Disabled Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

As a kid, I thought the idea of mutual attraction between two people was positively magical. And as I did with all magical ideas back then, I laid on my bed, praying to a child’s god about it: “It’s so wonderful that You let two people love each other. Please let someone love me. Anyone.” I scrunched my eyes tightly and pictured the ugliest man I could muster. He was a Crusty-the-Clown figure, with tufts of orange curly hair around his otherwise bald head, bags under his eyes and a belly pouch. “Even him.” I thought, letting God know that my desire to love and be loved knew no bounds.
Many girls grow up praying to the trusty ceiling about their most recent desire to marry the boy in science class or that dude from Full House. And with their hands clutched and faces scrunched, they wish for those silly things, with full intention of fairy dusty failing on the one they desire, followed by a big old happily ever after. Not me though. I sat around wishing with all the fibres in my disabled-kid being, for Crusty The Real Life Clown.

So. How come I was praying for a white-faced, big-footed sadsack while every other kid was bent on John Stamos? I chalk it up to a negative internalization of disability, on top of all the other body-image related things us feminines have to feel bad about. By negative internalization, I mean the discouraging thoughts that tell us there is a problem with our disabilities, our bodies, or both. Being a person with a disability is almost always, at some point or another, accompanied by negative internalization. As we’ll see in some recent research, this internalization can manifest in many ways, but there are a few which stick out.

The Question of Convenience

I just read a study comparing women with disabilities to able-bodied women, specifically in the areas of relationships, marriage, self esteem, body image and abuse. Weird compilation of topics, I know, but read the study, it’ll make more sense, I promise. One of the things this study found was that women with disabilities--though in this sample they experience sexual abuse at the same rate as able-bodied women--they are more likely to be sexually violated by attendants, strangers and health care professionals than able-bodied women. While there is a bit of a duh factor here, I’d like to focus in on the strangers finding. Researchers tell us that women with disabilities are more likely to be raped by strangers “because of the stereotype that they are more dependent, passive, and are easy prey.”
Even without proof in numbers, this rang sadly true with me. To an extent, the thought of men approaching me for what they think will be “easy access” into my special place is a permanent fixture in my mind. More often than, if I’m approached by a guy at a bar, they will oogle a little bit before caving and asking variations of what he really wants to know: Can you have sex? I don’t mind informing them that I can, education is a part of my life, and I see it as an educational opportunity if nothing else. Depending on the guy, they will either take my openess as a cue that they can be open in return (sometimes too open), or stare blankly, wondering what to do with this information.
During these interactions, I tend to feel responsible for dealing with people’s processing of my disability. I make jokes. I look them and the eye and try to laugh their ignorance off. But the whole time they are dancing delicately around the subject of my vagina, I too am processing. I am wondering why they decided to buy me a drink instead of one of the 50 other girls with their clutch purses and their known working vaginas. Do they think that if I tell them my sweet spot functions, it’s an offer to take me home, simply because they’ve figured me to be easy prey? Were they banking on that “yes” to seal the deal with someone tonight? It’s almost always impossible to know.

Do You Like, Even Like Sex?

