Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013

Welcome to Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013!

Thanks very much to everyone who helped to spread the word and to everyone who is blogging against disablism, ableism and disability discrimination.

If you have a post for Blogging Against Disablism, please leave a comment including the URL (web address) of your post and the catergory your post fits best.

We'll be updating this post throughout the day to create an archive of all the posts. We'll also try to post links to every blog using the Twitter stream @BADDtweets and these will automatically be posted onto our Facebook Page.

As with the last few years, Stephen and I are sharing the work, but even with two people, there are bound to be typos, so please be patient and let us know if you notice any mistakes.

In Memory of Elizabeth McClung (1970 - 2013)

Today, we heard of the death of disability blogger and Blogging Against Disablism Day contributor Elizabeth McClung. She wrote so passionately and bravely about disability that it seems appropriate to dedicate this year's BADD to her memory. There are over a thousand posts on her blog Screw Bronze, but here are her old BADD posts, as samples of her work:

The life no one wants and the war on disabled. 

Disablism within disability

I believe... one day

Those lazy, deceiving disabled. Why won't they die?

Blogging Against Disablism 2013

Employment (Disability discrimination in the workplace, recruitment issues and unemployment).  Gilbert and Me:  Stop Doing More with Less Grace Quantock:  The stripper pole liberated me too I'm a Grad School Cautionary Tale:  Trying to get a Part Time Job Rolling with the Punches:  Can or Can't Work, a Disability Dilemma there is no should:  part-time workers are workers This Ain't Livin':  Accessible Labour Rights Education (Attitudes and practical issues effecting disabled people and the discussion of disability in education, from preschool to university and workplace training.) That Crazy Crippled Chick:  Ironic (Or, How My Entire College Career Just Blew Up In My Face) Feminist Sonar:  Facing the Academy I'm a Grad School Cautionary Tale:  Disabled Grad Students and Disability Offices Lessons from the Warrior's Chair:  Do my students see me as disabled? And should they? Rolling in the Fast Lane:  A Moment of Disablism  Urbanus Tenus Herma:  B. A. D. D. – another year older, wiser, prejudiced against... Technology and Web Accessibility Diary of Mister Goldfish: A Sticky Situation Diary of Mister Goldfish: Tech Expands the World Sharon Wachsler:  Is Your Blog Against Disablism Accessible to Disabled Bloggers (and Readers)? Visibility Fiction:  DRM=Discrimination Other Access Issues (Posts about any kind of access issue in the built environment, shops, services and various organisations. By "access issues" I mean anything which enables or disenables a person from doing what everyone else is able to do.) A Barnsley Historian's View:  Today I Travelled to Sheffield Cambriangirl:  The Ol’ Trigger Warning Switcheroo Disability Matters UK:  One Woman Went To Work! Jon Bateman  :The subtle forms of discrimination Life in Deep Water:  “Woke Up This Morning Feeling Blue, Man I’ve Got Those Blue Badge Blues” Urocyon's Jaunts:  Accessible Labour Rights Definition and Analysis of Disablism/ Ableism I ♥ [heart] the Phylum Chordata: Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013 (Also Posted Here) A Path Through the Valley:  Discrimination The Language of Disablism(Posts about the language which surrounds disability and the way that it may empower or disempower us.) Bigger on the Inside:  Labels and Lies The Phantasmagoric and Thaumaturgic Blog:  My Identitification as Disabled, Mixed With Some Queerness Disablism Interacting with Other 'Isms' (Posts about the way in which various discriminations interact; the way that the prejudice experienced as a disabled person may be compounded by race, gender, age, sexuality etc..) The Haps:  A Memory m0ndayschild88:  Disablism, Ageism, and Living with Invisible Illnesses Disablism in Literature, Culture and the Media Low Visionary:  Women, disableism and literature Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains:  Overcoming Prejudice Through Changing the Narrative The old jaw jaw:  Yes, another Twilight post: Billy Black's wheels Paul Canning:  Channel Four are idiots pseudo-living:  Belated BADD Post - What's Your Excuse? Unicorn of Doom:  Doctor Who needs to be better about disability History Anthro, Etc.:  Disability in Bioarchaeology Disability Studies, Temple U: Bad History Doesn't Help Relationships, Love and Sex Crippled, Queer, Anglo-European Ranter:  No Sex Please, We're... Disabled! Diary of Mister Goldfish: Demi-Wife Pretty Pancreas:  Reproduction While Disabled You don't look sick!:  Are we really Undateable? Sport rowrowyourboat:  Is disablism within rowing intentional?   Other Poetry against Disablism Tor-Elias:  Pain, a love letter A Writer In A Wheelchair:  Bored Art and Photography Against Disablism Angry Activist Art:  Crazy Angry Activist Art:  Glass Box Angry Activist Art:  Inside the Box

