to anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-60371697957877246952012-09-01T15:55:00.000+05:302012-09-01T15:55:32.121+05:30An Open Letter to Ms Magazine Blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
"<a href="http://disabledfeminists.com/2010/05/07/an-open-letter-to-ms-magazine-blog/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">I’m pretty angry about that. Not offended, Ms Magazine, <em>angry</em>. You see, I’m really tired of “the disabled” being treated like we’re unthinking masses. I’m especially tired of the feminist movement – you know, one that allegedly wants equal rights for all people, including women with disabilities – doing this. It makes me angry because I’m a <em>feminist</em> as well as a <em>woman</em> as well as a <em>person with a disability</em> as well as someone who is not the pawn of anyone, thank you very much.</span></a><span style="color: black;">"</span></div>
Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-23580743650044505492012-08-30T20:46:00.004+05:302012-08-30T21:02:08.496+05:30Matrimonial Ad..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-21nud6gJ0wY/UD96MLSOWEI/AAAAAAAAANs/a-HrPecqBb8/s1600/538802_397095100344673_130095027_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" fea="true" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-21nud6gJ0wY/UD96MLSOWEI/AAAAAAAAANs/a-HrPecqBb8/s320/538802_397095100344673_130095027_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Each and every noun and adjective of this matrimonial ad that appeared in the main edition of India’s leading newspaper ‘The Hindu’, recognizes our divided society and the difficulty in connecting the divisions.<br />
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1) It is the father who has applied for the daughter to get married, not the girl herself. The ad targets the boy’s parents and not the boy himself. Parents re-enforce the ancient habit of elders deciding whom the children should spend the rest of their lives with.<br />
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2) The girl is only 22 years old. At such a young age and fresh out of college, she would have no idea of the real world. A practice of traditionally conservative families, to get the girl married, as soon as she finishes her basic college education.<br />
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3) The Ad describes her as ‘family oriented’, which usually means she is an house-wife material and is ready to sacrifice all her career dreams, to take care of her husband and his family.<br />
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4) The girl is fair (<em>colorism? Check. because we never see 'dark' being mentioned. Writing 'fair' is not to show the girl is fair but to indicate she is</em> <em><u>not dark</u></em>.), pretty and the boy should be handsome (<em>no criteria for 'handsome' here but since its a boy, anything will do</em>). This rules out a huge majority of the Indian male community, even if their wealth can match this aristocrat and even if they can be better husbands, in terms of care and affection.<br />
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5) Even if the boy happens to be <em>extra brilliant</em>, handsome, well-cultured, highly qualified and belongs to respected and reputed family of high stature, his horoscope (<em>a.k.a mumbo jumbo superstition</em>) should match the astrological requirement.<br />
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(source for pic and part of the text: 'Indian Quotes' page on Facebook)</div>
Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-13114538298971808702012-08-28T16:56:00.000+05:302012-08-28T17:29:49.837+05:30Relating to Roosevelt's Sister<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My recent change of self-perception and awakening to the disability rights movement has set me on a learning spree. All of a sudden I'm discovering some of the best blogs on disability, activists, writers and scholars (not only online but also few I am finding myself reaching out to) dealing with disability issues, and a new interest (not just interest, facination as well) in the field of disability studies. I want to do M.A. in it, preferably from TISS because they are one of the few universities in India that offer the course, they seem to be more accommodating of PWDs and it's worth. I'm actually relieved that the passion to do something for others like me is building up more than the fear of likely resistance I will have to deal with when presenting the wish to my parents. In a rather obvious yet strange way, I'm discovering myself. And seeing everything about me or what I've been through, finally, from a different angle - my side. The side of silenced voices, the 'special' children, the intitutionalised 'threats', the receivers of 'be exceptional or be dead' attitudes...and those challenging the status quo.<br />
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So when I read Rosmarie Garland Thomson's essay "Roosevelt's Sister: Why We Need Disability Studies in the Humanities", it was something that I could relate to in many places. Taking Judith Shakespeare from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Woolf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Virginia Woolf's</span></a> famous book <em>A Room of One's Own</em>, she creates a similiar character, Judith Roosevelt, who has cerebral palsy and is the sister of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In a clear and realistic way, her life is narrated both in the traditional setting and contemporary period.<br />
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Virginia Woolf is probably our greatest modernist writer and our most creative feminist thinker. In Woolf's 1928 collection of feminist essays,<em> A Room of One's Own</em> she, invents a character she calls Judith Shakespeare, the imaginary sister of the famous playwright, who is equally creative and ambitious as her brother. In her amusing, but instructive essay, Woolf uses the figure of Judith Shakespeare to show the social constrictions women who wanted to write faced. Woolf invents Judith, who as Woolf has it, must stay home to care for the family while her ambitious brother Will goes off to school and then to London to try his hand at theater, and the rest is history for him. Dutifully, Judith obeys until her father plans to marry her to an odious neighbor. When she refuses, he beats her, and she runs away to the London stage door to offer her talents, where they are rejected. She becomes pregnant by a charming fellow actor she meets that first day. Disgraced, Judith dies alone in childbirth and is buried in an unmarked grave.</blockquote>
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I'll offer here another figure to think through the social constrictions facing disabled women. Following Woolf, my heroine will be Judith as well. But this is not Judith Shakespeare; rather this is Judith... Roosevelt, the younger sister of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.</blockquote>
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<a href="http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1278/1311" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">continue reading here..</span></a></blockquote>
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Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-27603839410217857552012-08-24T18:12:00.001+05:302012-08-24T18:12:04.434+05:30Understanding Colorism, or skin color based discrimination<a href="http://jyotigupta.org/blog_mod/understanding-colorism/">Understanding Colorism, or skin color based discrimination</a>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-76482422345481060082012-08-24T01:23:00.001+05:302012-08-24T01:23:07.428+05:30Disability and I Do: What's Wrong with me? Nothing, I'm Awesome.<a href="http://disabilityandido.blogspot.com/2012/07/whats-wrong-with-me-nothing-im-awesome.html?spref=bl">Disability and I Do: What's Wrong with me? Nothing, I'm Awesome.</a>: Language is dangerous. Writers have always known this. As Edward Bulwer-Lytton said, “The Pen is mightier than the sword.” All of us have ...Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-82285526332259256542012-08-11T13:54:00.001+05:302012-08-11T13:54:14.996+05:30Beauty And Women With Disabilities<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.nedic.ca/knowthefacts/documents/Bodybeautifulbodyperfect.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">This</span></a> noteworthy paper written by Francine Odette gives a good insight into cultural standards/expectations on beauty and the position of women with disabilities in it. Excerpt: <br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: Tahoma;"><b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: large;"><div align="left">
<span style="font-size: small;">Body Beautiful/Body Perfect: Challenging the Status Quo:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Where Do Women With Disabilities Fit In? </span></div>
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Francine Odette, M.S.W., DisAbled Women’s Network<br />
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</span><i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">With a body that doesn’t ‘measure up’, we learn pretty quickly what our culture wants from women” – The New Our Bodies Ourselves</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;"></span></span></i><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><div align="left">
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When I was approached to write about the issue of body image and its impact on women with disabilities, the invitation brought with it a chance to explore the link between fat-oppression and the experiences of women with disabilities. Unfortunately, little research has been conducted on this issue, which may reflect the belief that the lived experiences of many women with disabilities are not important, nor perceived as valid by mainstream researchers.</div>
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I do not represent the experiences of all women with disabilities regarding the issues of body image and self-perception; however, over the years I have listened to the stories of many women with a range of disabilities. This includes women whose disabilities include being non-verbal, mobility, hard of hearing and/or visual impairments. Many of these women spoke of their lives and how they have begun to deal with some of their concerns around body image and selfperception. While recognizing that the issues for women with disabilities may vary from those of non-disabled women, our lives, experiences and fears are very similar.</div>