Perhaps more annoying than the concern that men might only be chasing my tail because of their “easy prey” belief, is the one that says I’m altogether uninterested in sex. Really, guys? I have nothing against asexual people at all, but I thought this poorly-based assumption taken to the electric chair long ago. Apparently not.
According to the national survey of women with disabilities, (whose researchers, by the way, seem a little too surprised by the fact that many women with disabilities have “overcome this stereotype assault.” Hmph.), women with physical disabilities sometimes, “adopted the societal view that they are no longer eligible for dating, that they have become asexual and should no longer expect anyone to be attracted to them.”
Oh dear. When described in this way, asexuality sounds like the depressing end to the tragedy that is being disabled. It describes women giving up on themselves, on sexual pleasure, and on seeing themselves as sexual beings.
In case you haven’t noticed, I have a bone to pick with this part of the research. Not only have I never considered myself “asexual due to despair,” but my brief stint with what these researchers would categorize as a trigger for asexuality completely backfired. The incident went something like this:
I was about 14 or 15. My dad was helping me get dressed and ready for school, a part of my daily routine, while I was still half-asleep (also part of my daily routine) I remember looking at my stomach, which was protruding because I was sitting, and saying, “Ugh. How will a guy ever like me?” I was mostly mumbling to myself and expected the usual, “Don’t be silly,” response from my dad, if any response at all, when he said:
“Things are going to be different for you.”
I woke up in that moment.
“What do you mean?” I asked, unsure I wanted his answer.
“Some boys might not see you like that because you’re disabled. It might make things more difficult for you,” he answered, in his usual frank way.
That tid-bit of truth given to me as a teen is the closest I’ve come to asexuality. It was discouraging, but I knew enough to realize it was real. And rather than becoming asexual, it made me more boy-crazy than ever (that’s a story for a whole other entry).
Unfortunately, the concept of asexuality is not discreetly defined within the study, but in its context throughout the study, it seems to refer to a lack-luster toward sex. I can’t help but wonder how asexual people would feel about this interpretation. From what I understand, asexuality is a sexual orientation, not a switch to flick on and off according to individual circumstance. It is not a symptom of a greater problem, or even a conscious choice, but a way of being. A lifestyle.
Whether or not it is asexuality that the research is actually reporting, its findings admit that loss of sexual interest is both a choice and a societal stereotype that is internalized by disabled women. This is the thinking that, “No one will find me attractive, therefore I am not attractive, and never will be.” It is upsetting to me that a different societal approach is not taken, something more along the lines of, “Sexual until proven uninterested.” because clearly this stereotype not only perpetuates ignorance among able-bodies, but is harmful to disabled women'self-image as well.

Having to wonder about the motives of men buying them drinks or personal body image issues is something every woman will find themselves worrying about at some point. But with the added layers of what I call the convenience motive, as well as the badgering of undesirability stereotypes, the sexual satisfaction of disabled women becomes extra complicated. And only by breaking these assumptions, can we work towards sexual satisfaction for everybody.

Why Does She Stay?

Try not to cringe, but I've written a whole post on why women stay in abusive relationships. If you think it's tough to read about, count your lucky ducks you haven't lived it.
It’s common for people to be nonchalant about violence against women, because there’s often this train of thought that whispers, “If she was really being treated that badly, she would just leave.” After all, if you touch a stove, and the stove burns you, you don’t put your hand there next time. But abuse is hardly ever that simple. I could write a whole book on the logic which keeps women intertwined in abusive relationship, but I’ll conserve space. Here’s my condensed version:

1. Safety. At first it seems backward that a woman would stay with a violent guy because they fear for their physical safety. One too many outbursts with the guy and the girl could find herself hospitalized, right? But think for a second, of the alternative. Abusers are at their peak every time a woman tries to leave.(fourth paragraph down of link). If he’s verbally and/or emotionally abusive while you’re still with him, it’s bound to escalate, and quite possibly become physical when you’re trying to get out. Women that live with their abusive partners then, are often left weighing the lesser of two terrifying evils: If you stay he’ll hurt you, if you try to leave, he’ll hurt you badly, or kill you.
2. One Big Mindfuck. I remember entering into my counselor's office for the first time when I was trying to leave my abusive relationship. It was a whole big thing for me, this counseling thing. She started off by asking how he mistreated me. I explained that he had a way of cutting me down and then being nice the next day (or soon after) and acting as if nothing had ever happened. My counselor nodded understandably, asking if he had ever hit me or done anything physically unwanted. “Only a couple times, not really though.” I didn’t want her to think I was looking for attention. And, I didn’t want to make it any bigger or more real than it already felt.
“Not really though,” is key here. Not only does it show the extreme denial of circumstance and intense minimization, but the deep confusion that resulted from a lot of emotional manipulation. Being hit or touched in a way that is unwanted is usually pretty cut-and-dry, and yet I wasn’t sure what I had encountered. As a coping mechanism, many women repress and deny what is happening to them in order not to breakdown, or because they can’t deal with their worst fears being their reality. When they are in such a state of natural denial and perpetual minimization, the concept of leaving is almost unfathomable.
3. Stockholm Syndrome. This is a branch off the Mindfuck tree, but it is big enough to stand on its own. It means that the woman stays not only because she thinks the man needs her, but because the man regularly attempts to persuade her that he can’t live without her. This can be as subtle as a million texts about wanting to blow his own head off while she’s out at the bar (after a breakup), or as overt as showing up unwelcomed, threatening to kill himself if she actually leaves. As with all abuse scenarios, there’s a plethora of different varieties and methods under which this emotional manipulation occurs, but the end goal is the same: power and control.
4. Financial Obligation/ Reliance. Sometimes, amongst all the emotional manipulation, the abuser has gained control of the woman’s finances. This happens most evidently in marriages or unions where children are involved. I’ve heard of girls being given weekly “allowances” in marriages, giving them barely enough to get by and leaving them stranded if they run. The money dangles over their head as a reminder of the ties they have with their partner, making it nearly impossible to leave.
I once had it explained to me that being in an abusive relationship is like standing too close to a painting. You can see all the colors and have taken in many of the details, but it isn’t until you step back that you see what the painting really is. Abuse can be like that. We as women become so used to the patterns and intricacies involved in the mistreatment, that everytime an abusive partner gaslights us or throws an apology our way, we fail to see the bigger picture, and the abuse cycle continues on. On average, a woman in an abusive relationship makes 7 attempts to leave before she gets out for good(see last paragraph of this link). And that doesn't count "breaks" or short-lived break-ups, these are 7 whopping big attempts. As in, moving a suitcase of your stuff in and out 5+2 times before the big good riddance.And maybe now, you know a bit more about why that is.
**Please note that I am in no way an expert and have left a lot out, for the sake of my short-attentioned readers. If you want to add or complain, feel free to comment. If you think you might be in a shitty relationship, here's a good summary of the cycle of abuse.

Abuse: The World-Wide Cultural Epidemic

On Feb 22nd, Oscar Pistorius was granted bail for the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp.
With all the attention violence against women is getting in the news lately, from the skyrocketing reporting of assaults on women in Manitoba to the rape and murder of aboriginal women by police in BC, Pistorius' bail offers no break from the well-deserved coverage of women’s issues.In fact, this breathing time gives many of us a chance to asses, and fully form or opinions and compartmentalizasations of what this means to us individually. This might mean a strong word from us feminists, or a doubtful headshake from those doubting Pistorius’ guilt. Whatever the case may be, I think it’s important that we are careful not to put the Steenkamp case on a pedestal as “Supremely Horrifying and Outlandish Things That Don’t Happen Very Often.” I’d stand to argue that something in the DNA of our patriarchal (oh no the P-Word!) society --that is far and wide on this planet-- gives room for said Horrifying Thing.

Particularly important, is the way that men come to understand, internalize, and regurgitate the Steenkamp tragedy. Me, a female, has never claimed to be a full-on expert on generalizations of the male thought-process (partially because I only believe in human thoughts and learned gender-ingrained societal differences, not biological traits), but this does not mean that I cannot recognize the significance of how men come to view the Steenkamp case.
And so I do my best to put myself in the gender-prescribed idea of Male. And in order to properly clump around in my new comfy man-shoes, I tend to picture my dad’s reaction to the atrocity (sorry in advance, Dad). I picture his groggy stumbling to the coffee pot, pouring a straight black mug-full and patting my little step-sister on the head. He happily remembers it’s Sunday and picks up the paper. Pistorius’ name is plastered across the front page, his dead girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp featured a third of the way down.
“Ugh. Can you believe what a psycho that blade-runner turned out to be?” he says to his partner.

Boom. The discussion that follows is a back-and-forth about how crazy Pistorius must be, including speculations that maybe he was on roids and comments about his childhood/history and any other information that seeped into Dad’s brain.
I’m not a psychic, but this is how I see things going. In this hypothetical situation, my dad hypothetically did what a lot of men( and women) would do: he distanced himself from the perpetrator by labeling him. Not only did he call him psycho (which clearly separates him from the rest of sane mankind), he called him Blade-Runner, a nickname, which, given its negative context, dehumanizes the guy. And I don’t blame Dad’s hypothetical choice to do so. None of us want to seem even slightly relatable to a guy that shot his girlfriend three times.

