When we are very wrong

If someone calls someone out on their privilege, it is time to listen. The very nature of privilege is that we are mostly unaware of the privilege we hold, in the areas we hold it in. So if a black person tells you, a white person, that you have been racist, it is almost certainly them, not you, who is right.

If you are told that language you just used, or attitudes you just showed, are oppressive, then take note. While your initial reaction may be to explain yourself, justify what you did, or dismiss the criticism, this is silencing and derailing. It is because we have privilege that we have been able to get through life without realising how hurtful or divisive it can be to say or do certain things, so just because someone's challenge may not make immediate sense to us, does not mean it is untrue.

We must always respect the lived experience of those we have privilege over, and take note when they take the time to tell us about it. So if a black woman challenges something racist said by a white woman, or a disabled woman challenges a disablist attitude, or a working class woman challenges middle class privilege, it is time to listen. Don't argue! If a bisexual woman tells a straight woman that she has shown her privilege, then the straight woman must listen. Take it in. Respect the experience of the other woman.

This applies if:

• a trans woman calls out cis privilege
  
• a disabled woman calls out disablist privilege
  
• a woman calls out male privilege
  
• a black woman calls out race privilege
  
• a working class woman calls out class privilege
  
• a genderqueer person calls out cis privilege
  
• a fat woman calls out thin privilege
  
• a lesbian, bisexual or pansexual woman calls out straight privilege
  
• an older woman calls out ageism
  
• a woman of colour calls out white privilege
  
• a woman calls out slut shaming
  
• many, many other variations

Things NOT to do if someone calls you out on your privilege:

• Don't kick out. Be glad someone told you, and learn from the experience.
  
• Don't try to justify what you did. We all know 'splaining when we see it, and this is what you would be doing.
  
• Don't ever say, "But my gay / trans / disabled friend isn't offended when...". It's the same thing as "But some of my closest friends are black!". Members of oppressed groups are not homogeneous entities who think, feel and react in the same ways. And maybe your friend hates you doing it too.
  
• Don't repeatedly apologise. Say sorry once, and learn.
  
• Don't hate yourself. The way privilege works is that those of us who hold it don't always see that. Take responsibility for what you do next, don't endlessly beat yourself up for mistakes already made.
  
• Don't demand to be educated by the person who challenged you. It is your responsibility, not theirs.

Being white, non-disabled, cis etc. does not mean that you have a perfect life. Most people have privilege in some areas of their life while experience oppression in others. Use the issues you know about (being a lesbian, for instance) to inform the more privileged parts of your life (being white, for instance). Relate the one oppression to other oppressions outside of yourself.

It's pretty unpleasant to be told you have just been anti-Semitic, or heterosexist, but it's even more unpleasant to be on the receiving end of prejudice. Be glad someone told you, and use the experience to make sure you never do it again.

[The image is s black and white photograph made up of lots of small square photographs of the faces of a diverse range of people. It is adapted from an image by Colemama, and is used under a Creative Commons License]

Madness Gone Politically Correct

So, I have made my podcast debut. And as if that's not exciting enough, I am sharing the stage airwaves pod with Sir David Attenborough, one of my lifelong heroes. Very exciting! I talked about the language of disability and disablism, and you can hear me on the Pod Delusion here.

Then, to add to the excitement, Clare Horton at the Guardian liked it and quoted me. My head may eventually shrink back to its self-deprecatingly normal size, but I wouldn't bet on it.

So, head over there and have a listen. You'll notice the Schizobird story I blogged about last week

An example of good, anti-disablist practice.

In contrast to the recent Disablist Language Alerts, I was alerted to a much more positive action, taken by Joey Sneddon at OMG Ubuntu!. He reviewed a twitter client, called Schizobird, and after hearing from readers about how the use of the term 'schizo' could be really offensive to a lot of people, they are now consulting their readers to find a new, more acceptable name for the client.

This is the kind of reaction I like! When somebody is challenged, instead of saying, "Don't overreact, I didn't mean it like that!", or similar, they have said, ok, we didn't mean to offend anybody, and we don't want to offend anybody, so let's think about it again.

So, a big cheer for OMG Ubuntu!, and a big hat tip to @thermalsatsuma for the link.

Disablist Language Alert #2

Disablism on twitter...

• from @lipsticklori: SU2TS: This is lame. Not as lame as STLD2, but still lame. Just as well though... don't think I have the brain power for thinking. #DanceMM
  
• from @STFUParents: Getting submissions together for this week's @mommyishdotcom column, all about crazy baby names! What are the craziest names you've heard?

In blogs...

• RH Reality Check gains a mention for use of hysteria / hysterical three times in one post.
  
• Via Feminist Law Professors, we see men saying "Dude, you’re crazy", about male contraception. Originally in the New York Times
  
• Pharyngula quotes Glenn Beck describing the Norwegian killer as crazy
  
• More from Pharyngula, but sadly this time his own words. He describes Breivik as deranged, delusional, insane, lunatic, violently insane, and stupid.