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Women are identified socially with their bodies. For women living in Western culture, thinness is often equated with health and success. We are taught early to be conscious of our body shape, size, weight and physical attributes. The current cultural “norm” or ideal is unattainable for most women. Fat women, women with disabilities, women from particular racial or ethnic groups or with non-heterosexual orientation, and other women who do not conform to the prescribed “norm” of social desirability are viewed as having experiences and attributes somewhat different from that of other women in this culture and as a result are often isolated.</div>
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Women with disabilities living in this society are not exempt from the influence of messages that attempt to dictate what is desirable and what is undesirable in a woman. These messages are often internalized, and they have an impact on how we see ourselves. The further we view ourselves from the popular standard of beauty, the more likely our self-image will suffer. We may experience a greater need to gain control over our bodies, either by our own efforts of restrictive eating and exercising, or the intrusive procedures performed by those deemed to be the “experts”—the medical profession.</div>
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We form images of ourselves early in infancy and these are confirmed or altered by the responses, or evaluations, made by others. </div>
</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Based on physical judgments, women with disabilities hear various messages from family, friends and society-at-large about our perceived inability to participate in the roles that are usually expected of women. Society believes that lack of physical attractiveness, as defined by the dominant culture, hampers our ability to be intimate. These misperceptions hamper our ability to get beyond our physical differences, perpetuate body-image dissatisfaction and contribute to eating problems.</span></span><b><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma; font-size: medium;"><div align="left">
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Invisible or distorted lives</div>
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Within this culture, having a disability is viewed negatively. This notion is supported by the fact that the lives of women with different disabilities are not reflected in the media. We are invisible. However, when our lives are spoken of, they are distorted through romantic or bizarre portrayals of childlike dependency, monster-like anger and super-human feats. This increases the discomfort of others when in contact with women with disabilities, which in turn perpetuates the sense of “otherness” that women may feel.</div>
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As women and individuals with disabilities, the messages that we receive often indicate the lack of role expectations for us. For young girls with disabilities, the invisibility of our lives becomes reinforced by the fact that much of popular advertising implies the belief that the “normal” body is that which is desirable. Once these messages become internalized and reinforced, young girls and women with disabilities may try to compensate for their disabilities by striving to look as close to the non-disabled “norm” as possible. Similar to many non-disabled women’s experiences, some girls and women with different disabilities may try to hide their bodies or change how their bodies look. Comfort and health may be sacrificed as we attempt to move</div>
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closer to the realm of what the “normal” body appears to be, by manipulating our bodies through continuous dieting, plucking, shaving, cutting and constricting.</div>
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Much feminist theory has been focused on identifying the reality that within Western culture women’s bodies are objectified for the purpose of male pleasure and domination. As a result, women’s perceptions of themselves and their bodies become distorted. We are taught to mistrust our own experience and judgment about desirability and acceptance. These qualities are defined by the dominant culture. They are socially and economically defined by those in power—white, able-bodied, heterosexual men. Within this context, the body becomes a commodity with which one may bargain in order to obtain more desirable opportunities, e.g., work or security.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Objectification by the medical profession</span></div>
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Feminist analysis identifies women’s alienation from themselves and their bodies as a result of the objectification of the female body. However, a great deal of feminist analysis may not be reflective of all women’s experience. The way in which women’s bodies are portrayed, as commodities in the media, may not be a reality for many women labelled “disabled.” In reflecting societal beliefs regarding disability, our bodies become objectified for the purposes of domination, but within a different context.</div>
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Traditionally, disability, whether visible or invisible, has tended to be viewed as something that is undesirable. Whether we are born with our disability or acquire it later, our bodies become objectified by the medical process. Medical examinations are often undertaken by groups of male doctors, who despite their aura of “professionalism,” are still perceived by the client as a group of anonymous men. Regular routines such as dressing ourselves, or other activities, are observed by doctors while on their “rounds,” as this is seen as an excellent training of new doctors.</div>
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Many of us recount our experiences, as young children, of having to display our bodies to groups of male doctors in the guise of “medical treatment” without prior knowledge or consent. We may have been asked to strip, to walk back and forth in front of complete strangers so that they could get a better view of what the physical “problem” is, or to manually manipulate our limbs to determine flexibility and dexterity.</div>
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Today, pictures or videos are taken of us and used as educational tools for future doctors, with little thought given to our needs to have control over what happens to our bodies or who sees us. While the medical profession attempts to maintain control over our bodies, some women with disabilities may attempt to regain control through dieting, bingeing or other methods of body mutilation.</div>
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Some disabled women speak of having numerous surgeries conducted with the hope of a “cure,” when in reality the surgeries may result in increased pain, discomfort and altered physical state of one’s body. The concept of body-image as it impacts on young girls and women with disabilities is crucial, especially when one looks at instances where the functioning of certain body parts must change or be altered, resulting in scars, diminished sensation or radically changing the physical state, e.g., amputation, mastectomies. A common theme emerges between intrusive medical intervention and popular methods of cosmetic surgery: the perceived need to change or alter the “imperfect” body. For many women with disabilities, the message is clear—the way our bodies are now is neither acceptable nor desirable. To be non-disabled is the “ideal”</div>
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and along with that comes the additional expectations for the quest for the “perfect” body. Body image, self-image and self-esteem are often linked with the perceptions held by society, family and friends. Disability is often seen as a “deficit,” and women with disabilities must address the reality that the “ideal” imposed by the dominant culture regarding women’s bodies is neither part of our experience nor within our reach. We thus often need to grieve the loss of the dream of the “body perfect,” let alone the “body ideal.” As women with disabilities, some of us experience difficulty in having others identify us as “female.”</div>
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Disability and “differentness” results in many of us living our lives from the margins of society. As women with disabilities, we must begin to challenge the perceptions of “body beautiful,” along with the perceptions held by some non-disabled feminists who resist the notion of “body beautiful,” but ignore or affirm the notion of “body perfect.” Disability challenges all notions of perfection and beauty as defined by popular, dominant culture.</div>
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We must reclaim what has been traditionally viewed as “negative” and accentuate the reality that “differentness” carries with it exciting and creative opportunities for change. A lot can be learned from the experiences of women with disabilities as we begin the process of reclaiming and embracing our “differences.” This includes both a celebration of our range of sizes, shapes and abilities.</div>
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</span></span>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-71714485766891500032012-08-09T12:46:00.001+05:302012-08-09T12:46:34.245+05:30Black Disabled History<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1D1Ugiefixw/UCNiRrPTgGI/AAAAAAAAANM/Lb7DkYRdyJ4/s1600/leroy-moore-200x200.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="129" kda="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1D1Ugiefixw/UCNiRrPTgGI/AAAAAAAAANM/Lb7DkYRdyJ4/s320/leroy-moore-200x200.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-72499470255619088492012-08-07T13:55:00.001+05:302012-08-07T13:55:13.166+05:30Before You Ask Someone A Question, Ask Yourself:<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Is this something I need to know?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Is this information any of my business?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Is this information something I can get elsewhere, like Google or Wikipedia, so as not to waste the questioned’s time?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Might my question trigger or seriously upset the questioned?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Why do I feel entitled to this information, and why might that entitlement be wrongly assumed?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Am I being respectful, appropriate, and inclusive in my phraseology?</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Do I acknowledge that I am not entitled to an answer, and am I willing to accept silence or a denial of information as an answer?</span></li>
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- via <a href="http://bittergrapes.tumblr.com/post/20828388788/before-you-ask-someone-a-question-ask-yourself" target="_blank"><span style="color: #741b47;">bittergrapes</span></a></blockquote>