General Thoughts on Disablism Accessible Insights Blog:  The Adversity of Anything  Cracked Mirror in Shalott:  Microcosmic Multitudes Em with ME:  #BADD2013 Frida Writes:  Noli Me Tangere Funky Mango's Musings:  Growing Up Beside You  I Wish Somebody Would Steal My Shoes:  Having Disabilities is a Full-Time Job  Jennifer Fitz:  Theology of the Body for Every Body Live in, Love in, Laugh in:  I am who I am, because I'm disabled and I won't disappear because you want me to Lounalune:  At the Library Mecarta:  It Starts With Us Nightengalesknd:  Steps le pays des humains volants:  We Are Still Here!/Nous Sommes Toujours là Radical Neurodivergence Speaking:  Kickin it Old School for BADD 2013 rainbow_goddess:  You're Not Really Disabled  Restless Hands: It's Blogging Against Disableims Day! Skepchick:  Guest Post - Blog Against Disablism Day by Chris “Gonz Blinko” Hofstader Stand Tall Through Everything:  Is There Internal Prejudice? Wheelchair Dancer:  Just When You Think Wheelie Catholic: My BADD Parenting Issues(whether disabled parents or the parents of a disabled child.) Blacktelephone:  Brave In The Attempt Victoria Wright:  I'm not a monster - I'm a mummy Healthcare Issues(For example, the provision of healthcare, institutionalistaion of disabled people, reproductive ethics and euthanasia) ABC Therapeutics:  Tinfoil hat analysis - Crypto-eugenics and the autism community Accessibility NZ: Our Homes, Not Nursing Homes Ballastexistenz: Feeding tubes and weird ideas Benefit Scrounging Scum: The Right To Live And The Right To Die Diary of a Goldfish: Blamelessness Indigo Jo Blogs: Rosa Monckton, learning disabilities and independence A Room Of My Own:  Never forget where you came from Variously Awesome:  Blogging Against Disablism Day Impairment-Specific Prejudice Bad Aspergers:  Autistic Discrimination A Blind Man's Journey:  The Rarity of Multi Celtic Compliance:  Are you providing the best possible customer service to deaf and hearing impaired clients? Diary of a Benefit Scrounger:  Tube-ageddon Grimalkin:  How depression makes everything harder Journeymouse:  Living with Invisible Disability Life Decanted:  Fact-Fallacy-Photo Maijan ilmestykset:  Barrier-free food (Esteetöntä ruokaa) VisionAware:  Guest Blogger John Miller: Blogging against "Disablism" with a Dual Disability The Wandering Monster: Tic Tic, Tick Tock Personal Journeys Posts about learning experiences and realisations authors have had about the nature of disability discrimination and the impact on their lives. cherryflip:  Identifying as disabled Crip_tic:  Return of the Borg - Life on a ventilator (and other machines!) holymansam.wordpress.com:  Jemma’s Story The Mysterious Life of...:  I'm BADD Never that Easy:  “We are familiar..."  People Aren't Broken: Magic Words Restless Hands:  It's Blogging Against Disablism Day  Rolling Around In My Head:  A Day Late / Right On Time  Same Difference:  I Took My Parents To Holland Scrumptiously:  Elizabeth McClung 1970-2013 Skepchick:  Guest Post: Blog Against “Disablism” Day by Sarah Moglia Disablism and Politics (For example, the political currency of disability, anti-discrimination legislation, etc.) Cats and Chocolate:  Coming Together hofstader.com:  Rant Against Disablism: Nothing About Us Without Us! Flat Out:  Behind the Mask  Flat Out:  When Demonisation Makes Sense Jane Young:  Independent living is expensive – but its value exceeds the cost Law Geek's Blog:  Inspiring lip service? The Official Site of Lesley Smith:  The ESA50 and me #BADD Rambling Justice:  Five Ways to Support the US #CRPD Ratification Campaign!  Ramblings of a Fibro Fogged Mind:  Politics ‘V’ Political The notes which do not fit:  On Privilege and Fraud Bullying, Harassment and Hate Crime Little Miss Perception:  My First B.A.D.D.  xojane:  It's Blogging Against Disablism Day, and I'm Talking Disability Hate Crimes Yes, That Too:  Blogging Against Disablism Day Yet Another Lefty: People don't listen

List of Participating Blogs

Blogging Against Disablism 2013: Blamelessness

The first duty of a disabled person is to be blameless.

