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megwritesI'm having sort of a genre related thought about ablism.
Right now I'm considering sci-fi, particularly SF set in the far future when humanity is far more technologically developed and there's sort of a theme that follows in this subset of the genre that bothers me a lot when I come across it, and that's the idea that nobody in the future will ever be disabled. Disease have been erased! Genetic abnormalities sorted out! There's a pill or treatment or medi-pod for anything that ails you!
It seems as though when science fiction envisions a better, or at least more advanced, version of humanity it is one without disability, and thus one without disabled people. When you imagine a future without disability, it is a future in which you imagine that there are no disabled people.
I'm sure someone will rush to say, "No! No! They'll exist, they just won't be disabled, that's all! They'll be cured in the future, isn't that great?"
Not so great, actually.
First, because we are not in the future, thus when you say such statements, you're impacting actual people in here and now. You're saying, "Wow, won't it be great when you're not like that anymore. When you're different?" Which is saying, "The way you are now is not okay."
Second, because your idea of "great" is finding ways to make disabled people "normal". I put scare quotes around normal because, well, normal is about the most oppressive, offensive, evil word in my vocabulary.
More people have suffered more evil and oppression on this Earth because they didn't fit somebody else's idea of "normal" than any other single thing I can think of. "Oh, look, people of a different culture and race! They're not normal! Let's shoot them with these nifty guns we have and take over their lands and then tell complete lies about them!" or "Oh, look, those other people there are having sexual relations with the wrong people. They're not normal. Let make nasty laws and beat them up!"
A gross oversimplification, of course, because oppression is ever so much more complex, layered, and insidious than all that. But I hope that it makes the point. People in general value "normal" without stopping in many instances to wonder if it's worth valuing - both here and in the future and the literature of the fantastic and the future.
This future we imagine, this disability-free ideal place is not one in which we've decided to stop narrowing the definition of normal and able, in which we've decided to stop shoehorning based on ability and disability decided to expand what we consider to be just another part of the wide spectrum of collective human ability. This future is one in which we (for the value of "we" which is society/humanity) pick the limitations of ability, of normal, and finally manage squeeze everyone into it ability-wise. And often, it seems, these same stories tell of a future in which we've finally squeezed everyone into the same culture and same gender definitions and sexuality. At long last, homogeneity!
This future is not one in which we have better definitions, just better medicine. In those worlds, our science evolves, our compassion and tolerance and understanding do not.
I do not like this future. It scares me and it erases so, so many people.
Why do so many writers assume that disability wouldn't follow us to the stars? What disabilities that don't even exist today would exist tomorrow? What would be reclassified as a disability or not a disability?
It seems to me that there is some confusion due to ignorance and stereotypes about disability between "normal" and "functioning".
Function is, in my own Meg-specific definition, being able to do what you want/need to do in a way that works for you. If that means using an assistive device or taking a bit longer or using different methods, that all fits under "functioning". You can have levels of functioning - because some stuff works better than others - but function is relative. It all depends on what works for you, what gets the job done for you.
Then there's normal. Normal is being able to do what others want you to do in a way that other people expect you to do it, and it often is the opposite of functional. Normal is an ever moving goal post of other people's expectations. It's the cry of "but you can walk, why are you using a wheelchair?" to a person with a pain disorder or spinal injury or some other invisible disability. It's the cry of "why can't you just get over it?" to someone who has depression or "that's not that bad, at least you didn't go to war!" to someone with PTSD. It's insisting that meatspace/offline activities count for more than, say, online ones even though online activities (academic classes, activism work, creative endeavors) are often more accessible (thus granting more function).
Alas, society values normal over functional and so does sci-fi many times.
Lose a limb? We'll regrow it! Get paralyzed in a space accident? We'll fix that, hop in a medical pod/chamber/box o' insta-healing! Blind? Here, have some nanobots. Deaf? Oh, there's a pill for that. You, too, can be made Normal.
Never you mind that you don't see a lot of mental disabilities/disorders. I can't remember the last time I read about main characters who have, say, ADHD or autism spectrum disorder or Down syndrome or an eating disorder. Because apparently these people won't be with us in the future, and they certainly won't be allowed aboard Spaceship Normal.
What's worse? Sci-fi can be the kind of genre that could really inspire others to imagine a different course of events, a different society.