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It's not that they're too rude or arrogant if you don't get a reply. Maybe, just mabe, they've answered it a million times before and are tired of it. Maybe the information is something widely available on the internet and still people (more annoying when those on the internet itself) ask the same thing like they're the first person to bring out such a 'clever', 'new' question. Maybe they have the right answer and know what they want to say but just can't put it into words that will convince you. <br />
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It is especially important to keep these in mind when you're asking to those people who have to regularly deal with the same questioning and yet suceeding very little in pushing understanding through the questioner's biases and prejudices when answered. Feminists, PoC, LGBTQA, PWD.. (don't know the full forms? I ain't gonna say it this time, Google them.). However, most marginalized people are willing to educate others about their condition because they know speaking out and bringing their problems to light is the only way to awaken a sleeping society. It's only that we as outsiders (and more so if as perpetuators) have an equal responsibility to 'put an effort' at 'finding out' on our own if we can, without expecting them to neatly and carefully position everything into our heads.</span></div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-17851922015143889302012-08-06T11:31:00.003+05:302012-08-06T11:31:56.378+05:30Will You Spare Me?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><o:p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tall and mighty I stand with my friends,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Trying to reach out and touch the sky.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I watch the clouds move free and happy,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">They're always busy traveling, I wonder why.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I dance to the rhythm of the soothing wind,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Whose every touch raise my spirits high.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I'll grab the soil firm if the wind went wild,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And stand a natural roof for every passerby.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Overwhelmed with joy, I permit a little bird,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To build upon my hands her soft cozy nest.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I make a silent promise that during angry weather,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To protect her delicate one's, I'll always do my best.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Water gushes out with the clash of the clouds,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As an unfailing reply to my call.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And sprays its coolness over the hills and plains,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Helping life to grow steady and tall.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I wait with immense pride and patience,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As the sweet ones I bear grow day by day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To satisfy the hunger of both men and beasts,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I readily though painful give them away.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I wonder with grief how long would it take,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Before I feel the cutter's axe piercing me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">With my existence restricted I just can't imagine,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">What life on this earth would be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To those who can think and work on their thoughts,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is what I would like to say;<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Spare me today and I shall prove to you<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy'; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Lucida Calligraphy';"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That tomorrow will be a much brighter day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</o:p></span></div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-43274027089119288312012-08-05T20:56:00.001+05:302012-08-05T20:56:43.838+05:30Trip To Vailankanni<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I joined my family for a visit to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velankanni_Town" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Vailankanni</span></a> last Friday, a two day trip. My aunt's family was with us too. They all went mainly for religious purposes while I went for sight-seeing and to have some good time together. Looks like we both got what we wanted.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It was really a joyful experience. A long, fun trip after almost a year. So I am definitely not going to reduce it to the religious aspects, I'll remember it for the laughs and the good moments we had. That being said, there <i>were</i> some not-so-pleasant things I noticed which are hard to dismiss, and since this is the only place where I can pour out, thought I'd write it down. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We left on Friday evening. The journey was smooth and fun, except for a little trouble in the beginning where my dad had to lift me to the bus. I could have walked in with some support on my hand had it been a low-floor bus and I wondered how long it would be before manufacturers actually started realizing about the existence of disabled people, wheelchair users in particular. And what about the elderly who can't climb high steps</span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">? Don't they need to travel as well? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Throughout the journey whenever I look outside the window, I would check to see how many places has a ramp to its entrance. The result was disappointing as expected. I really felt bad that the need to keep a ramp next to a door is such a difficult concept to understand! I remembered about a disability rights activist I had met once who works towards creating accessibility in public places and wondered how much progress they might be making.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">We reached there by next day morning and rented a single room house. After a quick freshening up (the salty water made you want to bathe because you bathed in it) and breakfast, we left for the shrine. The structure was absolutely stunning. More so the awe at how much our species has evolved from using primitive tools to creating such architectural sophistications. Simply being there made me marvel and feel proud of our human history. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The good feelings were however short lived, till the moment we entered the church. I felt like a drop of oil in a pool of water, not able to mix with the atmosphere of religious binding. I couldn't be a participant (didn't want to either), only be an observer. Many of the practices all so familiar and yet oddly, revealing new meanings that stayed hidden during those years of blind conformation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">There was this ritual of making people, mostly those with illnesses, sit as 'adima' (slave) to the Velankanni Mary and I was thinking, 'yeah right, that's some 'love' she's got there to require people to be slaves.' The name Vailankanni (meaning 'Virgin of Velai') itself made me cringe when I Googled it, the religious obbsession with virginity was so apparent. At one place there was a nearly one kilometer long paved way filled with beach sand for a custom in which people had to go through that full distance on their knees. My dad somewhat pressured me to participate but I stuck to my refusal. We saw a two year old kid doing it (mainly by his father forcing him) and everyone were like ''so cuute''. The words coming to my mind were 'child abuse'.. Later, on returning to our rented house, we were to find our neighbor sitting ouside with his knees bleeding after he went for that.. There was also a Thirupathi style head shaving and applying of a cinnamon powder misture. Many of our bus mates returned bald.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Some of the things actually made me laugh, the kind of unreasonable behavior even seemingly well educated people were exhibiting (like couples wanting children tying handkerchiefs in the shape of a cradle on sacred trees). Showed how deeply entrenched <img class="emote_img" height="1" src="https://s-static.ak.facebook.com/images/blank.gif" style="background-position: 0px 0px;" title=":)" width="1" />superstition is in our culture and how education does not necessarily guarantee rational thinking. But the thing I felt most bad was when after the Mass, which had a huge attendence of people from different parts of the country and outside, I saw most of them crying, some badly weeping, as the procession brought holy water and statue of Jesus. I felt so bad that all these people were being cheated..the amount of faith they were having..all for nothing.. It was so unfair.. Many of them were spending money they otherwise wouldn't have. Many of them had left their medicines or given up hope on treatment and come with so much expectations for being cured. And some would even return with the false belief that they really had been, and stop their medications, where in fact the healing could be only a temporary placebo in effect. I felt so enraged at the same time, the fucking church spreading their lies and taking advantage of so many innocent people's trust and sorrow, mercilessly cheating them with their dogma for wealth, power and control..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It made me realize no 'loving' god, if there was one, would ever want to put his children through such an ordeal where they had to flatter him and beg for relief from a fate he himself impossed on them. No 'merciful' god would punish you if you failed to do so according to standards set by people claiming to have telepathic connections to him, unprovable to others.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In the end, I liked the trip. I really did, not just because it was a fun journey with family and cousins but also because it was an eye-opener for me. I went on a pilgrimage and came back more of an atheist. Life is only once. It's up to us to give, take and make the best of it, without relying on man-made myths and monsters. This world, with all it's beauty and indifference, can surely be made a better place if we lived and worked with that understanding.