In the Ipswich Star last week, a lady called Sarah Ashford spoke about the terrible situation the UK government's Bedroom Tax has placed her in;

“It’s a vicious attack on the most vulnerable people in society, especially somebody like me who didn’t have a choice to be born disabled. I was a breech birth back in 1964. I should’ve been born by caesarean and I should’ve been a normal baby.”

It's not in any way Ashford's fault that she is forced to speak like this, invoking the events of fifty years ago to prove that she is not to blame for her impairment. So much mainstream discussion of disability - especially the effects of austerity cuts - hinges on this language, this need to demonstrate that the people effected are worthy of charitable treatment. Words like innocent, genuine and victims pepper even the language of some disabled activists, although the implication is quite clear: there are those of us who are innocent victims of circumstance and there are those who brought misfortune upon themselves.

..........

Hideous! A pale-skinned  foot with
a heavily bandaged big toe.

I'm just finishing a second course of antibiotics for gruesomely infected toe. It's not painful, but it's been disruptive and draining and as of writing, it is still infected. Before the cause was established, I was variously asked whether

• I had cut my toe nails too short.
• I had let my toe nails grow too long.
• I hadn't rinsed my toes when washing.
• I hadn't dried my toes after washing.
• I had let my feet get too hot.
• I had let my feet get too cold.

Or, most ironically, given my circumstances,

• I had been walking about in impractical ill-fitting high-heeled shoes. 

Some of these suggestions were made by family, others by medical professionals. I was so relieved when finally I saw a podiatrist, who explained in CSI-style detail that I had badly stubbed my toe (she could tell the precise angle it had happened at and everything). 

It's ridiculous I should feel such relief.  Any other cause would have been just as accidental. I struggle with washing, drying and maintaining a stable temperature, and poor co-ordination makes my nail-cutting decidedly inexpert. The podiatrist said this long winter has brought about something of a chilblain epidemic. This stuff happens to people.

But I know my responsibilities. I have to be trying my best, to be as healthy as possible. I have to do all the right things, and be seen to be doing all the right things, to avoid relapse, infection or complication. So none of it is ever my fault. Other people can afford to make themselves vulnerable in small unwitting ways, but not me. Any infections I get will be despite my very best efforts.

Other people have it even worse. Some years ago, I was awkwardly introduced to a friend of a friend who had my condition, and believed that she was improving with the help of some extremely expensive, extremely dubious alternative therapy. Her parents were paying ten thousands pounds a year - much more than my annual income - on these bizarre potions from a man who had convinced her that she was now cured but she had to keep taking the potion and seeing him regularly because her body hadn't let go of all her symptoms (or, in fact, any of them).

She was a very difficult person to speak to, as she thought everyone should be doing the same. 

She said, "You've always got to be trying something to get better. Otherwise, you've given up."

.....................

We've developed a morality around health and healthy living to rival previous generations' interest in other people's sex lives. Food, which should be all about fuel, nutrition, social activity and sensual pleasure, has acquired the language of sinfulness and virtue; this devilish chocolate cake, this goody-two-shoes salad. People sometimes boast about doing physical exercise they actually hate, in much the same way a Medieval penitent might have celebrated how very very itchy his hair shirt was.

The wages of sin are not only death, but illness and disability in the run-up.

There's a get-out clause, of course, and that's if you can stay healthy, looking healthy. You may still boast of your efforts to steer clear of those satanic carbs and to practice Zumba like Saint Francis of Assisi, but as long as you remain non-disabled and slim enough, it's all hypothetical. It's all a bit of a joke really if you eat nothing but pizza and cigarette smoke. Only if you're disabled or fat is an adult likely to get earnest advice about diet, exercise, drugs and getting enough fresh air and sunshine. And since some of that advice will contradict (carrots are a panacea; carrots are a poison), we can never get it right.

It's particularly hard for disabled people to make healthy choices, let alone be seen to make healthy choices. Pain and distress can make avoiding drink, cigarettes and drugs more difficult. Many prescription drugs are fairly bad for you, especially long term; it's just that in the balance, their effects are preferable than the alternative. Digestive problems, poor care, poverty, allergies and intolerances mean that disabled people often have diminished choices about what they eat.  Poor mobility and metabolic problems mean disabled people have less choice how much weight they carry. Physical impairment, as well as poor access to gyms and swimming pools, social anxiety and the reasonable fear of exposing one's body to a world that has declared it substandard, are all barriers to exercise.