Some reading:
• Ableist Word Profile: Crazy
  
• Ableist Word Profile: Hysterical
  
• Ableist Word Profile: Lame
  
• Before you dismiss Breivik as crazy

[The image is of a black woman, Sojourner Truth, and the words, "Say no to hate". It is used under a Creative Commons License and is by Ed Fladung]

Disablist Language Alert #1

What with the 'crazed madman' in Norway, and Caitlin Moran talking about retards, disability hate speech is everywhere at the moment.

As a result of being completely and utterly sick of it, I am going to do some blogging. Each time I see any, for *a period of time I have not yet determined, might be tonight, or for a week, or forever*, I am going to log every instance of it that I see. Every single one. I am not going to go hunting it out, but if your tweet about something being lame, or someone being a halfwit, passes my eyes, I am going to post it here.

I am currently listening to the Pod Delusion podcast, and ironically, it has given me my first example.

Adam Jacobs, talking about how science is reported on the BBC, talks of people who disagree with commonly accepted scientific opinions as morons, idiots, window-lickers and loony, and of content being "dumbed down".

Some reading:
• Ableist Word Profile: Moron
  
• Ableist Word Profile: Idiot
  
• BBC Ouch: Worst Words Vote

[The image is of a black woman, Sojourner Truth, and the words, "Say no to hate". It is used under a Creative Commons License and is by Ed Fladung]

Is this the way to keep women safe?

The Independent has reported today that "women could be given the right to know whether their partners have a history of violence under plans to be considered by the Government". I have mixed feelings about this, even though on first glance it seems like a good idea. I heard a Woman's Hour programme earlier in the week where the proposal was discussed by Michael Brown, whose daughter, Clare Wood, was murdered in 2009 by a violent partner; Jane Keeper from Refuge; and Brian Moore, the Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police.

Michael Brown supports the proposed law, which is being called Clare's Law after his daughter. He believes that had his daughter known about her partner, George Appleton's previous convictions for violence against women, she would never have got involved with him.

Greater Manchester Police have been criticised for not offering Clare the help she needed, but Mr Brown is insistent that any new policy had to be national, and not just relating to Manchester, and he talked passionately about the prevalence of domestic violence murders. He said,

"The statistics are frightening. There's 2 ladies every week killed by domestic violence. Their partners turn on them. And I think if they were all clumped together and that was two coach loads of ladies going over a cliff face, the drivers and the bus would be taken off the road. And because these ladies are dotted all around the UK, the statistics don't show that there's somewhere in the region of 100 - 120 girls or women killed by their partners every year. And strangely enough there's one man every 3 weeks. So the statistics speak for themselves. Had it all happened at the one time there would have been an enquiry, and because these ladies are dotted round the UK, it falls by the wayside and I think it's shocking".

The coroner at Ms Wood's inquest is reported to have said that women should be able to be informed of any convictions for violence in the past of their partners, and the statistics from Brian Moore, the Chief Constable, appear to back this up.

He explained that research he carried out showed that there were more than 25,000 serial perpetrators of domestic abuse who offended against different victims over 5 year period. This does show that there is a real problem of abusers hurting woman after woman after woman, and if a law like the one proposed could help to prevent that, then surely we should try it, as one measure amongst many, to truly tackle the problem of domestic abuse.

But Jane Keeper from Refuge summed up concerns that I, too, share. She explained that the majority of victims of domestic violence still never go to the police. Therefore there are a lot of unconvicted perpetrators, who women could potentially check, and be informed that they are fine. Ms Keeper also discussed the practicalities of the proposal - do women call the police each time they meet someone new? At what stage in a relationship do you check? And she mentioned resources too, that police are frequently not even able to tell high risk victims that their abuser has been released on bail, so they would be hard pushed to respond to lots of queries from people in new relationships.

The aspect that worries me the most is the idea that a woman could be reassured by the lack of previous convictions of her partner. Lulling her into a false sense of security could be downright dangerous. It's not that this law would simply not be 'enough', it's that it could cause more problems when someone feels they have been assured safety.

A lot does need to be done about domestic violence and abuse, and no one solution can present all the answers. But I fear that this solution will cause new problems as well as some solutions. But then, in the cases mentioned by Chief Constable Moore, perhaps a law like this could have helped the women in relationships with these 25,000 serial offenders. I do not know which would be greater: the scale of damage caused by a lack of this law; or the scale of damage caused by a law like this being introduced.

[The image is adapted from a photograph by Elvert Barnes, issued under a Creative Commons License. This blog post is cross-posted at The F-Word]

Yet another victim-blaming travesty

Six footballers who were imprisoned for raping 12 year old girls have been released, after judges ruled that their 2-year sentences were "excessive". The six men all admitted various charges of rape, after raping two 12 year old girls in a park late at night. But today Lord Justice Moses, Mr Justice Holroyde and Judge Francis Gilbert QC ruled that being imprisoned was inappropriate as it was a 'difficult' case.

In an astonishing display of victim blaming, the Mail (I know, I know, but there are only two papers reporting on it so far) stated that, "The court heard [one of the girls] was more sexually experienced than the men and it had been her idea to arrange the meeting". It is not ever appropriate to describe a 12 year old as 'sexually experienced'. If she has had previous sexual 'experience', then it should be correctly named as abuse.