I’m sure there is a kitchen somewhere on this end of the earth where this hypothetical situation was a reality. In fact, I’m willing to bet there were many. People seem to assume that by giving Pistorius the hefty “psycho” label they are solving an unanswered question. Whether subconsciously or not they are saying, This girlfriend killing thing is just a one-off, cuz that guy was a disabled looneytune”
This is the wrong answer to the unsaid but well known question of, is abuse an individual or a world-wide,societal problem?”
It’s the wrong answer because the Steenkamp case is not an isolated instance. Visit any emergency shelter. Step foot in any violent-partners women’s group. In either setting, you’ll find handfuls of girls who escaped just before the gunshots. You’ll meet women who were made to feel loved, adored, until they took on his last name. You’ll hear the stories of women who tried to leave many times but were consistently stalked, threatened, or lied to until they returned, more confused than ever. You'll come to know women who were slowly, and surely degraded over time, each blow compensated for by intense apologies and loads of flowers and phone calls.
Labelling abusers as insane helps us ignore a key factor in the problem of abuse: Something about the gender gap, the manliness which both sexes are taught to accept, allow us to--on some level--expect and accept an imbalance of power. And until that gap is met, different kinds, types, and extremes of partner abuse will continue to occur.
So next time you’re tempted to deconstruct Pistorius into little pieces that put him in that 2% population of psychopaths, remember...he was raised on the same earth, at the same time as you, I, and Chris Brown.

The Start of The Stick Man that Sits on a Circle

Recently, I read an article that purported to know the origins of The Wheelchair Symbol. Published in the Huffington Post--a credible site that mixes blogging, opinion, and current events in a fashion that creates an atmosphere of social liberation for all-- I expected something factually juicy, at very the least. I wanted to read that the stick figure sitting on the three-quarters circle had received much judgement at first, because people would rather a boy with his hand in cap . I wanted to discover that upon first suggestion, people were adamantly opposed to even recognizing people with disabilities.
But the story is much simpler. With almost no adversity, as if it was taken straight from a children’s story book, the wheelchair symbol was birthed from a favour done by the Director of Swedish Handicap Institute in the 60s.

According to HuffPost, the original artist submitted a picture of a bright-white stick-figured wheelie on a negatively black background. Differing from its now universally accepted version, this symbol featured a wheelie that was exceptionally close up--so much so that it had no visible head or limb below the knee--much like a too-close photograph that one might accidentally take of their own nose while trying to capture their smiling face. It sat like a mistaken photograph, and the acceptors of the first-draft symbol fixed it up in such a way that they believed ‘humanized’ the figure.
Humanized? How about, “brought it into focus”? I think its spectacularly liberating that they’ve decided to add a head and shins to a stick figure. How kind of them. If I pin my hair back and turn sideways I’m sure that the stickman symbol and I are almost complete replicas. Kudos to the able-bodies who finally decided on the stamp of human approval by giving us a stick figure. Way to represent.

Newer visions of how people with physical disabilities should be symbolized include:
-A bent arm, propelling a wheelchair, meant to show an active disabled person, instead of a lounging one. And,
-A stick arm which appears to be shooting out like a wing from the stickman’s torso, representing self-propelling at a very fast pace.
Essentially, these more modern symbols are an attempt to show disabled people’s equality, but in my opinion, the standards by which they do it are an impossible contradiction. Think about it. Someone with limited mobility, is symbolically measured by their physical mobility. What a paradox.
So, you still want to be seen as a person--a full-fledged stick figure--and yet people are still measuring you by whether or not your stick arm can push your unsupported stick-wheel? Go figure.
The saddest thing about all of this is that promoters of the newer able-centric symbol find it wonderfully progressive, saying things like, “eventually we won’t need a symbol at all” with the assumption that all spaces will be available to all ability levels.
In my opinion, viewing disability as one big holistic accessibility party creates an air of ignorance that overlooks the needs of those with specific disabilities. And rating disability by the super-crip standards of magically self-propelled disabled people is one step further into ignorance, no matter how much good intent is present.

