Hi, I don't comment often though I read feministing every day. I know you're a new contributor and I'd just like to commend you for adding this commentary on a personal/political issue that, although you are a woman, does not directly relate to being a woman. I think this is such an important part of feminism that is often forgotten. It's exactly why I call myself a feminist... not JUST because I want to be treated equally as a woman but because our society is full of inequalities and I think feminism can and should address all of them. So thanks and I look forward to reading your posts in the future.

We live in a culture of distraction. The current media fiascos re: Sarah Palin, etc. are nothing new or surprising.

And you're right about values: this election is absolutely about values. I wish more Democrats--Obama, especially--would come straight out and say it. The Democrats will win or lose this election in no small part based on how well they can present their argument of social policy and the values they wish to promote. The Republicans know this, and they have been quite successful at exploiting these kinds of issues, and winning elections as a result. (They're well on their way to winning again, if the Democrats don't get their acts together.) The culture wars have by no means gone away, nor should anyone expect that they will. I have no problem in saying that my vote will be based on my values and priorities, and my sense of who I believe will best promote the policies and (dare I say it) agendas that I believe are best for this country and the larger global community.

Quality, affordable education; healthcare; economic security; alternative, clean energy; women's rights; gay rights; sensible foreign policy and an overall pro-humanist stance, to name but a few.

Make the political personal again, I quite agree. Serious times call for serious measures. I see nothing wrong with igniting an all-out, values-based political revolution, be it before or after the election. We are already on the brink of a cultural revolution: the way it "spins" is up to us.

Word. I suffer from a mental illness and in my area there is a paucity of decent vocational rehab services to help me find a job again. Obama's platform directly addresses the weaknesses in the SSDI program and the barriers to regaining full-time work.

McCain? Not a peep.

I've had to use a community mental health center before my Medicare kicked in, and it was horrid. Underfunded, poorly run, overwhelmed with patients, etc. And there was no place else for me or any of the other patients to go.

Whenever I think of all the Republicans screeching about 'big government,' I wish they could spend a day in my shoes. But they are so blind to their own privilege that it doesn't even occur to them to do so. Such bullshit.

YES YES YES. It's so good to see this addressed as a feminist issue! i worked in the disabilities field for a few years right out of college, for a big nonprofit--basically res hab services. i was astonished at how hard we fought for the basic civil rights for the people we served, including the right to have sexual/romantic relationships and/or marriage, let alone decent healthcare and employment!

My heart goes out to those who support their family members with disabilities day in, day out, never having known a time where they could just ignore this issue. i can no longer ignore it, either.

i think the way we treat people with disabilities as a society is highly indicative of the way we'd treat anyone who couldn't help themselves (i.e. pull themselves up by their bootstraps, a la republican posturing).

i lurk but i read every day, and i just had to butt in here. Props for getting the word out.

We would love to see the question put to Sarah Palin in an interview or during the VP debate - she said in her RNC speech that if McCain wins she'll be a friend and advocate for other parents of special needs children. What are her specific ideas and plans to help people who deal with these issues every day?

(Also, we hope you do talk about reclaiming words in the future, since judging by our name that's obviously an issue that we're pretty interested in and we think is worth talking about.)

Yes, exactly! My mother is seriously, permanently disabled and I worry what greater budget cuts would mean to her too. My Democratic morals insist that she and your brother not be thrown out on the street like so many already have been because of budget cuts, starting with Reagan.

Thank you for adding a very cogent, personal to this manic, chock-full-of-platitudes election process.

I wish I could take you around with me to dinners with very Republican family and friends. Then let them try to say that the "liberal media" is blowing smoke about difficulties in Americans' lives having increased over the last 7 years. (Yeah, I have family and friends who really, seriously say that.)

Thank you for adding a very cogent, personal voice to this manic, chock-full-of-platitudes election process.

I wish I could take you around with me to dinners with very Republican family and friends. Then let them try to say that the "liberal media" is blowing smoke about difficulties in Americans' lives having increased over the last 7 years. (Yeah, I have family and friends who really, seriously say that.)

Thank you for this. The disibility-rights angle is one I have not seen too much of on lefty anti-Palin blog posts. I would love it if Palin were asked in the debates WHAT exactly, she'd do, to be the advocate for people with disabilities she says she'd be.

