4:37pm June 17, 2014

“In a society which idealizes the body, the physically disabled are marginalized. People learn to identify with their own strengths (by cultural standards) and to hate, fear and neglect their own weaknesses. The disabled are not only de-valued for their de-valued bodies, they are constant reminders to the able-bodied of the negative body—of what the able-bodied are trying to avoid, forget and ignore. For example, if someone tells me she is in pain, she reminds me of the existence of pain, the imperfection and fragility of the body, the possibility of my own pain, the inevitability of it. The less willing I am to accept all these, the less I want to know about her pain; if I cannot avoid it in her presence, I will avoid her. I may even blame her for it. I may tell myself that she could have avoided it, in order to go on believing that I can avoid it. I want to believe I am not like her; I cling to differences. Gradually, I make her ”other” because I don’t want to confront my real body, which I fear and cannot accept.”

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