The fact that the girls apparently looked older than 12, and had been 'looking for sex' is quoted. But the truth is that children sometimes behave in a precocious fashion. It is up to the adults around them to not exploit this by having sex with them. 12 year old girls often do want to look, and act, older than they are, but this is nearly always clearly visible to those around them. Adults hold the responsibility of not taking advantage of children. Under the law, children are considered to be unable to consent to sex, and this is usually taken most seriously when the child is under the age of 13.

The men have now been released, and their sentences cut to one year, and suspended.

It is clear, yet again, whose side the legal system is on. If it can't protect two pre-teen girls against six grown men, then who can women and girls have faith in?

Edited to add: I have just been reminded that, while reporting on this case at trial, the Daily Mail was widely criticised for referring to the 12 year old rape victims as 'Lolitas'. It reinforces just how much these girls have been up against in the coverage and treatment of their trial.

[The image is a photograph of a smiling woman holding a banner. The banner has a rainbow background, and the words 'No more silence about violence'. The photograph is used under a Creative Commons Licence and was taken by Rebecca Dominguez.]

It's going up by HOW much?

When the horror stories start coming, and they don't stop, you know it's time to worry. The latest I have heard about is of a woman in Dumfries who previously paid £21 towards her care at home, per week. She has now found out that her charges are being increased to £1,464 a week. That is not a typo. She now has to pay more per week than she previously paid per year.

This increase of 6,870% was reported in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard and Women's Views on News, and Linda Murray, the woman involved, has been told that she is already £17,000 in arrears.

Ms Murray told the Standard, “I just don’t understand how they expect me to pay this. It’s enormous. It’s over a thousand pounds every single week. That money was to last me the rest of my life. It won’t even last me the rest of the summer.”

Council Leader Ivor Hyslop said,

"We took the decision to change the charging policy to ensure that we continued to provide the services we have been delivering.

"The way we have approached this also ensures that those who cannot afford to pay are still protected.

"We have people checking that a mistake has not been made [in this case].

"When the decision was taken, it was reported to us that rises would be up to four or five times. It is my understanding that one in five people receiving services will see their bills rise."

But an increase of four or five times the amount previously paid is bad enough. Linda Murray's has been increased by around 70 times!

To clarify, she used to pay £1,134 per YEAR, she is now being asked to pay £1,464 per WEEK.

My own council is looking into more charges for social care, which will affect me. The above story does not inspire me with the confidence that the council materials I've received on the subject are trying to suggest I should have.

(Cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?)

The worst kind of postcode lottery

The DWP published a press release yesterday, reinforcing the status of benefit claimants as primarily suspected criminals. Titled Cheats warned of benefit fraud blitz, it describes how claimants who live in "high risk postcodes" will be scrutinised, "regardless of age, gender, ethnic make-up, type of benefit recipient, income, disability breakdown or family status".

The lucky claimants in Birmingham's B44 postcode, the Perry Barr and Kingstanding area, will be the first to receive the Mobile Regional Taskforce. Yet again, benefit claimants are automatically under suspicion, simply because they are unlucky enough to have to rely on government money, and now because they live in certain postcode areas.

It does not explain what makes a particular postcode 'high risk', but I would imagine they are made up of areas which are more deprived, with higher numbers of people already living in poverty. So, the more likely you are to need government support, the more under suspicion you are?

Benefit claimants are not criminals! While finding people who are committing fraud on a huge scale is clearly important, this move just reinforces the propaganda coming freely from the government and certain parts of the media that we are all ripping off 'the taxpayer' and need hunting down and prosecuting. It increases people's anger at us, and our fear at our situation, over which we have no control.

(Cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?)

When the dignity of one person is denied, all of us are denied

Disabled people in the UK have been under constant attack lately. Whether it's the vast and wide-ranging benefit cuts; Birmingham city council refusing care to people with substantial needs, which has since been ruled unlawful; cuts in Access to Work, ironically when we are being told we should all be getting jobs; or the impending closure of the Independent Living Fund, the hits feel like they are coming from every direction.

But I read about a case a few days ago, Court tells disabled woman: just wet yourself, and it showed me just how government cuts are affecting real people. It is not an 'austerity measure', nor is it 'small government', it is an affront to a woman's dignity and human rights, and we should all be utterly outraged.

Elaine McDonald has just lost a Supreme Court fight for her local council to allow her to continue to have overnight care. Funding was withdrawn by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the overnight care that Ms McDonald needs to assist her with going to the toilet during the night, and the council instead gave her some incontinence pads, stating that this was cheaper.

Elaine McDonald is not incontinent! And she, quite rightly, objects to being asked to lie in bed for 12 hours at a time (since her care has been cut), in her own waste. She needs to go to the toilet regularly due to a bladder dysfunction, and complained that providing pads instead of care caused a lack of dignity and independence.

Can you imagine if you were at work and your boss stated that bathroom breaks were wasting time and money, and that it would be cheaper for the company to provide everyone with incontinence pads instead? If you weren't on an authorised break then you could just use the pad instead, and sit in it until you were permitted to go? And Elaine McDonald is in her own home - of course, moving to a care home instead would cost the council considerably more.