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</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-69902108956085280352012-08-03T15:19:00.000+05:302012-08-03T15:31:41.458+05:30Bits From Books 8.0: 'Contours of Ableism' by Fiona Kumari Campbell (1)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">( I'm currently reading 'Contours of Ableism - The Production of Disability and Abledness' written by Fiona Kumari Campbell. I downloaded the ebook from </span><a href="http://gen.lib.rus.ec/search?req=contours+of+ableism&nametype=orig" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">, a site with a brilliantly large collection. After reading a book once, I generally don't feel like reading it again unless absolutely necessary. So I thought it would be nice to keep a record of some the interesting/important excerpts for future reference, and hence these type of posts. )</span><br />
<span lang=""><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">//Ableism refers to: A network of beliefs, processes and practices that produces a particular kind of self and body (the corporeal standard) that is projected as the perfect, species-typical and therefore essential and fully human. Disability then is cast as a diminished state of being human. (Campbell, 2001, p. 44)//<br /><br />//Whether it be the ‘species typical body’ (in science), the ‘normative citizen’ (in political theory), the ‘reasonable man’ (in law), all these signifiers point to a fabrication that reaches into the very soul that sweeps us into life and as such is the outcome and instrument of a political constitution: a hostage of the body. The creation of such regimes of ontological separation appears disassociated from power. Bodies in this way become elements that may be moved, used, transformed, demarcated, improved and articulated with others.//<br /></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">//Women talk about being proud of who they are – proud <em>because</em> they are women; aborigines talk about being proud <em>because</em> they are aborigines; gay men and lesbians about being proud because of their sexuality. But throughout the disability movement we are much more likely to hear people with disabilities talking about pride in themselves <em>despite</em> their disability. (Parsons, 1999, p.14)// </span></blockquote>
<br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">//Viewing the disabled body as simply matter out of place that needs to be dispensed with or at least cleaned up is erroneous. The disabled body has a place, a place in liminality to secure the performative enactment of the normal. Detienne’s summation points to what we may call the double bind of ableism when performed within Western neo-liberal polities. The double bind folds in on itself – for whilst claiming ‘inclusion’, ableism simultaneously always restates and enshrines itself. On the one hand, discourses of equality promote ‘inclusion’ by way of promoting positive attitudes (sometimes legislated in mission statements, marketing campaigns, equal opportunity protections) and yet on the other hand, ableist discourses proclaim quite emphatically that disability is inherently negative, ontologically intolerable and in the end, a dispensable remnant. This casting results in an ontological foreclosure wherein positive signification of disability becomes unspeakable.// <br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: StoneSerif;"><span style="font-family: StoneSerif;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">
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//Everyone is virtually disabled, both in the sense that able-bodied norms are ‘intrinsically impossible to embody’ fully and in the sense that able-bodied status is always temporary, disability being the one identity category that all people will embody if they live long enough. What we might call a critical disability position, however, would differ from such a virtually disabled positions [to engagements that have] resisted the demands of compulsory able-bodiedness (McRuer, 2002, pp. 95–96)</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The conundrum, disability, is not a mere fear of the unknown, or an apprehensiveness towards that which is foreign or strange. Rather, disability and disabled bodies are effectively positioned in the nether regions of ‘unthought’. For the ongoing stability of ableism, a diffuse network of thought depends upon the capacity of that network to ‘shut away’, to exteriorise, and unthink disability and its resemblance to the essential (ableist) human self. This unthought has been given much consideration through the systematisation and classification of knowledges about pathology, aberration and deviance.//</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">//When looking at relations of disability and ableism we can expand on this idea of symbiosis, an ‘unavoidable duality’ by putting forward another metaphor, that of the mirror. Here I argue that people deemed disabled take on the performative act of mirroring in the lives of normative subjects:</span></div>
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">To be a Mirror is different from being a Face that looks back <i>. . . </i></span></i></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">with a range of expression and responsiveness that are responses of a Subject-in-Its-Own-Right. To be positioned as a Mirror is to be Put Out of Countenance, to Lose Face. (Narayan, 1997, p. 141)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">In this respect, we can speak in ontological terms of the history of disability as a history of that which is unthought, to be put out of countenance; this figuring should not be confused with erasure that occurs due to mere absence or exclusion. On the contrary, disability is always present (despite its seeming absence) in the ableist talk of normalcy, normalisation and humanness</span></div>
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">. Disability’s truth-claims are dependent upon discourses of ableism for their very legitimisation.//</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">//Internalized oppression is not the cause of our mistreatment; it is the result of our mistreatment. It would not exist without the real external oppression that forms the social climate in which we exist. Once oppression has been internalized, little force is needed to keep us submissive. We harbour inside ourselves the pain and the memories, the fears and the confusions, the negative self-images and the low expectations, turning them into weapons with which to re-injure ourselves, every day of our lives. (Marks, 1999, p. 25)</span></div>
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</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">..it is important to pause and think about the nature of harm that disabled people experience and the very concept of <i>harm</i></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">. For instance, is it the impairment itself that causes the harm? If so, we should focus on reducing or indeed eliminating the impairment, which is a common perspective. Such a view interprets disability as harmful in and of itself. In contrast, there is a view among some disabled people that whilst impairments at times cause inconvenience, tiredness and even pain, the primary source of harm is external to the person, situated in the realm of belief.//</span></span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">//From the moment a child is born, he/she emerges into a world where he/she receives messages that to be disabled is to be <i>less than</i>, a world where disability may be <i>tolerated </i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">but in the <i>final instance</i>, is <i>inherently negative</i>. We are all, regardless of our status, shaped and formed by the politics of ableism... One assumption underpinning my argument is that ableism is essentially harmful and, instead of providing solace to disabled people, it actually involves practices and attitudes that induce other forms of impairment and injury.</span><br />
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</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The way you see me, it’s not me, not the real me. You see the shambling, the stumbling, the lunge, and you don’t see me. Except for the feet, I’m almost you. But most of all, I’d like a chance to show you the way I see myself, the way I know I am. It’s not that bad once you get used to it. Please, just a day, no, not that – a minute, a second, a <i>second </i>– that’s all I need, a <i>second </i>– you would all love me. (Bell, 2000, p. 285)//</span><span style="font-family: StoneSerif; font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: StoneSerif; font-size: xx-small;"></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">//Delgado and Stefancic (2000) declared,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Because racism is an ingrained feature of our landscape, it looks ordinary and natural to persons in the culture. Formal equal opportunity – rules and laws that insists in treating blacks and whites (for example) alike – can thus remedy only the more extreme and shocking forms of injustice. <i>. . . </i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">It can do little about the business-asusual forms</span> <span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">of racism that people of color confront everyday and that account for much misery, alienation, and despair.