It occurred to me the other day that I frequently reference the concept of disability tragedy porn (which I often shorten to just tragedy porn or disability porn), but I haven’t actually taken the time to sit down and define it, to discuss what, precisely, it is, and why it’s a problem. I sort of …
Tag Archives: social attitudes
Yes, Genderqueer People Have A Stake In Gender Politics
One of the frustrating things for me about spending a lot of time with women, writing about women’s issues, and interacting with women is that I’m usually read as a woman and have that identity forced on me even though I’m very open about the fact that I’m genderqueer. This isn’t just because of how …
Disability As Failure On Medical Dramas
The depiction of disability on medical dramas is often extremely frustrating, because of the fundamental mindset behind such dramas and the people who create them. In the setting of a television show revolving around a hospital environment in the United States, a nation with a highly medicalised disability culture, impairments are viewed not as a …
Be Inspired By What People Do, Not By Aspects of Their Identity
One of the most pervasive and irritating tropes about disability is the idea that disabled people are inspiring simply for existing. Going out in public or doing the most simple of daily tasks is grounds for being patted on the head (sometimes literally) and told how inspiring you are. How you’re so brave. You touch …
How Your Attitudes Might Be Trapping Disabled People In Their Homes
Progressives struggling to grasp the concept of ableism often want to be pointed at specific, real-world examples of how ableism works against disabled people. Despite the fact that disability-based discrimination is a huge social construct that contributes to everything from how policy is made to how spaces are laid out, they want a crystal-clear thing …
Think Progressive Disability Is Awful? Rethink Your Views On Disability.
In conversations about progressive conditions, one of the most common attitudes I encounter is that they’re awful and horrific. They leave people isolated and alone, living in nursing homes staring quietly at the wall and waiting to die. These arguments are used as the underpinning of assertions that people with progressive conditions live inherently unfulfilled …
Cancer and Heroism
In examining troubling narratives surrounding breast cancer, one thing I often think about is the framing of breast cancer patients as ‘heroes,’ as though you get a cape and mask with your diagnosis. That attitude is reinforced in the language people use about going through cancer treatment; patients are ‘battling’ or ‘fighting’ cancer, and they …
A Refusal to Perform for Your Inspiration
People with disabilities, particularly physical disabilities, are constantly expected to perform as inspirational cripples. They are, you see, so very brave for daring to come outside, so heroic, and thus, nondisabled people often feel the need to single them out, to let them know how inspired they are by the whole thing; an entire genre …
Nailing Gender
Starting over the summer, I began doing my nails a lot. Like most things bound to wind me up in trouble, I blame Marianne for it; she’s the one who got me started with the whole thing, encouraged me to be adventurous, and provided me with endless tips as I fought with the early stages …
It’s Not the Emotions, It’s How You Act On Them
A thing I find myself saying more and more lately is this: ‘you can’t control your feelings, but you can decide what you do about them.’ It doesn’t strike me as a particularly revolutionary statement, but people are often surprised by it, and that reveals a lot about how people think about emotions, feelings, and …