11:57am February 11, 2014

silversarcasm-how-can-you-not-see-ableism-as-a

thalensis:

lisaquestions:

ajax-daughter-of-telamon:

silversarcasm:

how can you not see ableism as a feminist issue

autistic girls, especially black autistic girls, are misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed because of the focus on white cis boys and how they present as autistic

disabled girls and women often have their consent violated, both in medical procedures and otherwise, our bodies and minds are often not considered are own and we are dismissed as not having the capacity to make our own decisions

on top of that many disabled girls are seen as delusional and their speaking out about the abuse they have face, by whatever communication method, is seen as making things up and over reacting

many disabled women are fetishised and seen as an outrageous ‘thing’ to fuck, but are not seen as human

disabled girls, especially physically disabled girls, do not live up to ideas of beauty in our society and often have extreme self esteem issues

disabled women and girls face more shit than you could ever know and I need you to understand

Ableism. Is. A. Feminist. Issue.

Yes to all of this. And to add to the part about our accounts of (sexual) abuse not being believed, there’s also the “Who would rape YOU?” factor.

Sexual abuse of developmentally disabled women is sky high. I mean it’s huge.

It seems like ableism is often an afterthought at best, and often not acknowledged at all.

i’ve also seen the other side of the spectrum where intellectually/developmentally disabled are seen as quite animalistic and too infantile in thought to actually consent to sex when they do. as well as the rape of developmentally/intellectually disabled girls being seen as, ”aww poor thing had no idea what was going on probably” [i am quoting this VERBATIM from SEVERAL people].

very few people care about ableism - and that number becomes even smaller when you aren’t taking into account disabled people.

Yep, seen a lot of that as well. Plus the sheer number of times I have seen people - disabled and abled basically ceding any and all ground when it comes to looking at ableism because “Well, dealing with disability is hard“ and basically everyone is perfectly happy with denying personhood, agency, etc.

lisaquestions:

thalensis:

lisaquestions:

ajax-daughter-of-telamon:

silversarcasm:

how can you not see ableism as a feminist issue

autistic girls, especially black autistic girls, are misdiagnosed and underdiagnosed because of the focus on white cis boys and how they present as autistic

disabled girls and women often have their consent violated, both in medical procedures and otherwise, our bodies and minds are often not considered are own and we are dismissed as not having the capacity to make our own decisions

on top of that many disabled girls are seen as delusional and their speaking out about the abuse they have face, by whatever communication method, is seen as making things up and over reacting

many disabled women are fetishised and seen as an outrageous ‘thing’ to fuck, but are not seen as human

disabled girls, especially physically disabled girls, do not live up to ideas of beauty in our society and often have extreme self esteem issues

disabled women and girls face more shit than you could ever know and I need you to understand

Ableism. Is. A. Feminist. Issue.

Yes to all of this. And to add to the part about our accounts of (sexual) abuse not being believed, there’s also the “Who would rape YOU?” factor.

Sexual abuse of developmentally disabled women is sky high. I mean it’s huge.

It seems like ableism is often an afterthought at best, and often not acknowledged at all.

i’ve also seen the other side of the spectrum where intellectually/developmentally disabled are seen as quite animalistic and too infantile in thought to actually consent to sex when they do. as well as the rape of developmentally/intellectually disabled girls being seen as, ”aww poor thing had no idea what was going on probably” [i am quoting this VERBATIM from SEVERAL people].

very few people care about ableism - and that number becomes even smaller when you aren’t taking into account disabled people.

Yep, seen a lot of that as well. Plus the sheer number of times I have seen people - disabled and abled basically ceding any and all ground when it comes to looking at ableism because “Well, dealing with disability is hard” and basically everyone is perfectly happy with denying personhood, agency, etc.

Not to mention feminists who won’t take on eugenic abortion, forced sterilization, etc. because they think that it will encroach upon abortion rights. Even though I rarely hear disabled people against eugenic abortion actually saying that we want to encroach upon abortion rights at all.

And worse, feminists who won’t take on the rights of cognitively disabled women, especially severely cognitively disabled women and women presumed to be severely cognitively disabled, because they believe that that is equivalent to giving fetuses legal personhood. I wish I were joking. Many feminists consider cognitively disabled women (intellectually disabled, autistic, brain injury, dementia, etc., and even just people with severe physical disabilities who are simply presumed to be cognitively disabled because of inability to communicate well) equivalent to fetuses, because their sole argument for abortion rights is level of fetal cognition (which is not good strategy, their biggest argument should be the right of people to control our own bodies and make decisions about pregnancy, it shouldn’t hinge on the fetus at all). And therefore refuse to support our rights because they believe that giving us rights would give fetuses rights.

Not to mention that they believe caregiving is a feminist issue because caregivers are mostly women, but they overlook the fact that half of all disabled people who need caregivers are also women. So they always take the caregiver’s side in disputes between the perspective of caregivers and the perspective of disabled women, and always take the mother’s side in disputes between mothers of disabled women, and disabled women.

This is why I used to read FWD even though I had a huge amount of problems with it: Because they were some of the very few feminists even trying to tackle the issues.