Drinking Kills Brain Cells...And Your Count is Already Low.

I’ll never forget it: A little over a year ago, my new shrink stared me in the face. There was a solid two feet between us, so her fresh, fake-smiling face wasn’t all too overwhelming. That first session, I did what I thought all good patients should do, and poured my heart out. I told her about my fears, and my hopes and all that in-between, what-do-I-about stuff. My eyes fluttered around the room, all the while hoping that my simultaneous verbal diarrhea would strike a chord with her.By the third session she told me that I don’t have to process all my feelings and treat them as fully formed thoughts, “You’re an over-thinker.” she said, as if she had discovered something new. Was that an official diagnosis? Her triumphant smile pointed to yes. The fifth session is where the punch-line happened,
“You need to cut back significantly on your drinking.” she said bluntly.
I blushed. She was broaching a real topic.
Then, within a span of 10 seconds, my cheeks drained:
“Someone as high functioning as you, considering your brain injury, should cherish the brain cells they have.”
All at once, different explanations of why this was offensive flooded my brain. High functioning? What does that mean? I asked her, probing for an answer that would unfold itself so I didn’t have to.
“You’re sharp” she said, furthering my fears about her prejudice against those with Cerebral Palsy. “You’re aware of your situation and hyper-aware of your presentation to those around you.” I don’t know if you’ve ever received a compliment inside of a stereotypical insult, but it creates a clusterfuck of feelings.
I remember wondering if it was worth it to explain where her assumption went wrong, deciding I owed it to myself to do so. “Sometimes Cerebral Palsy has no intellectual impairments,” I tried.
Her supervisor, an older woman, who had been sitting in the corner monitoring our session with her hands folded in deep contemplation spoke,
“I’ve worked with two others with what you have.” she says nodding, in what I guessed was approval. What I have? It has no name. Which makes me wonder if she was only viewing my symptoms, which can be similar to many other disabilities. How much did this person truly know?
In that moment, I felt I was sitting behind a panel of ignorant strangers. Words swelled in my throat, but I realized no amount of explanation could take down preconceived notions of those with Cerebral Palsy, and their intelligence. In this case, the two therapists’ ignorance would take a lot of un-learning, which couldn't be done within the frame of my therapy hour.
Later, when I was alone with my therapist, I tried to voice my concerns with her. I said something about the danger of generalizations regarding any disability, to which I was greeted with a condescendingly sweet reassurance that they “meant well” and “were just looking out for my well being”.
It made me think. It made me sad. It made me realize that people are absolutely content to simmer in their stereotypical wrong thinking, without even a thought of budging or accepting new, constant truths.
It upsets me to think that every person who has Cerebral Palsy, is at some point, bound to encounter this weird form of novelty brought on by those who profess to be knowledgeable.

Needless to say, I never went back to that shrink. I figured I did not need to see myself through the same cracked lens which society already tends to see many disabled people.

And who knows, maybe someone with an untainted opinion will convince me to drink less one day.

