As this news story explains, Frankie Boyle has opened up another can of worms in relation to some jokes he made about people with Downs Syndrome at a live gig in Reading. I wasn't at the gig so I can't comment on what he said - and actually that is beside the point but I'll come on to that later. A couple on the front row of the theatre have a daughter with downs and they raised concerns and appear to have had a conversation with Frankie in front of the whole audience. They were able to say that they were unhappy with his jokes and challenge the jokes he had been making. The couple also seem to have enjoyed the rest of the show and were well aware that Frankie's humour is cutting and dark.
The first thing I'd like to say is that this for me shows freedom of speech at its best. Frankie said something that I'm sure many felt uncomfortable about. I admire the courage of the mother to take on Frankie and use her right to say she didn't think it was funny. It must have been painful for all of them involved. Freedom of speech is all about rights and responsibilities, many forget the latter.
So is it acceptable to make jokes about disabled people? What about jokes about racial groups, gays and lesbians or jokes about religion?
When I run equality and diversity training I always include a case study where it deals with humour. Usually I use the example of emailed jokes that are shared in the office. This is because most employers now have Internet policies if not equality policies that basically make emailing "offensive" jokes a bad idea or totally unacceptable. By using this example about emails I can also talk about the new digital realm and what we might say or not say on social networking sites that could affect us in the work place. But that would be a whole new blog entry which I may write later what with the Stuart MacLennan story in the news. Of course it always raises the question "what's offensive..." and here the proverbial piece of string really is never ending, and this isn't a training session so I'll move on!
During training we sometimes end up talking about the broader issues of humour, sometimes delegates will argue that if something is very funny or clever then its justified even if it causes offense. We live in a country where we have freedom of speech after all.
What are the basic rules of humour? Now this is my opinion only but I think humour is about power, and the best comedians play around with our notions of who has power and who doesn't. Jokes are about exchanging power. A joke can make the teller powerful or it can make the listener / observer feel powerful. Humour can do the opposite too, take the power form the teller and give it to the audience as we laugh at the comedian instead of with them. The trouble is that when the comedian is making the audience feel powerful they can do that at someone's expense too. Add into all that exchanging of power the element of shock and humour can be incredibly powerful.
Humour can be used as a magnificent tool to illuminate abuses of power in the outside world, it can also be used to champion the everyday, the ordinary and the weak. Humour can also be used as a form of solidarity.
I like Frankie Boyle on TV, I've not seen him live. He uses shock in his humour brilliantly. No taboo is too big and scary for him to deal with. He quite often uses the power of shock and gives the power of it to the audience by admitting to all kinds of terrible or taboo behaviour. We laugh because we are shocked that Frankie would admit to being so horrible or doing things we never talk about. He does also viciously attack others - if they are in a position of power then that can be liberating to those who don't have that power.
But Frankie does like to attack the weak or the mundane too - and that's when his humour can become uncomfortable for me. The constant Kerry Katona jokes on Mock the Week can be seen as kicking an easy target when she's down. But on the other hand is Frankie just uncovering the ridiculous nature of celebrity that is embodied in poor, pathetic Kerry?
Well Frankie's clever but is he that clever? Even if he's being clever isn't it just laziness to make jokes about disabled people?
When I ask that question I feel uncomfortable because it highlights the weak position disabled people have in society. Disabled people as individuals are not weak, we are all different, unique people with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else, but as a group within society disabled people are weaker than most. Disabled people do not have the same opportunities as non disabled people, society is constructed in a way to favour the non disabled. People with learning disabilities like Downs, are in one of the weakest positions in society. Even though people with Downs are all totally different individuals with different interests, abilities, likes and dislikes and very different senses of humour. As a group within society they are totally unrepresented. Until very recently they were generally kept away from the rest of society in residential homes and special schools.