I can see the value in imagining a future with better ways to help people have greater function. I can see the value in imagining sidewalks that automatically adjust themselves to better suit use of assistive devices or the value of imagining classrooms where there are computer/laptop screens made for those students who may be dyslexic or dyscalculic to help them better read and do math.
Because that? Doesn't value normal over function, it doesn't seek to reform people so that nobody ever needs an assistive device or that nobody ever is dyslexic or dyscalculic. It doesn't value the way one group of people accomplishes certain tasks over the way others accomplish them. In fact, it values a society that broadens its ranges, that instead of telling these people to adapt to it decides to adapt to them by concerning itself with accessibility, with function over inflexible, rigid ideas of how something ought to be done, or what people ought to look like, or how they ought to live.
I'd like to find more SF (or even fantasy) that talks about different worlds, that talks differently about people with disabilities.
What things in SF/F bother you from an ablism standpoint, readers? What things do you encounter over and over and wish would stop? What things do you want to encounter (or encounter more of)?
If anyone has any book/story recommendations, that would be absolutely wonderful and I'd love to hear them! Which authors and works get it right in your opinion and why?
Right now I'm considering sci-fi, particularly SF set in the far future when humanity is far more technologically developed and there's sort of a theme that follows in this subset of the genre that bothers me a lot when I come across it, and that's the idea that nobody in the future will ever be disabled. Disease have been erased! Genetic abnormalities sorted out! There's a pill or treatment or medi-pod for anything that ails you!
It seems as though when science fiction envisions a better, or at least more advanced, version of humanity it is one without disability, and thus one without disabled people. When you imagine a future without disability, it is a future in which you imagine that there are no disabled people.
I'm sure someone will rush to say, "No! No! They'll exist, they just won't be disabled, that's all! They'll be cured in the future, isn't that great?"
Not so great, actually.
First, because we are not in the future, thus when you say such statements, you're impacting actual people in here and now. You're saying, "Wow, won't it be great when you're not like that anymore. When you're different?" Which is saying, "The way you are now is not okay."
Second, because your idea of "great" is finding ways to make disabled people "normal". I put scare quotes around normal because, well, normal is about the most oppressive, offensive, evil word in my vocabulary.
More people have suffered more evil and oppression on this Earth because they didn't fit somebody else's idea of "normal" than any other single thing I can think of. "Oh, look, people of a different culture and race! They're not normal! Let's shoot them with these nifty guns we have and take over their lands and then tell complete lies about them!" or "Oh, look, those other people there are having sexual relations with the wrong people. They're not normal. Let make nasty laws and beat them up!"
A gross oversimplification, of course, because oppression is ever so much more complex, layered, and insidious than all that. But I hope that it makes the point. People in general value "normal" without stopping in many instances to wonder if it's worth valuing - both here and in the future and the literature of the fantastic and the future.
This future we imagine, this disability-free ideal place is not one in which we've decided to stop narrowing the definition of normal and able, in which we've decided to stop shoehorning based on ability and disability decided to expand what we consider to be just another part of the wide spectrum of collective human ability. This future is one in which we (for the value of "we" which is society/humanity) pick the limitations of ability, of normal, and finally manage squeeze everyone into it ability-wise. And often, it seems, these same stories tell of a future in which we've finally squeezed everyone into the same culture and same gender definitions and sexuality. At long last, homogeneity!
This future is not one in which we have better definitions, just better medicine. In those worlds, our science evolves, our compassion and tolerance and understanding do not.
I do not like this future. It scares me and it erases so, so many people.
Why do so many writers assume that disability wouldn't follow us to the stars? What disabilities that don't even exist today would exist tomorrow? What would be reclassified as a disability or not a disability?
It seems to me that there is some confusion due to ignorance and stereotypes about disability between "normal" and "functioning".
Function is, in my own Meg-specific definition, being able to do what you want/need to do in a way that works for you. If that means using an assistive device or taking a bit longer or using different methods, that all fits under "functioning". You can have levels of functioning - because some stuff works better than others - but function is relative. It all depends on what works for you, what gets the job done for you.