Even in purely economic terms this is a questionable decision. The lack of mobility which she will now experience, and the potential infections from spending night after night in your own faeces and urine, could cause significantly worsened health and social problems, which would increase the cost of her care significantly. And some people in Ms McDonald's situation may try to go to the bathroom or commode regardless, risking increased falls and, thus, increased health and social care costs again.

But the Supreme Court judges ruled 4-1 that the council had acted lawfully. Judge Lady Hale, the sole judge to rule in Ms McDonald's favour, stated that,

"A person in her situation needs this help during the day as well as during the night and irrespective of whether she needs to urinate or to defecate.

"Logically, the decision of the majority in this case would entitle a local authority to withdraw this help even though the client needed to defecate during the night and thus might be left lying in her faeces until the carers came in the morning.

"Indeed, the majority view would also entitle an authority to withdraw this help during the day."

Of course, incontinent pads in themselves are not bad things. For people who are incontinent, they are invaluable. But Elaine McDonald does not need them and does not want to use them. Nobody should be put in this position, and she was right to challenge it legally. The depressing truth is that the council and courts rated costs over human dignity, and Ms McDonald could be the first victim of many.

And it seems that she is not the only person being challenged on their use of a toilet to save money. According to The Scotsman, "disabled residents at a supported-housing complex have been told to train themselves to go to the toilet at fixed times to fit in with a strict new rota". Is this where the infamous Big Society comes in? You can run libraries, or you can assist disabled people to go to the toilet. Because after all, those who should be providing those services will not bother.

[The image is a photograph of a hand, holding a piece of paper on which is printed, "The budget is killing me!". The photograph is adapted from an original, licensed under a Creative Commons licence, by Steve Rhodes.]

MP: Disabled people should work for less than minimum wage.

Earlier today, a BBC news producer tweeted a story that provoked an instant twitter storm.



It read, "Tory MP Philip Davies says disabled people should offer to work below minimum wage so they get a job when competing with able-bodied people.". Paul Twinn followed up with information that this had been said in the House of Commons, that his statement applied to people with mental illnesses as well, and that he will provide a link to the statement on Hansard when it is available later.

Suggesting that disabled people should offer to work for less than the minimum wage is an outrageous proposition on many levels.

1) Firstly, disability is expensive. The cost of living is much higher for disabled people, and disabled people are more likely to live in poverty. Non-disabled people struggle to survive on the minimum wage, so disabled people living on less than that is a prescription for extreme poverty.

2) It creates a two-tier system in which disabled people are viewed as second-class citizens who are not worth paying the legal minimum wage to. We couldn't possibly have a lot to offer to an employer, we are automatically only worth employing if we can undercut the non-disabled competition.

3) Access to Work and various benefits which support disabled people to work, are all being cut by this government. This makes working for less money even less realistic.

4) Suggesting that people seeking employment undercut the minimum wage essentially makes the minimum wage meaningless. We fought hard for a national minimum wage. Before it was introduced I had a friend working in a sports shop for £1.50 an hour, and this was completely legal. His wages were pretty much tripled when the law was introduced. If employers can pay less than the minimum wage on the suggestion of the employee, then it makes a mockery of the whole thing.

5) Disabled people need MORE support to work, not less. To quote @HelenWayte"I just don't understand how someone can look at vulnerable/marginalized people and think 'lets make things harder for them'".

And this is the same Philip Davies who 'never understood' why blacking-up was offensive.

This isn't the best blog post I have ever written, but I am so full of rage that this is how little one of our parliamentarians values disabled people. I am too ill to be doing this right now, which of course is the point. It makes me a very easy target.

When Smug Entitlement Makes me SICK.

I've loved nearly all the TED Talks I've ever watched. Not just liked, but really loved. But I've just watched one which was so misguided, so downright offensive, that I am fuming with rage.

Julia Query is a writer and psychotherapist with a disabled son. She talks about "Being In A Club Nobody Wants To Join" and having watched it, frankly, I don't want her to join it. Anecdote after anecdote about how horrifically prejudiced against disabled people she *used to be*, damaging oversharing to serve the purpose of taking her to an end point where she can be smug and self-congratulatory about how she is now less hateful. Woo.

This wouldn't be a story, never mind a chapter of her future book, if she had not held such appalling views in the first place. She talks about them unapologetically, as if they are somehow natural or understandable, and didn't she do well to overcome them?

Well no.

She is too proud of herself when relating each level of her disgust at disability. Too proud of each harmful attitude she has encompassed. Yes, she might be less disgusted now, but that just means she's where she should have been in the first place. It doesn't mean she should write books and give big talks about how well she's doing because she doesn't hate disabled people any more.

I mentioned that this story is part of her future book. Well, the title she has chosen for this chapter: "If you haven't partied with retards, you haven't partied". I think that says it all.

Julia, you still have a long, long way to go before you can join any club that I'm in. If nothing else, at least have a good read of Spread the Word to End the R-Word. And that's only the very, very, very beginning.

You can watch the talk below, but to be frank, I wouldn't bother.

Hardest Hit Demo: Pros and Cons.

Tomorrow will see the Hardest Hit campaign against the cuts action in London. It is an opportunity to protest the cuts which will affect disabled people so devastatingly, and join together with other disabled activists.