I have to give Palin (or, more likely, her speechwriters) credit for at least acknowledging the existence of children with disabilities and committing herself to working on the behalf of their families. That acknowledgment is rare in politics. That said, I am incredibly skeptical that she has any intention to follow through on this promise, especially as no details were given as to a specific plan and as the Mccain/Palin platform seems to consist of cutting funding for programs and services (Medicaid, social security, education) that are already failing children and also ADULTS with disabilities.

Joel is an autistic blogger who has posted about the fact that Palin's appeal to the families of and parents of special needs children ignores the fact that these children grow up to become adults with special needs who are also in need of an advocate in Washington. Palin (and other politicians) fail to appeal directly to persons with disabilities themselves:

http://thiswayoflife.org/blog/?p=339

Sorry to break it to you, but this is the way America unfortunately lives. Many Americans are so focused on the things that are pointless that some forget to focus on the most important. Healthcare for those who can't afford it is important. Making sure that the homeless have a place to sleep at instead of Penn Station is important, but does any of this matter to some Americans? Of course not, because they are too focused on what kind of glasses does Palin wear. How gives a damn what kind of glasses she wears??? I don't. People shoulsd focus on the things that will benefit them for the greater good. Stop focusing on stupid things and focus on healthcare, education, and ending homelessness...

As a person who suffered from mental health issues in my teens and a mother of an autistic son I completly agree with the importance of this issue. I myself was down sized from my mental health provider twice. Do you think that the politicians know how hard it is to find a new doctor who will take you without having to run all of the same tests over and over again. Or how hard it is to buy your meds when you don't have the money to buy them. Hell back in the 90's my meds cost well over $125 dollars a month and every year they just went up in cost. I stopped taking them a long time ago because I just couldn't buy them anymore and it was too hard to get my meds when I kept having to find someone new to who would give me the perscription I needed. Since that time I have learned to deal with my issues as best I can but my son may not have that ability. Who knows what will happen to him if he can't get the assistance he needs as he grows older. That is what keeps me up at night.

We need someone in office who can understand my issues and the issues of everyone else who cares for someone with disabilities. I just don't trust that Palin is the right woman for the job, even with her little boy at home.

http://apalinfan.blogspot.com/2008/09/open-letter-to-jessica-valeris-and-her.html

I agree with sharkfu completely. Thanks for posting this!

Now, I'm in a tough position. My brother's a Marine. I don't want him put in a dangerous position because the troops are not getting enough funding to supply functional body armor or artillery. I'd rather he not be in a dangerous position because he's not in a war zone, but if I can't have that, I'll take what I can get.

Furthermore, my brother's first kid "decided" he wanted to be born this weekend. He's between two and two and a half months premature. USMC is paying for the neonatal ICU care my nephew needs. It should go without saying that I don't want the military to fail officers and enlisted soldiers as an employer who supplies health benefits.

However (and this is really important), there is no way in hell I'm voting for four more years of "the same... only worse". If people who know me say I'm thinking of myself first, so be it. I'm at the intersection of at least two "issues" (realities, really) the Republican party pooh-poohs when it doesn't ignore. Yes, I'm going to think of myself first if the alternative is to create a political environment toxic to myself and others like me.

You know, "others like me" being anyone who doesn't buy into the "white male ablist heterosexist fantasy where babies arrive on time (never early or late), children rarely get sick, fail classes because they aren't trying, or disrespect their elders, and women are fulfilled taking care of their families, filling unpaid leadership positions, and earning 'pin money' (or money for their kids' holiday and birthday presents) and little more". Bonus points if she or he doesn't have a reason, but I've never met anyone like that.

Also, "Cast Cast". Find it on Podbean or on ITunes. Jade is a late twenty-something blogger and podcaster with Asperger's Syndrome (considered a high-functioning form of autism). He talks an awful lot about his job, and he hasn't posted anything since before Palin became VP candidate, but he understands the politics of pop culture and its relationship to autism like most people wouldn't believe.