Then there's normal. Normal is being able to do what others want you to do in a way that other people expect you to do it, and it often is the opposite of functional. Normal is an ever moving goal post of other people's expectations. It's the cry of "but you can walk, why are you using a wheelchair?" to a person with a pain disorder or spinal injury or some other invisible disability. It's the cry of "why can't you just get over it?" to someone who has depression or "that's not that bad, at least you didn't go to war!" to someone with PTSD. It's insisting that meatspace/offline activities count for more than, say, online ones even though online activities (academic classes, activism work, creative endeavors) are often more accessible (thus granting more function).
Alas, society values normal over functional and so does sci-fi many times.
Lose a limb? We'll regrow it! Get paralyzed in a space accident? We'll fix that, hop in a medical pod/chamber/box o' insta-healing! Blind? Here, have some nanobots. Deaf? Oh, there's a pill for that. You, too, can be made Normal.
Never you mind that you don't see a lot of mental disabilities/disorders. I can't remember the last time I read about main characters who have, say, ADHD or autism spectrum disorder or Down syndrome or an eating disorder. Because apparently these people won't be with us in the future, and they certainly won't be allowed aboard Spaceship Normal.
What's worse? Sci-fi can be the kind of genre that could really inspire others to imagine a different course of events, a different society.
I can see the value in imagining a future with better ways to help people have greater function. I can see the value in imagining sidewalks that automatically adjust themselves to better suit use of assistive devices or the value of imagining classrooms where there are computer/laptop screens made for those students who may be dyslexic or dyscalculic to help them better read and do math.
Because that? Doesn't value normal over function, it doesn't seek to reform people so that nobody ever needs an assistive device or that nobody ever is dyslexic or dyscalculic. It doesn't value the way one group of people accomplishes certain tasks over the way others accomplish them. In fact, it values a society that broadens its ranges, that instead of telling these people to adapt to it decides to adapt to them by concerning itself with accessibility, with function over inflexible, rigid ideas of how something ought to be done, or what people ought to look like, or how they ought to live.
I'd like to find more SF (or even fantasy) that talks about different worlds, that talks differently about people with disabilities.
What things in SF/F bother you from an ablism standpoint, readers? What things do you encounter over and over and wish would stop? What things do you want to encounter (or encounter more of)?
If anyone has any book/story recommendations, that would be absolutely wonderful and I'd love to hear them! Which authors and works get it right in your opinion and why?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-13 04:31 pm (UTC)"Different" people may not be mentioned because they may not be considered different. Such as skincolor. In many works I've read it's not mentioned. A lot of times even the skincolor of the main character is not mentioned nor is the race. They could be of any race, it's just not mentioned, thus not considered important. It could be the same deal with disabilities that are not actually impairing the character or influencing the story
I'm massively uncomfortable with this right here. I get that I am barely up to racism 101, but this really didn't sit right with me.
Skin color is not interchangeable with race, just so you know. Not mentioning a skin color is NOT the same as not mentioning a race.
I've also read a lot of books where the race, ethnicity, and/or nationality of characters was never mentioned. I didn't find it to be a good positive thing or indicative of a better future. That often leads to readers interpreting the characters as white. I do not know how you identify yourself racially, but being able to say that race is not important is a very, very privileged thing. Being able to dismiss race, not identify it, not think about it is something the privileged get to do, and it is NOT a good thing. I identify white and I know that in the past, I have had the privilege to claim that race didn't matter, that I didn't see race, that race wasn't important to me. And it was sheer privilege to say that, especially in the context of me being American and white.
I don't want to read more SF about characters who are stripped of any race, where it isn't even mentioned, where race is taken to be "unimportant". I've read enough of that.
2. Race and disability are not the same thing. So I'm not sure how comparing portrayals where the race of a character is never even mentioned with disabilities that aren't mentioned or don't impair a character is appropriate here.
They would be different. They would not be born blind or they would not have malformed arm, but they would live. Are you saying that you do not agree with trying to find cures for this? That's how it seems to me.
Let me make sure I'm clarifying myself.
Scientific research into cure and treatments and the options PWD choose for themselves are not mine to judge, to agree or disagree with. I think people should do what is best for themselves with what they have available. If/when treatments/cures are made available, people should be able to choose what is best for them. END OF.
I have no place and no right to say "should" for anyone else but myself.
If there's a treatment or a cure or a therapy or a medicine - now or in the future - that a person decides to pursue because it is right for them, then that's a good thing.