If you can't make it to the march, for whatever reason, you can protest online and there is also a really good guide for writing to your MP.

Full details of the route, and frequently asked questions have been made available, and they have also created a flickr group, a twitter list and a facebook page, tuning in well to the influence of social media in recent protests and campaigns. Hardest Hit is also including lobbying MPs about the Welfare Reform Bill into the protest, which can also make a palpable difference to the situation of disabled people in Britain.

Hardest Hit has the potential to be a huge and important event for increasing visibility of the issues facing disabled people during these so-called 'times of austerity', and the involvement of several big charities may increase the likelihood of media interest. At a time when disabled people are being constantly vilified in the right-wing press, raising awareness of the issues we face could begin to change perceptions and increase support for disabled people in Britain.

The whole of the Where's the Benefit? is dedicated to talking about why the welfare cuts are not only demeaning but downright dangerous, and it would be wrong of us not to mention Hardest Hit. However, not everyone on the team, myself included, feel we can fully get behind the demonstration.

Some of the big charities and organisations involved in organising the Hardest Hit campaign are ones which, historically at least, have been a part of the oppression of disabled people. Disabled People Against Cuts have publicly withdrawn their support of the demo, saying,

Do we ignore the fact that organisations might be viewing disabled people as ‘helpless cripples’ so long as they are prepared to come out and oppose the cuts? We believe it is precisely because we are facing severe attacks upon our rights and lives at this moment in time that there is even more reason than ever to ensure that the messages we’re sending out and the actions we take are clear and work in the long term best interest of all disabled people. I make no apology for saying that DPAC refuses to “turn a blind eye” and betray certain groups of disabled people for some mythical “greater good”. Some may accuse us of cutting off our noses to spite our face or needlessly creating barriers where none exist, however, it is our view that it would be hypocritical of DPAC to speak of defending people’s rights, including the right to independent living and self-determination, if we gave a nod and a wink to anyone who is engaged in activity undermining these rights.

Other concerns involve the motives of the charities. Miss Dennis Queen writes,

When campaign success is going to happen you can count on these charities use their plentiful resources to to sweep in and be there to help government 'resolve' the anger, fear and penalties disabled people face. They get to sit at the table with Government and make sure THEIR business interests get served first, not the interests of disabled people. They take control of matters for government, claiming to be the people who represent disabled people and 'look after us' so nobody else need get bogged down in the detail.

A post I wrote last December talked about Disability Works UK, who were bidding for contracts to carry out the Government's compulsory back-to-work schemes. Disability Works UK is made up of 9 disability charities and organisations. 4 of these (Mind, Mencap, Scope and Leonard Cheshire Disability) are listed as supporters of Hardest Hit. I find it hard to understand how they can support a campaign against the cuts, while seeking to profit from the legislation that will result. Would we support a march organised by ATOS or A4e?

But the aspect which caused perhaps the most concern was the announcement that Maria Miller had been asked to speak. Maria Miller is the Minister for Disabled People, and she is fully behind the disability benefit cuts. She has, unsurprisingly, turned down the invitation to speak at Hardest Hit, but the fact that she was invited in the first place poses yet more questions about the motivations of the march's organisers.

There is always a fear that it is wrong for us to show disunity in public. Will people use that to discredit the movement as a whole, or the good done by parts of it? It's possible, but I also believe that we are doing ourselves a disservice if we do not speak up about what concerns and hurts us.

Where's the Benefit? are not endorsing the event, nor are we opposing it. We are here to report on and discuss issues to do with disability benefit cuts, and the Hardest Hit march is without doubt a part of this. Many disabled people are supporting it, and everyone hopes that it is a great success. We all want change, and for many, Hardest Hit is one step towards this. It is well organised, well publicised and could make a real difference. The potential differences in motives and structures are less important than the message, and the impact that this campaign could have. However, for other disabled people, it is more problematic, for all the reasons I have outlined above.

So for those of you who are participating, I hope it is fantastically successful. For those not, there are many other ways to protest the cuts. Keep reading here and take a look at DPAC's Week of Action against ATOS Origin, for a start.

(cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?)

1 in 6 women would rather be blind than fat - so?

[The image is a disability access symbol for people with visual impairments. It has a dark blue background and a grey circle, in which there is a stick figure using what appears to be a cane. The image has been edited to add a fatter tummy and pink hair.]

I was alerted on twitter to a blog post about a recent study which reports that one in six women say they would rather be blind than obese. By sheer coincidence, I had just been reading Whose Tragedy? Towards a personal non-tragedy view of disability, by Sally French and John Swain (pdf), and this sentence stood out:

"To become visually impaired, for instance, may be a personal tragedy for a sighted person whose life is based around being sighted, who lacks knowledge of the experiences of people with visual impairments, whose identity is founded on being sighted, and who has been subjected to a daily diet of the personal tragedy model of visual impairment."

They go on to explain that the Tragedy model of disability and impairment "is not just significant for non-disabled people in understanding themselves and their own lives. It is extrapolated to assumptions about disabled people and their lives".