Yet despite all this, we are under the greatest pressure to try. To try and do the right things. To be seen to be doing the right things.

...............

Obesity is a very popular subject for moral panic. It's supposedly about gluttony, an old-fashioned sin and one we're all vulnerable to, because we all have to eat and most of us enjoy it. It's also about beauty standards, or their opposite and the thrilling opportunity - so rare these days - to judge others by their appearance. And then it is about health; people not looking after their own health, which is, apparently, a sin against us all.

This, despite the fact that half of us are overweight, the population overall continues to live longer and healthier lives.

In her post Chronic Illness, Diet & Food, Em describes about how, faced with her particular collection of complex physical and mental health issues, her doctors prefer to focus on her weight:

"I've hit a point where I'm too tired to fight it any more. The crushing pressure has become too much and given my other health issues it's just too much extra for me to keep battling on against. I have grudgingly agreed to see the local "Weight Management Services". Not because I want to lose weight but because I don't want to spend over half of every appointment I attend talking about my size."

We know our responsibilities. We have to be seen to be trying our best. We have to be blameless.

.............

The focus on the innocence or responsibility of disabled people removes the need to consider the physical, social and political barriers which set artificial limitations on our lives, above and beyond the problems our impairments cause. We are either individually responsible for our limitations, for our worklessness, for our difficulty getting up stairs or staying awake. Or we are the innocent victims of shocking and terrible events to be pitied, cried over during telethon evenings and forgotten about.

I think of this when people question our numbers. The World Health Organisation says we are one in seven. Both our Prime Minister and our Minister for Disabled People have both stated their intuitive disbelief about the number of people legitimately claiming disability benefits (much much less than one in seven). Last week, Ester McVey stated;

"Only three per cent of people are born with a disability, the rest acquire it through accident or illness, but people come out of it. Thanks to medical advances, bodies heal."

Only people who see impairment as an uncomplicated individual tragedy would be so anxious about the numbers. Because great personal tragedies, unthinkable, unsolvable, life-sucking tragedies - the type where you think, How do people go on? are thankfully quite rare. Every day bad luck life events? Really common. People fall and damage their back forever. People get an infection and never recover (hopefully not a toe infection!). People have bad experiences and are left with mental scars. People's own bodies and brains rebel against them. It sucks. Folk have to grieve. But then we try and get on with life.

And then we hit fresh barriers. The built environment, systems, prejudice, media representation and public attitudes. And the responsibility, ever to show ourselves to be innocent in all this.

Because it's never anyone else's fault if the world is built for strong legs, strong sight and hearing. It's not anyone's fault if someone is stared at, sometimes shouted at, whilst going about our daily business, vulnerable to abuse, discriminated against at every turn. It's not anyone's fault if we find that people like us are demonised in the press and in fiction, and that those messages slowly but surely sink in, changing the way in which we understand ourselves, forcing us to recount our medial histories and prove ourselves blameless.

These things are all tragic accidents.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013 will be on Wednesday, 1st May

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2013 is now underway! 

Please click here.

The eighth annual Blogging Against Disablism day will be on Wednesday, 1st May. This is the day where all around the world, disabled and non-disabled people blog about their experiences, observations and thoughts about disability discrimination (known as disablism or ableism). In this way, we hope to raise awareness of inequality, promote equality and celebrate the progress we've made.

How to take part.

1. Post a comment below to say you intend to join in. I will then add you to the list of participants on the sidebar of this blog. Everyone is welcome.

2. Spread the word by linking to this site, displaying our banner and/ or telling everyone about it on blogs, newsgroups, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on (we are using the hashtag #badd2013). The entire success of Blogging Against Disablism Day depends entirely on bloggers and readers telling other bloggers and readers in advance.

3. Write a post on the subject of disability discrimination, disablism or ableism and publish it on May 1st - or as close as you are able. Podcasts, videocasts and on-line art are also welcome. You can cover any subject, specific or general, personal, social or political. In the previous seven BADD, folks have written about all manner of subjects, from discrimination in education and employment, through health care, parenting, family life and relationships, as well as the interaction of disablism with racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Every year I have been asked, so it's worth saying; the discrimination experienced by people with mental ill health is disablism, so naturally posts about that are welcome too.

You can see the archives for previous years here: 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.

Blogging Against Disablism Day is not a carnival of previously published material. The point about doing this around one day (or there abouts) is that it is a communal effort and all the posts connect to one another. You can of course use your own post to promote other things you've written in the past as you wish.