I've worked with people with Downs and other learning disabilities and I'm sure they'd love to have a chat with Frankie about his jokes. Many of them probably roll about with laughter when watching Frankie on TV. Finding his jokes just as shocking and irreverent as anyone else does. They'd tell him what they thought of his "Downs" jokes. I'd like to see Frankie play the Beautiful Octopus Club (a festival of arts by people with learning difficulties) I think he's got to balls to do it and share some of that power that he's got as a comedian with the under represented arts movement.
For me any joke at the expense of someone who is not represented in society and so powerless is a lazy joke. I wish more people had the courage and conviction to challenge such jokes. As a visually impaired person I do squirm at the jokes made about blind people, the David Blunket jokes the one eyed Gordon Brown jokes. They're predominantly lazy, spiteful jokes that aren't uncovering anything new or enlightening and only serve as to make the audience feel smug for not being blind themselves. Don't get me going on lazy, pathetic humour exploiting people with mental health problems.
I'm proud that I live in a country where I can challenge such lazy humour. I hope that from this Frankie Boyle story a voice can be given to people with Downs. I am worried it will become a Frankie Boyle bashing story which is just stupid and pointless. People with learning difficulties wouldn't need to be "defended" if society actually listened to them in the first time and included them in comedy, arts, independent living and everything really!
Friday 9 April 2010
Monday 22 February 2010
On some issues just being to big
I got an email from a friend today asking me to join a group on Facebook asking me to support a campaign supporting "Assisted living" rather than supporting "assisted dieing /suicide" which has been in the news so much lately, particularly in relation to the Ray Gosling case. Although this has been in the news for quite some time as this radio piece by Baroness Campbell called "My right to live" illustrates.
I couldn't possibly consider blogging about this issue with out giving it a lot more thought, consideration and research. Instead I want to blog about why I found an invitation to this group so problematic.
I'm a member of all kinds of groups on Facebook from loving marmite to supporting the monks protests in Burma. I have never really minded much about what groups I've joined. But the issues relating to assisted suicide and what the concept says about society's attitude to disability is so huge and so complex I can't come down on one side or the other. And for me that is the whole point, it isn't about sides. There are disabled people who desperately want to end their lives, but can not do this for them selves and there are many disabled people who fervently believe that by recognizing assisted suicide, society is endorsing oppression of disabled people in the most extreme possible way.
Facebook and many other Internet hosted forum lend themselves well to presenting ideas in a focused and powerful manner or could that also be described as in a one sided and extreme manner? Communications on social networking sites are usually short, snappy and made often when someone is on the move, or doing two things at once. The best concentrated efforts of the group founders can be dashed by the people who join and post on that group. It is also easy for issues to be hi-jacked by people with a different agenda who piggy back on to an issue to propagate theirs. In the case of assisted suicide, many religious groups have strong feelings about suicide but don't necessarily share the disability equality aims of disability groups. This can lead to some uncomfortable bed fellows. I am minded of the anti pornography campaigning feminists who aligned themselves with religious groups who don't exactly embrace women's rights.
It was considering all of these factors which made me decide not to join my friends group on Facebook. The trouble is any campaign group I could support on the matter would have to be called something like:
"Society needs to do so much more to advance disabled people's human rights (including the right for disabled people to make their own decisions about life and death) we need to challenge and overturn the pervasive negative attitudes to disability and ensure that disabled people have equal rights and choices (including those that relate to life and ending life.)"
It just isn't very catchy for the Internet age is it?!
I couldn't possibly consider blogging about this issue with out giving it a lot more thought, consideration and research. Instead I want to blog about why I found an invitation to this group so problematic.
I'm a member of all kinds of groups on Facebook from loving marmite to supporting the monks protests in Burma. I have never really minded much about what groups I've joined. But the issues relating to assisted suicide and what the concept says about society's attitude to disability is so huge and so complex I can't come down on one side or the other. And for me that is the whole point, it isn't about sides. There are disabled people who desperately want to end their lives, but can not do this for them selves and there are many disabled people who fervently believe that by recognizing assisted suicide, society is endorsing oppression of disabled people in the most extreme possible way.