PF, I read your blog entry even though it had absolutely nothing to do with this post and am kind of amused. You said Jessica's article didn't have a thesis, but I sure as hell couldn't spot yours. You complained that Jessica just angrily ranted throughout her piece, but that's basically what you did - only instead of being angry, you sounded indignant and uprighteous.

Oh, and it's "Jessica Valenti." Not "Jessica Valeri." Try at least getting the name right next time...makes it easier to take people like you seriously.

critical disability and feministing

Not to tout my program like it is -the- place to be, but we in the masters program in critical disability studies have been given the task for our course, [disability in the cultural context], to monitor media reports, both mainstream and fringe.

I'm sad to say that in my opinion, your article doesn't step outside of the medical/charitable model of disability.

There is plenty of literature both on portraying/discussing disability issues as well as intersectional analysis between feminisms and critical disability.

What's at stake, what you bring up is still fundamentally important, and as far as disability advocacy's ends go, what you demand is correct (if possible to put it into such either/or categories). But the results of such a demand can often lead to more dependency-producing programs by way of enframing the issue. That won't be discussed here, but there are articles on blindness and deaf culture that go into problems of advocacy organizations that fail to include the people with disabilities that said organizations are charged to represent. What ends up happening is a total 'professionalization' of disability where deaf folks arent 'qualified' to teach deaf children in school, blind folks arent 'qualified' to work in their own organizations, etc etc etc. For reals.

The charge of inadequacy when it comes to state funding and social programs for the integration of people with disabilities is valid. How you got there is a bit worrisome. How you enframed the discussion indicates the medical/charitable model moreso than the rights model of disability.

What's more important, especially for a site like feministing, is to consider who, what, where, when, how,and why disability was ever enframed in such ways that lead up to such policies, statuses, and lived experiences of disability (moreso of the person with the disability, and then adding in the experiences of the family and women who perform free labour for inadequate disability policies).

The disability rights movement has yet to fully see its day as a recognized category of oppressed individuals.

When three quarters of the free labour involved in disability is still performed by women (an old estimate, but an estimate none the less, and not hard to imagine), it is essential to enframe part of the disability rights movement as a feminist issue.

Take autism. Did you know that from the 40s until the 70s, two theorists (Kanner and Bettelheim) in the U.S. popularized the idea that autism was caused by women? More particularly, that autism was the result of poor mothering by women who were too educated? This came to be known in the knowledges on this disability spectrum as 'refrigerator mothers'. Seriously. Moreover, autism wasn't formally recognized as neurological until 1994.

So what happened in those years when it was a woman's fault? It was her obligation to right those wrongs. There are documentaries out there on the internalization of these sexist interpretations of disability and the guilt women have experienced because of such discourses.

But now let's think, where intersectionality tells us to, about the consequences of a sexist policy upon the people who have such disabilities.

When these views were essentially discredited, and autism was formally recognized as neurological, there was no reparation, no major policy shift in the dealings of autism as far as the states obligations went. All in the context of the two-parent income family by now. That's why women still perform the majority of free labour associated with disability, oppression on the basis thereof, and systemic barriers that require a womens free labour in the first place.

Without any major shift in national or local strategies for people with autism and their interactions with families, schools, education/skills training didn't really change. Instead, we still see terms like "special needs" employed which discredits the very systemic and very oppressive facts of the history of disability. How did such needs become special? The non-integration of such needs from the beginning.

The needs of people with disabilities in general are not that special. Requiring a less oppressive society may be quite the task, but certainly that is not "special". Such a term has ironically been subordinated from its original meaning. Folks in the disability rights movement barely understand at this point what "special needs" means, since when it comes to policies, social expenditures, buildings and physical spaces, nothing is "special" about accessibility. It's actually really easy. What's kind of "special" is that we continue to build a society in which not everyone can participate equally.

However, I must say, I do not intend to discredit yours or anyones anxiety about the immediate future status of disability should a republican take office once more. And I also appreciate that someone, no matter how it is enframed, is asking such questions on such a relevant site. I just ask that you notice that when the first words you use to describe your brother relate to his disability, and then the ones that follow are qualifiers; "vibrant and funny", that does nothing to elevate the status of disability as a rights issue. Disability first and likeability second is so common and so demeaning it must be reconsidered.