This is not about me saying what people should and shouldn't do in reality WRT to disability. I have no place and no business saying such things, speaking beyond my experience and out of privilege. That would be wrong, and if it sounds like I'm saying that, then that's a failing on my part to be clear and to make sure I checked myself when writing. For that I apologize.
This is about the SF futures that people are writing about and what attitudes may be reflected and reinforced in what is imagined. That's what this discussion is about.
I think when the only story told is that EVERY DISABILITY EVER is quickly cured and everyone is made typical/average/"normal", then that's a problem, not because I think there should never be any real-life research into treatments, cures, and making more options available (OPTIONS to be chosen, not forced cures), but because I think this can reflect ablist attitudes some writers hold and attitudes in society in general.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-13 05:18 pm (UTC)I know it isn't and I'm fairly positive my wording doesn't sound like I think that, but if it does, I apologize, it was not my intention.
I didn't find it to be a good positive thing or indicative of a better future.
Why do you think so? For me a future where people don't immediately think "OMG! He's jewish, therefore he's only after money." or "OMG! He's black therefore he's a gangster" positive. I just think that a person is far more than their skin color or, if more specific, race. I also do not think that contemporary world is a place where we can ignore races and cultural differences between them. I do not believe we will ever reach the future I am dreaming about because hermeneutic circle is inescapable. Please do keep in mind that not concentrating on skin color or race is not the same as ignoring individual's or group of people's culture.
That often leads to readers interpreting the characters as white.
I believe that is the true problem. But that's the problem of modern society, not the book's. Modern society portrays the average hero as a young white man with the ideals of western society. But there is no one in such books saying that the hero is actually white. It's the reader who imagines them this way.
I don't want to get into this debate now, but is it such a problem if a white american boy interprets such hero as a white american man? If he identifies with that man? This picture sums it up well. But this is for a far longer discussion and it's not what this article of yours is about.
Race and disability are not the same thing.
Of course they are not the same thing, but sometimes those things are really irrelevant to the story, that's what I was trying to say and if it wasn't clear - again, I apologize.
I think when the only story told is that EVERY DISABILITY EVER is quickly cured and everyone is made typical/average/"normal", then that's a problem...
I agree with that, but not to that extent. I believe if a story is set in far future that the level of medicine should correspond to this and the quickness of the treatment should be adequate to that. Just a simple flu was far more serious disease even a one hundred years ago. Imagine what can happen in thousands of years. I do believe though that there should be more mentions of new diseases and disabilities that are not cured as quickly or ever. But if it's something there already is cure for in that universe or it's something as normal for them as is getting pills for cold for us nowadays, why it should take long? Why it should be hard? Why should the author concentrate on that if it's not specifically a story that's about disabilities?
No, we are not doing this.
Date: 2010-06-13 07:18 pm (UTC)I believe that is the true problem. But that's the problem of modern society, not the book's. Modern society portrays the average hero as a young white man with the ideals of western society. But there is no one in such books saying that the hero is actually white. It's the reader who imagines them this way.
I don't want to get into this debate now, but is it such a problem if a white american boy interprets such hero as a white american man? If he identifies with that man? This picture sums it up well. But this is for a far longer discussion and it's not what this article of yours is about.
NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.
You are not bringing that here into my space. Why do you think the book, and the assumptions readers are making are divorced from each other? That it's "the book's" problem that readers assume whiteness, or that it's not deliberate? Or that books doing that over and over again is not PART OF THE FUCKING CAUSE of that assumption?
And maybe I'd hash that out with you and we'd talk, but that cartoon? Oh hells no. I do not put up with that in my space. I don't like to ban people but I'm not continuing this discussion with you, I'm just NOT. That was offensive.
Oh, and you need to take a look at this: About children identifying with certain baby dolls.
Oh and this?
Just a simple flu was far more serious disease even a one hundred years ago.
Depending on where you live, what you have access to, and the condition of your health? The flu still IS a very, vey serious disease and I'd appreciate if you didn't trivialize that. Again, I don't know how you identify - but I do know that this rings of the privileged and Western assumption that certain diseases aren't serious/don't exist because medicines are readily available and accessible to the privileged among us to treat them.
To the uninsured or with no access to healthcare, to those with compromised immune systems, often to the elderly and the young? There is no damn thing as "the simple flu".