Non-disabled society's view of disability as something awful which happens to people is very disempowering, and negates the reality that what disables us is an inaccessible society, not the impairment(s) we may have. So, with that in mind, I found the horror with which the revelation that 'some women would rather be blind than fat' was met, to be very telling. Reading between the lines, I hear, Who on earth would rather be blind? Who would choose such a dreadful affliction over fatness?

How would that read to a blind woman? Oh em gee, some people would rather be like YOU than be fat! And how would it read to a fat, blind woman?! How much can we disempower disabled people in one go?

I agree that this survey suggests some very distressing things about women's attitudes to fatness and weight gain. It is depressing that being fat is so feared and so loathed. But saying that the most noteworthy of the things that women 'would rather be' was blind, and then using that as an example of just how incalculably far our body fascist society will make us go to avoid fatness, speaks volumes about our attitudes towards disability too.

Bibliofeminista's post ended by stating,

Maybe if we stopped fat-shaming and equating women’s attractiveness and worth to unreasonable, media-driven standards of beauty, women wouldn’t value their appearance over health..

But blindness in itself is not ill-health! There are very, very many completely healthy blind people, both thin and fat. While I agree with her absolutely about fat-shaming and unreasonable standards of beauty, the rest of the equation does not sit comfortably me, speaking as a fat, disabled woman. It makes me feel like women believe I must have the absolute worst of both worlds, and the last thing I want, when reading feminist websites, is to come away feeling worse about myself than when I started.

(With thanks to Leo Reynolds for the image which I used to create the picture above).

Let Us In! Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011 #badd2011

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011, and this year I wanted to look at how accessible feminist groups are in the UK to disabled women. So I emailed several feminist network groups at random, whose email addresses I could find, to ask the following questions:

1. Does your group meet in accessible premises?
2. In what ways do you meet the needs of disabled feminists who are / want to be members of your group?
3. Are there aspects of access, and other needs, that you find difficult to meet? Why?
4. Is there anything you would like to say about disabled feminists being included in activism?

The 3 groups I heard back from all reported that they were doing their best to be accessible, but in some cases were having trouble with this. Funding was quoted a few times as a problem, that finding accessible rooms which were also free to hire was very difficult.

Solent Feminist Network, for example, meet in two venues, one of which is accessible and the other not. However, they have a deaf member and have had some good ideas about how to make meetings more accessible to her, and are proactive in inquiring about disability access to other events which they might be promoting or attending.

Gloucester Feminist Network are newly formed and have only hold one meeting so far, but did meet in an accessible venue, inspired in part by being accessible to people with buggies as well as disabled access. They were also aware that there is more to access than physical things, and hoped they could meet anyone's access needs as they occurred.

Finally, Bristol Feminist Network, whose regular meetings are not accessible. They identified the difficulty of finding free accessible rooms, and of not wanting to meet in places like pubs which might not be 'friendly' to women from various communities. However, they are aware that it is a problem, and are taking the issue seriously by continually seeking more accessible venues to meet. And for events, rather than regular meetings, they do strive to always make those accessible, and also mention that they do a lot of online activism which is more accessible to some people.

Sian from Bristol Feminist Network summed up the issue really well, saying

I think that it is vital that feminism looks across all privileges and takes intersectionality seriously and does all it can to be accessible to all. I cannot tell you enough how long we have spent discussing and talking about trying to find the right venue. It will happen because we cannot continue to work in this way. Disabled feminists face discrimination on many levels, vawg [violence against women and girls] effects disabled women at disproportionate levels, workplace discrimination and the cuts are affecting disabled women - we need to work together to fight patriarchy.

One of my first posts at the F Word raged about this issue, and while I stand by how infuriating the situation is, I also cannot rage at individual feminist groups for not meeting in accessible venues. As long as businesses and organisations completely ignore the Disability Discrimination Act and Equality Act and do not provide reasonable adjustments, for instance a ramp or an induction loop, then it is harder for local, grassroots groups to find places to meet that do meet even the legal criteria, never mind the ideal.

The groups I heard back from were at least aware that they may not have as an accessible a group as they wanted, and I do wonder if they replied because of this. The groups I did not hear from may be doing better, or worse, or have not considered the issue, but I only had just over a week to gather responses so it might just be that they did not have time to reply.

There are some recommendations I would make, however.

• All feminist groups should, at the very least, have a prepared statement about how accessible their meetings and events are, to disabled people. Ramps, large print leaflets, a quiet room somewhere nearby, regular breaks, an induction loop system installed, accessible toilets, grab rails, accessible parking, nearby public transport, whether steps have handrails, etc. etc. The best way to find out how accessible your meeting place is, is to ask disabled people to tell you. Often centres for independent living and other disabled groups offer accessibility surveys.
  
  
• If this is an issue your group has not looked at in detail, it has to start being one. You are not representing women, you are not supporting or fighting for women, if a large group of women can't get in, especially if you haven't considered it.
  
  
• Don't believe that you only have to start looking at disabled access when a disabled woman expresses an interest in your group. If there isn't an accessibility statement on your website, or even if a woman sees the venue you meet at, and knows she cannot get in, she may well not contact you to express an interest. The assumption will be made, and you may never know about it.
  