And You Thought Grade One Was Tough

If you’d asked me where I’d be now 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have guessed here. I live in an even snowier city than I was raised in, where half the people speak French and a new face pulls me out of bed every day. Not the life I imagined, especially that last part. I’m not sure exactly what I expected to happen, but in my kid-mind, I thought in extremes--either I’d be fully independent (able to shower myself, dress, and by proxy walk) or I’d be dead. Either way, life was sure to have its way with me.
The second guess at my future goes as far back as my memory does. I can remember being in my junior kindergarten class with my light purple lunch pail and a piece of blank paper on the L-shaped table in front of me. Knots wrapped around knots in my stomach as the teacher called out instructions in her beautiful sing-song voice. She was telling us to fold the paper in all sorts of different ways, her hands making dainty creases with the paper until it became an airplane. Though I don’t remember the story behind why we were making an airplane, I know that it was tied to being good children of God (My JK year was spent at a private Christian school connected directly to our church).
“And after you’re finished folding, you can wash your hands for lunch,” She said in her kind-but-firm voice. I stared down at my page, with all it’s shaky creases in all the wrong places. I tried to start over. flattening the lines of my mistakes with an all too gentle hand.
Why couldn’t I do this?
I looked around the room. On my side of the L, most of the kids had already had their planes checked and refined by Ms. Coates, and were heading to the sink. I made a new fold, pushing down extra hard in hopes that the paper would do what the teacher was asking of us. But again my hands shook in a way that wasn’t welcome.
Tears started to form as the slowest kid in the class headed for the sink.
I was the new slowest. Or just a newly realized slowest.
“Don’t worry,” Ms. Coates said, “sometimes you just need a little more time.” She smiled sweetly, and then took the page, pulling a new one out of nowhere. “Here,” She put her hand on top of my small one and made all the right creases, all the while acting like she hadn’t said all of these instructions 5 minutes ago.
Ms. Coates felt like my saviour. And I was grateful. But I also felt a strange, muted sense of loss. I still don’t know how to fold a paper airplane.
School continued on with more of the same, with only my age and grade changing. At 10, when people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said that I wanted to be a bus driver and work for Sears. Most of the adults cackled and would inform me that school bus drivers didn’t make much money. In truth, I knew I couldn’t hold money easily and that I wouldn’t likely learn to drive a car or a bus. I thought this was a silly question though, so I gave it a silly answer, and people seemed to like it. I really couldn’t picture me doing anything when I grew up. The adult me that grew up to drive a bus and works in retail is able bodied and has perfect, unfrizzy hair. But no one ever asks about her.
By the time high-school came, I decided I could try writing for real. It was the opposite of my nemesis math, so it seemed fitting. When I informed my dad of my new plan, he said, “But writers don’t make much money.”When I asked what I should do instead, he said I should try many things and then decide. He left the conversation before I got to ask what I should try.
I’m old for a young person now, and still don’t have a clue what I’m doing. I’ve applied for school again and look for jobs daily that I think can manage. But every time I read that “some errands are required” with receptionist positions or “must be able to multitask,” I can’t help but think of that ruined piece of paper, with all its ugly creases. And wish I’d become a computer programmer.

Screw Valentine's, Feb 15th is All the Rage

I have always, always hated Valentine's Day. In fact, I remember being a little kid staring at this mickey-mouse cupid poster my mother had festively plastered on my bedroom door, despising heart-immersed Mickey. I wanted to flip his arrow over and make him stab himself. Then maybe he would understand how much v-day sucks.
My sociopathic daydreams didn't last forever though, because soon enough I discovered that the day after Valentine's made the horrible Hallmark holiday worth living through. And being that this wonderfully underrated post-holiday holiday is upon us, I thought I'd share why you should hold off on swallowing bleach (until at least the 16th). Here we go:


1. All the candy goes on sale--I know the same can be said of Christmas and Easter and Halloween and Thanksgiving turkeies, but Feb 15th is the only time when you can feel like a well loved bargainer, in stead of just your average joe cheapskate. I take the time to specifically bulk up on candy hearts which say "Be mine" and "Always and forever". Boys may come and go, but those preservative-infused hearts are virtually indestructible.

2. Everybody gets dumped-- And boy does misery love company. Around Valentine's, I often wish I was some sort of security agent, so I could watch people hold hands and make out in elevators on their way to work. And then watch the same people fight and cry and throw diamond rings at each other on Feb 15th. Because I'm sick like that.

3. Things turn into Easter--All the eye-sore hearts come down to be replaced with gentle pastel easter eggs and Cadberry boxes. No one cares that you don't have a boyfriend to bring you rosepedals and/or that lingerie you've been hiding in the back of LaSenza for 5 months. You don't have to lie about being busy on Valentine's--where busy means chocolate truffles, The Horse Whisperer and a box of tissues because Robert Redford never gets the girl--because it's Feb 15. You're free. Now go buy yourself a Marshmallow Caramel chocolate egg or a Kindle Surprise and pretend it's for your nephew.

So next year, when the calender has only 28 days in Feb, don't sleep through the 14th, because time is limited. And you know you have a whole lot of awesome waiting for you on the 15th. Might as well make the best out of one of the worst holidays--the very worst of course, being Family Day.