Facebook and many other Internet hosted forum lend themselves well to presenting ideas in a focused and powerful manner or could that also be described as in a one sided and extreme manner? Communications on social networking sites are usually short, snappy and made often when someone is on the move, or doing two things at once. The best concentrated efforts of the group founders can be dashed by the people who join and post on that group. It is also easy for issues to be hi-jacked by people with a different agenda who piggy back on to an issue to propagate theirs. In the case of assisted suicide, many religious groups have strong feelings about suicide but don't necessarily share the disability equality aims of disability groups. This can lead to some uncomfortable bed fellows. I am minded of the anti pornography campaigning feminists who aligned themselves with religious groups who don't exactly embrace women's rights.
It was considering all of these factors which made me decide not to join my friends group on Facebook. The trouble is any campaign group I could support on the matter would have to be called something like:
"Society needs to do so much more to advance disabled people's human rights (including the right for disabled people to make their own decisions about life and death) we need to challenge and overturn the pervasive negative attitudes to disability and ensure that disabled people have equal rights and choices (including those that relate to life and ending life.)"
It just isn't very catchy for the Internet age is it?!
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Disabled people on the box
I should be cleaning my flat right now in preparation for my Mum visiting, but I've been meaning to blog about the representation of disabled people on TV for ages. So it's the perfect procrastination activity - the cleaning will be done later!
the Ouch! (the BBC website's disability section) message board used to run a thread called "I just saw a disabled person on the TV" I don't know if it's still going but if it is, last night would have lead to some discussion on the thread. Channel 4's "How to look good naked" ran a disability themed show. Gok Wan used his unique style of self esteem boosting on disabled women to make them feel great about their bodies. I'm not going to write about the programme its self, I was watching the Hairy Bikers cookery programme instead. I don't want to criticise Gok either I actually use a video of him talking about his experiences as a over weight, gay, Chinese lad growing up on a London housing estate, in my equality and diversity training sometimes. I think he's a cool guy with good intentions. My complaint is that these programmes about disabled women could and in my opinion should have been included in the usual How to Look Good Naked format and not dealt with separately.
What I really want to do is address the issue of why How to Look Good Naked with a Difference is a topic to talk about at all? Why is there a need for a thread on a message board about disabled people appearing on TV?
I think this goes much deeper than TV, this is about how disabled are viewed by society. If TV is a mirror of modern society, if something matters we expect it to be on TV. I know this isn't strictly true but lets just for now agree that TV reflects broadly what the viewers are interested in, what matters to them etc. If that's the case then in the UK around 10% of the public and rising once you hit 50+, are disabled. If you then think about how many people in the UK have a family member who is disabled your looking at a huge number of people who are affected in some way by issues relating to disability. So is this represented on TV?
The thing is, forgetting TV for the moment it is a history of extremes when it comes to how disabled people are viewed by society at large. Go back to pre war UK and disabled people were either just not seen at all, locked away in hospitals, institutions, charitable homes or a few were performing and being gawped at in traveling circuses and "freak shows," some by choice but many not. (TV could still be treating disabled people this way unintentionally but more of that later.) The two world wars began to change all this as service men returned disabled and the government had to respond, wounded soldiers couldn't be gawped at in freak shows, they'd be looked after instead usually at home or in institutions.
The last 60 years have seen a hard struggle by disabled people and a gradual acceptance by some in society that we should have rights, including the right to work, access services, transport, education, basically live life! Part of that struggle is the right to be recognised by society for who we are and on our terms. This is where TV comes in.
Disabled people just don't see themselves on TV very often? If we do see disabled people on TV they are often plaid by non disabled people. I'll argue now that disabled people are currently the most under represented "minority group" when it comes to TV. Think about it, TV caters for older people and kids, for men and women, religion, it's getting better when it comes to ethnicity and entertainment and TV has always had loads of gay and lesbian performers and is at last representing this honestly and openly. Disability lags behind, even though there are disabled performers, production staff, writers out there doing brilliant work.