When disability is still understood as charity, and not rights, it is plain to see how easy it is for society to allow the continuation of deprivation of resources for these oppressed folks.

Unless we take up the language of the disability rights movement, we are only gatekeepers, volunteers who are talking about our own panic, and not necessarily talking about the actual lived experiences and life problems of a person with a disability. Go on and wonder, does your panic make him feel inferior? Does it make him feel guilty? Do you think he is even aware of such things? Did you write off his ability to be aware in the first place? There are groundbreaking new discoveries in the field of autism that is shaking up earlier assumptions. Only because the scientific community and most folks otherwise wrote off people with disabilities in such ways until, well, we're still working on that one. But you see, it's set up where they have to prove themselves in such ways, against a context of inferiority and irrelevance.

Which is why I've gone on here to talk about these things. Normally in media analysis, yer not supposed to, you know, interject. But when it comes to one of the strongest fringe voices on the interweb at a time of potential change for the most powerful country in the world, and when it comes to a feminist site that includes intersectionality as much as it can, I only want to say that in order for you to take seriously the oppression of people with disabilities, it must be talked about from a rights perspective and nothing but. That you started your article off talking about the politics of word choice is no coincidence. The politics of the vocabulary of such issues is alive in disability. Some would say the revolution depends on such a shift.

Critical disability has already had some serious rows with feminism. Where able-bodied feminists historically demand freedom from reproduction, disabled women historically have had to affirm their freedom to reproduce; such is the long history of forced sterilization of disabled women. Feminists essentially left women with disabilities behind, and feminism is only beginning to catch up to this debate.

Bad news on the horizon for feminists.
As far as Palin and this election goes, feminism has no definitive and simple answers as far as disability goes. Palin knew she was going to have a child with Downs Syndrome but allowed the fetus to do its thing and be born. Abortion and disability have an incredible tension going on that nobody, until Palin came along, had really put into the public. Freedom of choice suddenly can be said to be 'freedom to choose a baby without a disability'. Watch out for this one. Nobody is watching it.

I know, I know, when the social infrastructure isn't there, alongside the historical oppression and stigmatization of people with disabilities, women of pro-choice views tend to choose not to have children with disabilities, and if only the supports were there, this might change. But the republican message on this is already clear.

Right to life for people with disabilities resonates; even if it is a little obscure to be voting directly against most/all of the policies that ameliorate the status of disability after birth, at least someone says that you were supposed to be alive.

That's part of the reason why feminism must only discuss disability from the rights perspective. That's why we cannot talk as gate-keepers, worried about how shoddy disability policy is going to affect us [we the able-bodied guardians]. We must take into account the material facts of life (the free labour of women and the forced dependency and impoverishment of people with disabilities) alongside the ideological drivers of such facts of life and reframe it in our own minds exclusively as a rights issue.

I have asberger's syndrome, a form of high functioning autism. I don't really feel like explaining my disorder right now so if anyone is interested I suggest checking the Wikipedia page on it because it has great info. Anyway, I recieve government aid as well. I had a job coach two years ago who got me interviews and even accompied me on said interviews. With her help I was able to get my current job at Target. I still was a client for awhile after recieving the job to make sure things went right. She only got involved when I was punched by a co-worker after I reported her for making homophobic comments which is again company policy.

Anyway, I highly doubt I would have gotten my job if it wasn't for her. I have trouble keeping eye contact and that tends to turn off employeers. I may need a job coach again someday but until then I feel for other disabled people who need services like this and probably won't get them.

Cuz! I appear to be the last person on earth to discover that you're the New Thing at Feministing. (As my tribe is fond of saying: "You never call. You never write.")

Mega-congratulations. As always, my thoughts are with you, C-Money, and Bill. It is very damned personal.

This one hit close to home. My brother is mentally disabled since he's schizo-affective. One time he didn't receive MediCare for three days (something wrong with the paperwork). He told me it was three days from hell, that he was literally trapped in his mind. It was a stressful year for all of us since our governor was threatening to cut loads of funding for MediCare, and his meds were $500 a pop. Luckily, petitions and legislation didn't let that happen. Just more proof that a little bit of activism doesn't hurt...unless it's violent...and then it does.