More on The "Ashley Treatment" -- Growing Up with Sky
As a follow-up to my previous post, here is more commentary from feminist and disabled bloggers about The Ashley Treatment.
Earlebecke at Definition - a Feminist Weblog reminds readers that "People with disabilities are first and foremost people with rights."
She is also disappointed in the lack of coverage in the feminist blogosphere:
"I'm still disappointed that there's not more outrage in the major feminist blogs. (Amanda at Pandagon's response can only be described as completely bizarre. Piny hasn't made a post yet but he's been active on other threads so I expect to see something at Feministe soon. Feministing? Who the hell knows?) But if this whole matter has made one thing clear it's that I need to have more disability rights bloggers besides the Gimp Parade in my regular reading list."She wasn't the only one; Sally vents her frustration in a comment at The Gimp Parade at the conversations taking place at two high-traffic feminist communities.
Definition also points to a post by Thirza Cuthand at Fit of Pique. It describes growing up with her disabled sister, Sky.
She discusses her sister's sexuality:
"Watching her sexuality develop has been pretty trippy too. She doesn't kiss or have sex obviously, but she's very boy crazy, at the dances for other challenged adults in Saskatoon she was known as the girl who steals people's boyfriends. She blushes when she sees a handsome man, jeez, I mean she's so heterosexual!"She goes on to say:
"The whole concept of keeping her [Ashley] looking like a child disturbs me deeply. They say that since she has the mentality of an infant, it is grotesque to allow her to inhabit a grown 'sexualized' female body. Apparently females with sexual signifiers are only allowed when they are able to be sexual partners. A grown woman with intellectual disabilities is an abomination."Her final paragraph reads:
"The last point I would like to make is this disturbing 'Pillow Angel' label they place on Ashley and anyone else with comparative disabilities. It refers to the fact that they can put her on a pillow and she stays there. I know they're trying to be cutesy, but it comes across as patronizing in the extreme and a damning assessment of her identity. I bet they even coochie coochie coo her. Bleh. And also, when I think 'Pillow Angel' I think 'Pillow Queen' which refers to a sexual partner who does nothing and lets the other one do all the work. It suggests complacency rather than disability.You must read the whole post, titled, "Growing Up with Sky".
"I think the 'Ashley Treatment' is barbaric. I'll go with the Sky treatment any day."
Blue at The Gimp Parade has gathered some other posts from disabled and feminist perspectives, and I have a slightly different list at Sour Duck.
I also strongly recommend the following posts:
- Did I Miss Something?: It begins with Ashley.
- Wheelchair Dancer: Human Rights
4 comments:
Interestingly, the implication that I disagree with the idea that the disabled have rights was just the issue I have with the hand-wringing over this case. It's clear to me that the disabled are and should be treated as human beings with rights, like individuals, and not all painted with the same brush.
An excerpt from Say It Ain't So on the Planet of the Blind.
When we imagine that by means of surgery and drugs that we're doing a good thing by making another person's body and life fit our own convenience we are essentially confusing utility with ethics. Ashley, who cannot speak for herself has been rendered an object in this process. Those in the medical ethics and disability communities who see a connection between this procedure and eugenics are in my view not wrong. I'm very troubled by this story and I sense that my gut reaction is truly the ethical position.
Hi, Thanks for sharing these links with us. I'd like to recommend two more links. The first is from Stephen Kuusisto in "Say It Ain't So" on the Planet of the Blind.
Then, before you leave, scroll up to the post above it. There you'll find a link to a very powerful statement by Penny L. Richards. You'll see!
If you want more links, here is mine. The post itself is about a sentence long, but I talk in the comments about what it's like.
I'm really indignant, so there's not a lot of hand-holding. But I wanted to let someone outside of my own readership know about it, because as a woman with a physical disability I read "feminists'" comments on this stuff and it just stuns me how blase they are about the idea of putting someone under the knife -- of mutilating a person's female body, of removing her uterus and stunting her breasts.
If this happened to anyone other than someone with disabilities, we'd be calling it horrible violence and throwing up.
I know what it's like in your world. I've been under your knives. More times than I can quite remember. There are lots of scars on both my body and my mind. I don't think I'd suddenly be impervious if I were a child, or less intelligent. It doesn't work like that.
As a society we minimize the hell out of surgery. Oh it's outpatient and it takes 45 minutes! is all you hear about all these cute little fixer-ups that we have now. No one talks about the reality of serious surgery. No one talks about what it's like to experience and what it does.
Hysterectomies don't become cute just because someone has a disability. This is mutilation, plain and simple. Does anyone remember in all this the long history of forced sterilization of women who were poor? "Feebleminded?" Of color?
Suddenly all of that doesn't matter any more if it means these parents can have a portababy forever?
My own post is here:
http://trinityva.livejournal.com/556474.html
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