</span></span></span></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Applying similar reasoning to the state of disablement, the ‘business-asusual’ forms of ableism are so absorbed into the function of Western societies that ableism as a site of social theorisation (even within critical disability studies) represents the last frontier of inquiry. Disability studies is still preoccupied with debating the distinctions between ‘impairment’ and ‘disability’. Although there is recognition that the term <i>disability </i>can be both culturally and economically constructed, the state of impairment remains under theorised. .. Cultural practices of shaping bodies can affect the aetiology of ‘typical’ human functioning. The ranking of bodies occurs through dividing and partitioning according to clear-cut descriptors of ‘race’ ‘gender’, ‘caste’ and ‘disability’ (Mitchell & Snyder, 2003). Gordon and Rosenblum (2001) suggested that similar approaches to disability, as have been applied to race, might lead to new and productive sites of engagement. They argued that there are likenesses and distinctions in the ways disabled people and other stigmatised groups are named, enumerated, dis-enumerated, partitioned and denied attributes valued in the culture.//</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">//Hahn (1986) testified that there was a close link between the attitude of paternalism, the subordination of disabled people and the ‘interests’ of ableism:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">Paternalism enables the dominant elements of a society to express profound and sincere sympathy for the members of a minority group while, at the same time, keeping them in a position of social and economic subordination. It has allowed the non-disabled to act as the protectors, guides, leaders, role models, and intermediates for disabled individuals who, like children, are often assumed to be helpless, dependent, asexual, economically unproductive, physically limited, emotional immature, and acceptable only when they are unobtrusive.//</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">//..ableism as a conceptual tool, goes beyond procedures, structure, institutions and values of civil society, situates itself clearly within the histories </span></div>
</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i>of knowledge </i>and is embedded deeply and subliminally within culture. Many people are familiar with the concepts of sexism and racism, to denote negative differentiation on the basis of sex or racial origin; but ableism is generally perceived as a strange and unfamiliar concept and it is important to refute a rigid understanding of ableism from the outset. The intention is not to propose ableism as another explanatory ‘grand narrative’, a universalised and systematised conception of disability oppression but rather highlight a convergence of networks of association that produce exclusionary categories and ontologies (i.e. ways of being human).//</span><br />
<br />Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-10995229592134072442012-08-01T18:10:00.001+05:302012-08-01T18:10:14.333+05:30Speaking out is NOT "Playing The Victim"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Read this at Greta's Christina's <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/07/31/playing-the-victim-oppression-and-a-catch-22/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">blog</span></a></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> and really had to agree:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">“Seems you’re making a catch-22: if people talk about it, they’re trying to be victims, but if people don’t talk about it, it doesn’t happen.”</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When people talk about oppression and marginalization and bigotry — racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, xenophobia, classism, ableism, etc. — we often get caught in a particularly nasty Catch-22, beautifully summarized above. If we don’t talk about oppression and marginalization and bigotry… nobody will know about it, and it can and will be ignored. In fact, many people will assume that this particular form of oppression and marginalization and bigotry is <span style="color: black;">now a thing of the past</span>, and doesn’t even exist. If a certain amount of progress has been made in a certain area — sexism, for instance — many people will act as if the problem is entirely behind us, and we don’t have to worry about it, or think about it or, Loki forbid, change our behavior.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But if we do talk about this oppression and marginalization and bigotry? We get accused of “playing the victim card.” We get accused of making up the marginalization, or exaggerating it, or going out of our way to look for it, or twisting innocent events to frame them in this narrative of victimhood, or trying to manipulate people into giving us our way by scoring sympathy points we haven’t earned. And not at all coincidentally, this once again results in the marginalization being made invisible: ignored, treated as if it either flat-out doesn’t exist or is too trivial to worry about.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And THIS:</span><br />
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<span id="more-5958"><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span id="more-5958"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And you know the thing that really galls me about this particular Catch-22? Aside from the whole “invisible” thing, I mean. <u>The thing that really galls me is that speaking out against oppression is the opposite of victimhood. Speaking out against oppression is one of the first steps to claiming power. Speaking out against oppression takes strength, courage, a willingness to take flak. Speaking out against oppression can put you in harm’s way. Speaking out against oppression isn’t “playing the victim card” — it’s saying, “I am sick to fucking death of being a victim, and I am demanding that it stop</u>.” <span style="font-size: x-small;">(originally not underlined) </span></span></span><br />
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<span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">So the question I have for people making this “victimhood” accusation: How, exactly, would you like marginalized people to proceed? Is there any possible way we can make oppression and marginalization and bigotry visible, which will meet with your approval?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And why, precisely, do you think your approval matters? Why do you get to be the ones who decide which forms of oppression and marginalization and bigotry are important… and which ones are not? Why do you think that decision should be up to you?</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Apart from the fact you don't need <em>anyone's</em> approval, the last people whose agreement you would need in order to speak out about your "own" experience (oppression) are the ones who get annoyed by it. The ones most irritated by your speaking out are the ones contributing the least to changing the situation, if not propagating it. </span> </span><span></span></div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-74213799334949017832012-07-27T12:25:00.000+05:302012-07-27T12:25:43.095+05:30It's Only Bad When It Happens to Christians<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4_8jlgKTRvI/UBI67DQ3lHI/AAAAAAAAAMw/Ttgu6WSfeV4/s1600/skepfem+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="109" sda="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4_8jlgKTRvI/UBI67DQ3lHI/AAAAAAAAAMw/Ttgu6WSfeV4/s320/skepfem+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-83304974679339803432012-07-26T14:04:00.000+05:302012-07-26T14:04:48.823+05:30A Little Dose of Cute<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cat lovers and dog lovers often don't seem to go along very well. I'm somehwere in between both, with a slight tilt towards dogs in case of grown up ones. But when it come to puppies and kittens, there's no meaning for the question of who's cuter. Both of them are adorably cuutee!! Hope you enjoy these little dose of heart-stealing moments from my favourite mammals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Kittie calls first</span><br />
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"Did someone mention me?"</div>
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"What, you folks still fighting? Silly humans."</div>
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</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-48273906441845819782012-07-25T21:39:00.000+05:302012-07-25T21:39:59.416+05:30On 'Natural', 'Necessary' And Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
One of the worst power oppression has is that the longer it prevails, the more it tends to get normalized. The more it's various forms and consequences appear like "that's just how things are". And the more 'normal' it becomes, the stronger a backlash it raises to anyone who questions or tries to change the situation. Because after all, you are working against what is considered an 'inevitable reality'.<br />
Where and how did it start from, how universal is it, what would an alternative be like, all get conveniently hidden behind the facade of convincing naturalness.<br />
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From this point, oppression thrives by not just seeming natural, but in many cases necessary too. When someone brings to attention that women are overwhelmingly responsible for household duties or that they routinely face discrimination at the workplace, the immediate response is hardly to acknowledge the injustice itself but to defend it's being by saying, "oh well men face discrimination too, like the burden of providing for the family, so what's the big deal. Isn't that how a society keeps moving?" Sure. A society will definiltely go on even if it is at the expense of locking up half of it's inhabitants behind invisible (sometimes visible) bars. Slavery in America, for example, didn't put the American society itself into stagnation, it still had it's share of economic and political development. What it prevented was the progress of people of color and their rights to basic needs like freedom and safe living. What it held back (and still does although not in ways as brutal as slavery) was the advancement of a <em>section</em> of the society, whose deprivation not only harmed them but also denied many positive improvements for the society as a whole.<br />