4. Come back here to Diary of a Goldfish on the day to let everyone know that you've posted and to check out what other people have written. I shall post links to everyone's posts (slowly) throughout the day, creating an archive. However, I do need you to comment and leave the URL of your post or else I shan't find your post and won't be able to link to it.

This year we have both a Twitter account @BADDtweets and a Facebook Page where there will be notifications of new posts and updates to the archive during the day.


Accessibility

Naturally, Blogging Against Disablism Day invites contributions from people with all variety of impairments and none at all. You are welcome to contribute with podcasts, video-blogging or anything else that allows you to take part. And whilst May 1st is when this all takes place, nobody who happens to have a bad day that Tuesday is going to be left out of the archive.

If anyone has any questions about web accessibility, I recommend the Accessify Forum. I am not an expert on web accessibility myself, so if there are any suggestions about how I can make this day more accessible, please e-mail me at diaryofagoldfish at googlemail.com


The Linguistic Amnesty

Whilst discussions about language and the way it can be used to oppress or empower us are more than welcome, please respect the language that people use, particularly to describe themselves in their own contributions. We all have personal preferences, there are cultural variations and different political positions which affect the language we use. Meanwhile, non-disabled contributors can become nervous about using the most appropriate language to use, so please cut everyone as much slack as possible on the day.

At the same time, do not feel you have to use the same language that I do, even to talk about "disablism". If you prefer to blog against disability discrimination, ableism or blog for disability equality, then feel free to do so.

I've written a basic guide to the Language of Disability (updated for 2013) which I hope might explain some of the thinking behind the different language disabled people prefer to use about themselves.


Links & Banners

To link back to this post, simply copy and paste the following code:
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2013">Blogging Against Disablism Day</a>

These banners have seemed popular over the last couple of years and I am yet to think of anything better. If anyone fancies editing these images or coming up with something new, then please do so. You are free to use and mess with these as you like, so long as you use them in support of Blogging Against Disablism Day. If you already have the banner, you just need to change the URL that it links to from last year's BADD. Otherwise, you simply need to copy the contents of one of these boxes and paste it on your blog, in a post or on the sidebar as you like. The banners come in two colour combinations and two sizes. The sizes are a 206 pixels square or 150 x 200 pixels.

This is the black and white banner which reads "Blogging Against Disablism". Here's the code for the square one:
<a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2013"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlG7-IWPr3hTnOQRB2JGxQEMcAR_-gcvKeTsVg66maM-aWdNlvZHwzE0wy3gZEWpA-4tRiHo0I63s706PAhbYLzsbsxPq-jbK47kDJlAgI0WfPFpuISLDGcc5iju9JPbclNl0y/s320/bad01.gif" alt="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" title="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" border="0"/></a>

And here's the code for the narrower one (which can be seen here):

<a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2013"><img src=" https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBcSXhbGbBoyrY0-GAalrKdtUWPwWQTlGr_KGjwqaib4Vx7LulQ5Rs1vsOqW7dpMR6Xeu3aMYUcD3C706N8H0VQjVudXHd8aF7WjybL3oQvvs279oLeFzlw_EI6Gj39jdGTxWa/s320/narrowbanner1.gif" alt="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" title="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" border="0" /></a>


This is the colourful banner which reads "Blogging Against Disablism". This is the code for the square one:

<a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2013"><img src=" https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh26LD1wFZHKQUjLZVidcpqpMYIShd5fQv1SdOqhq_sEBzfge8XPkjKt7lzKqF8z074XxcSMV_tBokCZNqwvhsL7XoQUHT-uTmlRXUmXLRyaZN7gwx9_GK3px24NqZJtqtWNyxJ/s320/bad02.gif " alt="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" title="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" border="0" /></a>

And here's the code for the narrower one (which can be seen here):

<a href="http://tinyurl.com/BADD2013"><img src=" https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8W6vcwqHTdo6DFd43RZLo-I2dW4AtRPUIUUfs4WRgR8Z8zWP7h6Rbv7p1O7xk0S_piFLUpD1MHHPvmEP9c5jgAeFLBvldADkcq97LRRHBN2199lTJs6P2BXnTGWBQVV8te0bL/s320/narrowbanner2.gif" alt="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" title="Blogging Against Disablism Day, May 1st 2013" border="0" /></a>

Please leave a (comment including the URL of your blog) to let everyone know you are joining in and I shall add a link to you on the sidebar. Also, if you have any questions, please ask.