  
• Don't look at the issue as 'letting' disabled women take part, or that you should be an accessible group because it's the right thing to do (although it is). Do it because disabled women have new and different skills, opinions and tactics to contribute to the group, like any new woman who gets involved does. You're not doing us a favour, you're doing yourselves one!
  
  
• If you have limited choice of venues, which are inaccessible, take the initiative and put pressure on those venues to become DDA-compliant. We disabled folks sometimes get tired of always being the ones battering the doors down to try and get in - others taking responsibility to hold businesses to account as well can only be a good thing.
  
  
• Don't assume you know. It is ok to not know, and holding disability awareness events and training for your group, preferably run by disabled people, is a good way to get an understanding of living with impairments, and of the ways society disables us. Because, key to the Social Model of Disability is the understanding that we are not disabled by our bodies or minds, but by steps, small type, complicated language and tiny toilet stalls.
  
  
• If you have a website, do your best to make sure it meets web accessibility standards. If it can be read by a screen reader, and text size easily adjusted, this is a good start. Making easy-read alternatives to your leaflets available on the site is really useful to many learning disabled or neuro-diverse people, and large-print leaflets, and transcribed videos for visually impaired and hearing impaired people.

Please let me know in the comments of how best you think feminist groups can be accessible to disabled women.

[Image is the Blogging Against Disablism Day logo. It contains 20 coloured squares, each with a stick figure in, some with apparent impairments. At the top is text which says Blogging Against Disablism.]

While the Wedding Was On...

[Photograph is of a homemade banner, made out of wood, at the anti-Lib Demo with the words Tory Scum painted onto it in black]

NHS hospitals were told to seek 50% more savings and over 50 political accounts were deleted in Facebook purge.

What else was buried in the wedding news? Tell me in the comments.

Paperchase: Now Catering for Sex Offenders?

[Image is a photograph of a greetings card taken in a shop. The card has multi-coloured text, saying "I'm already visualising the duct tape over your mouth".]

Oh Paperchase, what were you thinking? You stock birthday cards, Christmas cards, anniversary cards, every kind of card I could need. But this one, seen by @jocaulfield - really, what were you thinking?

I have no idea who the target audience is supposed to be, because all I can think of is that it's a perfect card for a stalker to send to their victim. Admittedly it could also be used by kinky folk planning their next play session, but other than that it just screams sex offender.

How would you feel, as a woman, to receive a card like that? What if it was anonymous? Or would it actually be worse if it was signed? If I got that in the post I'm just not sure I would see the funny side, if there even is one. I am pretty sure I'd feel scared and intimidated and threatened.

I can't find it for sale on their website. It might be there, but even working out which category of card it would come under is baffling me. Get well soon? Sympathy? Engagement and wedding?

The presence of this card means that Paperchase does not feel like a shop I want to go into any more. It does not feel like a safe place, nor a place that I would like to give money to. If you want to let them know what you think of this card, you can do so here.

Photograph by, and hat-tip to, Jo Caulfield.

On being on benefits while fat

[Image is a vintage food advertisement from 1895. There is a drawing of a young woman with package of Loring's Fat-Ten-U food tablets and package of Loring's Corpula, a fat-producing food. The text says, "Get Fat on Lorings Fat-Ten-U and Corpula Foods".]

David Cameron today has said that taxpayers [feel that incapacity benefit] recipients should be "people who are incapacitated through no fault of their own", that is, not those who are ill because of alcohol or drugs, or because they are overweight.

According to these statistics, the number of people who claim disability benefits because they are obese, is 1,830. Compare this to 398,700 who claim for depression. It is hardly a raging epidemic. There may, equally, be other people who claim benefits for a particular impairment, while also being obese, and this is a whole other matter entirely. Yet here we have a new message of hatred from the government.

I am on benefits and I am fat. I am not on benefits because I am fat, but I am on benefits because I am ill, and I am fat because I am ill. This is many layered, but before I was ill, I was slim. Too thin for a good while, in fact.

Then I started taking psychiatric medication. The more common antidepressants didn't affect my weight, but when I started taking neuroleptic medication the weight piled on. At the time, Olanzapine was the 'wonder-drug' of choice by many psychiatrists, and I was put on it at a time when a lot of other mental health service users were. We all gained a significant amount of weight, very quickly.

I'm not on olanzapine any more, but I take other neuroleptics and a newer antidepressant, both of which have the same effect on weight. I have, at times, wondered whether I should come off them, to lose some weight, but I made a choice to do all that I could to prevent big relapses, and stayed on the tablets. Believe me, I would be costing the state a lot more if I came off all my meds and lost some weight, but spiralled into a paranoid psychosis at the same time.

These days I also have the added issue of more limited mobility, which means that I often can't do any kind of exercise. Many disabled people face this same situation, and many disabled people take medications which can cause their weight to rise - not just psychiatric meds, but steroids, certain painkillers and all sorts of others can affect appetite and weight.

And if I can't stand up for long enough to cook, or manage to chop vegetables or stand near the stove, then I also can't eat well. If I can't go out to buy fresh food, or can't carry anything home, it is virtually impossible to eat a healthy, balanced diet.