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The question here is not whether a society would progress with/without gender oppression. The question here is how you define progress and what <em>kind</em> of a society would want to progress <em>with</em> it. If we think of progress merely in terms of industrial boom, acquiring latest weapons of war or increased national income, it doesn't speak much about the conditions of it's citizens, especially those marginalised. If women are treated like second class citizens, usable and disposble property for men, denied of equal rights and opportunities, aborted for being female, married off without consent before reaching adulthood, portrayed primarily as sexual objects in the media for male gaze, made to hate and give up control over their own bodies and sexuality by patriarchal religions, routinely harassed, stereotyped, underestimated and considered incapable of competition or achievement, what progress are we talking about? And how much progress can a nation achieve <em>even if</em> only in terms of economic development if we don't fully utilize half of it's human resource? The <a href="http://www.indiastat.com/article/35/nomita/fulltext.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">positive correlation</span></a> between the the improved status of women in a country and it's higher level of development is one that cannot be ignored. And perhaps a question worth wondering what happens when <a href="https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/world/2012/jul/23/why-india-bad-for-women" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">India remains so bad for women.</span></a><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(I clicked this pic from my sociology textbook, sorry if it's not </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">clear. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">The chains that tie her: economic insecurity, dowry, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">traditional </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">expectations/attitudes, early marriage, wage </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">discrimination, household </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">chores, gender role stereotyping, </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">food discrimination, amniosentesis, </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">and illiteracy).</span></div>
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Speaking about oppression being just a 'natural' aspect of social reality as the society 'moves on', a society that uses this as a driving force isn't a good one to begin with. There is something wrong at it's very core that requires change. If men have to bear the burden of being the sole bread-winner or play the major role in meeting the family's financial needs, it is because women have been denied from sharing that responsibility equally. It could be because they have been denied education, the opportunity and freedom to pursue a career or to simply put it, be 'equal' partners with their husbands. This is the product of "patriarchy, the social <em>system </em>characterised by <em>male-centredness, male-dominance, male-identification and an obsession with control" </em>(Allan G. Johnson). It is not an individual person, it is not a 'they' or 'us'. It is system of society we live and participate in, one that places men above women, one in which men are the <em>default</em> and women are the 'other' (we don't say "men's" football match, we automatically assume its a men's match when we talk about one whereas for women's we do, terms like "mankind" when used to refer to 'human beings' etc). It is a system that gives utmost importance to <em>power</em> and <em>dominance</em> and <em>identifies</em> these with maleness whereas femaleness and its associated attributes are devalued ("stop crying like a girl", "man up", etc). Patriarchy survives through the use of control, through rigid heterosexual-identification and punishing deviations from it's narrow norms or anyone who even vaguely points to it's existence. This is carried out by simply denying that it exists or at the worst by treating the pointer as 'crazy' or extremist. </div>
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Patriarchy is not <em>men, </em>although it largely depends on men to keep itself going. Since it is male-identified and male-centered, anybody questioning it is in essence questioning <em>male privilege</em>. This is why most men see feminists as "man-haters", you know rather than "male-glorifying-female-devaluing-<em>system-</em>haters"? (rarely does it occur to them about how many <em>men</em> are feminists too). Because no matter how lightly we approach the issue of patriarchy, at some point it is bound to hit home, it is bound to evoke the realzation of how closely tied it is with men. And since most people's understanding of gender is as something biological rather than cultural, any attack on patriarchal attributes like aggression, control, emotional dissociation, toughness, being in power, etc is seen as an attack on every men <em>personally</em>. This misunderstanding puts a lot of women on the defensive side against feminism too, because who would want to live in constant rebellion with the very people you have to spend your entire life with/amongst? Nobody has to, but sadly, hardly anyone realizes that.</div>
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No system simply <em>is.</em> It is moulded, shaped and transformed by how we participate in it, whether consciously or not. It is reflected in every bit of our culture, be it language, television, newspapers, religion, education, family, art etc. Everyone's participation is mandatory, the only thing we can choose is <em>how</em> to do so. Privilige is not something to be ashamed of because you didn't get it by choice, it is something to be aware of. I have come to understand my 'white privilige' so when get someone telling me about my 'fairness' or come talking about "fairness creams", I now make it a point to tell them how beauty isn't about only 'one' color and that dark skin is in no way ugly. I may get "you're weird" looks/reactions, but still it sets a spark and besides, such reactions won't come from someone who values 'people' beyond their appearance. When you laugh at rape jokes, you promote the idea that rape is a laughable thing, that rape doesn't really <em>matter</em>. When you tell women to not "ask for it" by dressing 'modestly', you promote the acceptance of the idea of male-domination and female-submission. When you segregate toys for girls as dolls and doll-houses and those for boys as puzzles and cognitive skill building games, you prevent girl children from developing interests in math or science which in turn makes them internalize a belief that they cannot be as good as boys in these subjects, and thereby upholding the popular misconception. All of this and many more like these contribute in giving patriarchy a longer lifespan and keeping a better society at a more farther reach. </div>
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<br />Progress of a nation should be marked by the integration and improvement of all communities in it. Change begins at the individual level but without understanding larger systems and working towards transforming them as well, there will be little scope for social progress. </div>
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</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-13344585446259677662012-07-23T16:57:00.000+05:302012-07-23T16:57:08.354+05:30Straight, But Not Narrow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We have a choice between </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">being ignorant or being aware, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">being bigoted or being humanitarian, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">being disapproving or being tolerant, </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">being ostracizing or being inclusive. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Between continuing our long history of oppression or moulding a new one without suppression. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We have a choice between choosing the former or the latter..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My disability may make my world smaller compared to that of the non-disabled (mainly because an ableist society limits it so), but I find it a lot more beautifully diverse and richer than many people do, when it comes to humanity. I wish it were the same for everyone.. And I'll always be an ally to help make that happen.</span></div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-62078441448870473212012-07-19T15:39:00.000+05:302012-07-19T15:43:08.240+05:30SkepFem Quickpicks 7.0<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
[ Content note: rape culture, sexual violence ]<br />
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- I found it very difficult to hold on to (and easy to leave) my religious beliefs after I read about the notion of the 'soul' being an imaginary construct. Although I accepted the horrible history of Christianity and didn't want to have any more associations with what it is still doing, the idea of dualism or an afterlife still lingered in a somewhat religious way. <a href="http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">This post</span></a> on Adam Lee's 'Ebon Musings' was an excellent learning. It's one of the first atheist sites I visted, I love his work here as well as on Daylight Atheism.<br />
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- The <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/living/rape-that-girl-the-pathology-of-new-and-free-india-376697.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">pathology</span></a> of 'free' India where half of it's citizens are yet to get the freedom - Guwahati incident.<br />
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- Have a religious organization working to convert the cripple? You might not want to miss <a href="http://nirmukta.com/2012/07/02/converting-a-cripple/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">these tips</span></a>.<br />
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- Daniel Tosh made some rape jokes at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood. And got a lesson from Jezebel on <a href="http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">how to make rape jokes</span></a>.<br />
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- A little history on the <a href="http://bitchmagazine.org/post/put-a-ring-on-it-diamonds-engagement-feminist-magazine-alternative-weddings-bride-groom-history" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">engagement and wedding rings</span></a>. (warning for newly engaged/married couples: ignore if you don't want to break from that happy mood)<br />
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- How do we <a href="http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">define a family?</span></a> A look at American survey results on what groups or living arrangements are perceived as 'family'. <br />
My view I think is just this, ''any two or more people living together and identify themselves as a family''. I wouldn't count marriage, specific sexual orientation or blood-relation as a necessary eligibility requirement. </div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-34057723288175438982012-07-17T12:57:00.001+05:302012-07-17T13:51:47.827+05:30Atheist/Humanist Quotes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="color: #351c75; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><strong>A couple of quotes from famous atheists, freethinkers and humanists:</strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money." </span><span style="color: #274e13;"><span style="color: black;">-</span> </span><span style="color: #38761d;">George Carlin</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- Carl Sagan </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- Richard Dawkins</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." </span><span style="color: #38761d;"><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span>Charles Bukowski</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">"We would be 1,500 years ahead if it hadn't been for the church dragging science back by its coattails and burning our best mids at the stake." </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #38761d;">- Catherine Fahringer</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?" </span></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Douglas Adams</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracles, and mean contentment has kept humanity in helpless degradation." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- Emma Goldman</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more." </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #38761d;">- Ayaan Hirsi Ali</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?" </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- Quentin Crisp</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Humanism involves far more than the negation of supernaturalism. It requires an affirmative philosophy . . . translated into a life devoted to one's own improvement and the service of all mankind." </span></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Corliss Lamont</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men." </span></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Bertrand Russell</span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">"In spite of all the yearnings of men, no one can produce a single fact or reason to support the belief in God and in personal immortality." </span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Clarence Darrow</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"When I became convinced that the universe is natural – that all ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain . . . the joy of freedom. . . . I was free – free to think, to express my thoughts . . . free to live for myself and those I loved . . . free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope . . . free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the ‘inspired’ books that savages have produced . . . free from popes and priests . . . free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies . . . free from the fear of eternal pain . . . free from devils, ghosts and gods. . . . There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought . . . no following another’s steps . . . no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words." </span></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Robert Ingersoll</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"That so much . . . suffering can be directly attributed to religion - to religious hatreds, religious wars, religious taboos, and religious diversions of scarce resources - is what makes the honest criticism of religious faith a moral and intellectual necessity." </span></span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Sam Harris</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"An atheist believes that a hospital <br />should be built instead of a church. <br />An atheist believes that deed must <br />be done instead of prayer said. <br />An atheist strives for involvement in life <br />and not escape into death. <br />He wants disease conquered, <br />poverty vanished, war eliminated." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Madalyn Murray O'Hair<u> </u></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">"Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast." </span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Isaac Asimov</span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">[By working to improve the world:] "One thing is certain: you will find plenty of worthwhile things to do. You will not be bored, or lack fulfillment in your life. Most important of all, you will know that you have not lived and died for nothing, because you will have become part of the great tradition of those who have responded to the amount of pain and suffering in the universe by trying to make the world a better place." </span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Peter Singer</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- Susan B. Anthony</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">God is always the equivalent of "I do not know" </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #38761d;">- Annie Besant</span><strong> </strong></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed. Results like these do not belong on the résumé of a Supreme Being. This is the kind of shit you'd expect from an office temp with a bad attitude. And just between you and me, in any decently-run universe, this guy would've been out on his all-powerful ass a long time ago. And by the way, I say "this guy", because I firmly believe, looking at these results, that if there is a God, it has to be a man. <br />No woman could or would ever fuck things up like this. So, if there is a God, I think most reasonable people might agree that he's at least incompetent, and maybe, just maybe, doesn't give a shit. Doesn't give a shit, which I admire in a person, and which would explain a lot of these bad results." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- George Carlin</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Theology is ignorance with wings." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Sam Harris</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions god's infinite love." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Bill Hicks</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- Ruth Hurmence Green</span> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">"The careful student of history will discover that Christianity has been of very little value in advancing civilization, but has done a great deal toward retarding it." </span><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">- Matilda Joslyn</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"We owe a huge debt to Galileo for emancipating us all from the stupid belief in an Earth-centered or man-centered (let alone God-centered) system. He quite literally taught us our place and allowed us to go on to make extraordinary advances in knowledge." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Christopher Hitchens</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Richard P. Feynman</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"I feel that we should stop wasting our time trying to please the supernatural and concentrate on improving the welfare of human beings. I think that, uh, we should use our energy and our initiative to solve our problems, and stop relying on prayer and wishful thinking. If we have faith in ourselves, we won't have to have faith in gods." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Ruth Hurmence Green</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Interviewer: "Didn't [Sagan] want to believe?" <br />Druyan: "He didn't want to believe. He wanted to know." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Ann Druyan</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"What I have a problem with is not so much religion or god, but faith. When you say you believe something in your heart and therefore you can act on it, you have completely justified the 9/11 bombers. You have justified Charlie Manson. If it's true for you, why isn't it true for them? Why are you different? If you say "I believe there's an all-powerful force of love in the universe that connects us all, and I have no evidence of that but I believe it in my heart," then it's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that Sharon Tate deserves to die. It's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that you need to fly planes into buildings for Allah." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Penn Jillette</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"If faith is what you have to go on, if faith is the link between your beliefs and the world at large, your beliefs are very likely to be wrong. Beliefs can be right or wrong. If you believe you can fly, that belief is only true if indeed you can fly. Somebody who thinks he can fly, and is wrong about it, will eventually discover there's a problem with his view of the world." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Sam Harris</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: #741b47;">"Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones." </span><span style="color: #38761d;">- </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Ruth Hurmence Green </span></span></div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-60662816473415411462012-07-16T14:24:00.000+05:302012-07-16T14:29:22.210+05:30'If they can, you can.'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Often articles and news reports present disabled people doing something (mostly something everyone does) as a source for 'inspiration' and 'definitely you can do it' sentiments. That's inspiration porn. Disabled people are not your ego boosters. Some disabled people can do things other disabled people can't, some disabled people can do things abled people can't, some abled people can do things other abled people can't, some abled people can do things disabled people can't. That's it. Abilities vary, choices vary, support systems vary. To tell someone they can do it because a PWD did it, implies 4 things:<br />
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1. Seeing disabled people as inferior. 'Look, if that <em>disabled</em> person can do it, of course you can do it too.'<br />
2. Trivialising the person's problem by saying it's something they can overcome, they just have to try harder.<br />
3. Ignoring the wide range of abilities within the spectrum of human variation. Not everyone can do everything equally.<br />
4. Excluding external factors. Nobody lives in a vacuum. What we do/get is largely influenced by the kind of people we live with and the attitudes held by the society. In an ableist society (one that keeps a closed eye towards the needs of the disabled, like accessibility, inclusion, etc), there is only so much a PWD can achieve with his/her efforts without a conducive environment. <br />
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</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-48864334703104337252012-07-02T18:53:00.002+05:302012-07-02T18:53:55.556+05:30Feminism - Why We Still Need It..<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Identifying yourself as a feminist today can lead to many people immediately assuming you are a man-hating, bra-burning, whiny liberal or 'god forbid', a lesbian. Maybe a certain radio talk show host will give you the honor of being labelled as a "Feminazi" or "slut." Even among more moderate crowds, feminism is still seen as too radical, too uncomfortable, or simply unnecessary. Feminism is both misunderstood and denigrated regularly in pop media which makes people, especially women themselves, want to stay clear from any associations with the label, not having an understanding of what it actually is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">A group of students from Duke University had started an online campaign asking men and women why they need feminism as an effort to fight back against these popular misconceptions surrounding the feminist movement. There is an overwhelmingly widespread belief among students that today’s society no longer needs feminism. Therefore, it is important to challenge existing stereotypes surrounding feminists and assert the importance of feminism today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times;">These are some of the photos from around the web that I liked. There are tonns more you can check out on Tumblr, 'Who Needs Feminism' page on Facebook, etc.</span></div>
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</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748589902358290188.post-44987353877772226202012-06-28T14:46:00.000+05:302012-06-28T14:52:32.174+05:30Identity - It Doesn't Get Diminished By Disability<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Don't forget to put on some earrings, okay? What will people think otherwise", my mom reminded me as we were getting ready to go out.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Who will think of what?" I asked her. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Other people about us."</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"But why? And why should they think about <i>you<b> </b></i>when <i>I'm</i> the one not wearing earrings..?" It didn't make any sense.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"Because I'm going with you."</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And still it didn't.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">*****************************</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Make-up and heavy jewellery has never really been a part of my outfit, for reasons that kept changing with time. I used to have a whole make-up set during my school days but it was hardly ever used after trying out for the first time. Occasionally if I felt like, I would put some eyeliner or use a Labello but not more than that. Not because I hated it. In fact, thought not heavy painting, I did like to sometimes do my eyes more than the eyeliner. But never did. I didn't mind using a lipstick. Didn't do that either. My thoughts at that time were, '<i>Who cares about make-up when I have bigger things to worry about.' </i>The 'bigger things’ here was my disability. How did my body look like? What should I do to make myself 'appear' more 'normal'? And so on. Yeah, that's how low my self-esteem was. It wasn't just down, it literally had to be dug out.. As time went on, the refusal took a different turn. Now, while I had started becoming more independent, accepting more of myself the way I am and learning to embrace my disability, I was still hesitant in putting make-up or wearing really good fancy jewellery more often. The feelings at this time changed to <i>'I shouldn't do it. I'm a disabled person and so I should appear/behave according to my limitations.' </i>Social attitudes are a tougher hurdle to deal with and sometimes it can pull you down a hundred steps in an instant regardless of the fact that you’d taken years to reach up till there. Besides, I've always been lucky to have people who encouraged these thoughts, whether they did it on purpose or not. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">And since more recently, I'm ok with what I wear or not wear. I still use very little make-up (mostly none). But it's not the same like before, because now it's a choice made out of preference than pressure from insecurities. I try not to hide away under chemical masks. Of course I have no objection to those who use it, I respect individual choices and it’s not something I would be against to. For me though, it’s more about comfort, convenience and not conforming to imposed (and often oppressive) socially constructed standards of beauty and keeping my individuality in the presence of forces constantly trying to wipe it out. Plus it also helps to understand and beat away many hidden fears. But of course, at times when I <em>really</em> want to wear, I don’t stop myself either. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It wasn’t exactly the demand to look appealing part of the conversation that struck me as odd but the latter half of it. Maybe because by now I had gotten used to the realisation of how much women are expected to be visually pleasing and ‘good looking’ instead of just being themselves. What got me was how deeply instilled this perception is that it’s not just your own body you had to alter but even try to regulate other people’s looks if you wanted to be seen as associated with them. And how perfectly ‘fine’ it was to ask them to do that</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">. <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Maybe you might think this was only a mother telling her own daughter, so not exactly an ‘other’ person, right? But no, when you’re 20, you are an ‘other’. There was a time when my identity was largely dependent on my parents and what I wore or did would reflect their dressing styles and outlooks. That time, I was 5. It’s not the same when you’re an adult.</span> </span><span style="font-family: "Times", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Now if someone were to look at me and make a judgement on my mother instead of me, surely something is wrong with how they view people, in which case I’m not the one having a problem. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The thing that actually hurt me was - would she be this easily assertive had I been a person without disability? I don’t think so. How you get the confidence to make demands on other people’s personal matters is when you see them as lower than you and not worthy of respect in their own right. What makes disabled people as deserving of lesser personal choices and rights to make decisions on their appearances and physical expressions? If she was truly going out with her ‘daughter', she wouldn’t have cared what I looked like. The only other way is when you see the disabled person as an extension of someone else and who’s identity is inseparable from the person they may be in any way relying on. </span></span></div>
</div>Anita Josehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14610151700971361901noreply@blogger.com0