Now, I don't have a problem with what my weight is. It is how it is, I don't hate it, it's just life. I don't claim benefits because of my weight, but if I wasn't ill or disabled I probably would weigh less. However, I am, and it's a small price to pay for relative mental stability (very relative!).

But because of Cameron today, as well as benefit claimants being written off as lazy, scroungers, liars, exaggeraters and malingerers, the Daily Mail readers of the world will be happy to assume that every overweight person on benefits is on benefits because they are overweight.

I don't have a problem with those who are, by the way, but there are many fat disabled people, just like there are many fat non-disabled people. But those who are believing the hype now have an extra line of attack against the country's benefit recipients. An extra line of abuse for us to receive.

(The image is in the public domain, and was made available by Chuck Coker. This blog post is cross-posted at Where's the Benefit?).

Disabled women and sexual assault.

[A photograph of a bright pink, hand-written placard against a brick background, which says "I hate rape". There is a marker pen in the background.]

The Guardian has published an interview with Kier Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, about restoring rape victims' confidence in the criminal justice system.

Rape Crisis reports that

Only 15% of serious sexual offences against people 16 and over are reported to the police and of the rape offences that are reported, fewer than 6% result in an offender being convicted of this offence.

The lousy conviction rate is a key reason that many women do not report being raped. It can feel like a waste of time to even report, when the likelihood is that it will go nowhere?

In recent years, new concerns have emerged among women who are raped, as we hear of more and more being imprisoned themselves when their rape allegations were not proved in court, and perhaps most high profile, a woman who was imprisoned for retracting true allegations. With regard to this specifically, Starmer has now requested that all perverting the course of justice cases that involve retracted rape and domestic violence allegations should be submitted to him for approval.

It seems he is taking action, and I am very glad of that, as it is sorely needed. And Starmer insists that the 25% funding cut to the CPS will not affect sexual or domestic violence services.

One group of women that has been overlooked in these efforts to improve reporting of rape, is disabled women. Around 10 years ago I spoke to a specialist sexual assault police officer about having been raped. It did not go well, and we both decided that I should not proceed with making a formal report. This was initially because I was unable to tell her the details of what had happened. From my point of view, she was a stranger, a quite intimidating one at that, and I had never told anyone the intimate details of what had occurred (and in fact, I still haven't). From her point of view, if I couldn't tell her, then I would never be able to stand up in court and tell a roomful of strangers. I agree. The other reason, however, was that she found out I had mental health diagnoses. She said that this would make me an 'unreliable witness' in the eyes of the court, and my word would not be believed. There was no acknowledgement of cause and effect - that in fact sexual violence may have caused my distress. Many women experience mental distress after rape. If that automatically means we are not 'reliable witnesses', then it needs looking at urgently.

And it is not just women with psychiatric diagnoses who have difficulty reporting rape, or being taken seriously in the judicial system. Women with learning disabilities face similar prejudice, and may have difficulty communicating that any abuse has taken place at all. Disabled women can have more difficulty leaving an abusive relationship, particularly if they rely on the abusive partner to assist them with communication or mobility, and very few refuges are fully accessible even if they can leave.

In terms of domestic abuse, as well as physical, sexual and emotional abuse, there is an extra layer of abuse which can happen to disabled women. Their partner can withhold medication, over-medicate, refuse to assist the woman at all, or refuse dignified assistance options, if the partner is also the woman's carer. They can withhold communication aids, and limit mobility and outside contact considerably.

And it is not just that disabled women are less likely to be taken seriously, and less likely to have access to support and judicial services, we are also much more vulnerable to abuse.

As many as 83% of women who have been disabled since childhood have been the victims of sexual assault, 49% of whom experience 10 or more incidents. 40% of physically disabled women in one study reported have been sexually assaulted, and for individuals with psychiatric disabilities, the rate of violent criminal victimization including sexual assault was 2 times greater than in the general population. 45% of female psychiatric outpatients report being sexually abused during childhood, and horrifyingly, lifetime risk for violent victimization was 'so high for homeless women with severe mental illness (97%) as to amount to normative experiences for this population'. (Statistics all from Wisconsin Coalition against Sexual Assault - the sheer dearth of figures available about sexual assault and disabled women other than these from WCASA, is very telling in itself).

If these efforts to encourage women to come forward, and efforts to support women following sexual assault, do not start addressing the specific issues faced by disabled women, then they are doing all women a disservice. If there is a space in a refuge, but the steps into the building prevent a disabled woman from taking that place, then we are letting women down. If nobody checks with the woman who is unable to speak, whether her assistants are taking care of her with respect and not hurting her, we are letting women down. And if somebody doesn't believe the 'unreliable' learning disabled or mentally ill woman who talks about abuse, then we are letting women down. If disabled women do not have the same access to justice as non-disabled women, then women do not have access to justice.

(Photo by Steve Rhodes. Article cross-posted at The F-Word blog).

Je me relève

I lived in Aix-en-Provence for a year in 1997-98, and on the radio constantly was a version of Chumbawamba's Tubthumping which they had sung in French. Once I left France I told people all about this, but could never find any recording of it anywhere. I have spent 12 years trying to prove that this existed, and this morning I have made the momentous discovery.

Enjoy, Tubthumping in French.