The disabled people of my childhood TV watching (late 70s and 80s) were rather limited. There was the blind grandmother in Heidi, who was brought soft rolls to eat from the town. It became an in joke with my friends when I was older that like the blind grandmother I needed soft rolls too. Heidi also had the tragic, sickly sweet Clara who could not walk. I was often likened to her as a child because like her I had long blond hair. I was a kind of cross between the two characters blind, well partially sighted in my case, like the grandmother but had long blond hair like the tragic Clara. Of course all Clara needs is some fresh air on the mountain side and she's soon running about with Peter the goat herd, totally cured. It's the typical Victorian take on disability those who are good and deserving will transcend their disability on the green pastures of heaven! Those bad get struck down Rochester in Jane Eyer has to be blinded in order to learn humility. Shakespeare loved using disability as a metaphor too, when he was blind he could see when he had sight he could not see (see as in understand)
In the 1980's the other disabled people I'd see on TV would be on a Sunday tea time when there would be a charity appeal on quite often for things like the Variety Club sunshine coaches. I used to actually worry as a child that if I wasn't good and worked hard at school I might be sent to one of the special schools featured on the TV appeals. I didn't want anyones help. I have to say there were positive role models too, I knew who Ian Dury was as a child my parents have good taste in music thankfully!
But things must have moved on now surely. I am pleased to say they have but things still aren't good. I think there are still far too many cheap tawdry documentaries in the true spirit of the freak show. Mitchel and Webb have the brilliant sketch about a spoof Channel 5 documentary "the boy who has an arse for a face." We've all seen them advertised those documentaries just about a person with a particular rare or extraordinary impairment for us to gawp at and feel thankful that we aren't afflicted.
When was the last time you saw a disabled person in an advert? Yes an advert? I would love to know if anyone has spotted a disabled person even a celeb who is disabled in an advert. I guess ad agencies think disabled people have no money to spend so no point including them in adverts and I'm sure they have plenty of research that shows that audiences don't want to be flogged yogurt / car insurance or furniture by a disabled person. Stephen Fry doesn't count by the way I've just remembered he does the odd advert voice over.
Everyone needs role models, so where are the role models for disabled people?
This is such a huge area I can't cover it in one entry on my blog but I'll revisit this one again I'm sure.
the Ouch! (the BBC website's disability section) message board used to run a thread called "I just saw a disabled person on the TV" I don't know if it's still going but if it is, last night would have lead to some discussion on the thread. Channel 4's "How to look good naked" ran a disability themed show. Gok Wan used his unique style of self esteem boosting on disabled women to make them feel great about their bodies. I'm not going to write about the programme its self, I was watching the Hairy Bikers cookery programme instead. I don't want to criticise Gok either I actually use a video of him talking about his experiences as a over weight, gay, Chinese lad growing up on a London housing estate, in my equality and diversity training sometimes. I think he's a cool guy with good intentions. My complaint is that these programmes about disabled women could and in my opinion should have been included in the usual How to Look Good Naked format and not dealt with separately.
What I really want to do is address the issue of why How to Look Good Naked with a Difference is a topic to talk about at all? Why is there a need for a thread on a message board about disabled people appearing on TV?
I think this goes much deeper than TV, this is about how disabled are viewed by society. If TV is a mirror of modern society, if something matters we expect it to be on TV. I know this isn't strictly true but lets just for now agree that TV reflects broadly what the viewers are interested in, what matters to them etc. If that's the case then in the UK around 10% of the public and rising once you hit 50+, are disabled. If you then think about how many people in the UK have a family member who is disabled your looking at a huge number of people who are affected in some way by issues relating to disability. So is this represented on TV?
The thing is, forgetting TV for the moment it is a history of extremes when it comes to how disabled people are viewed by society at large. Go back to pre war UK and disabled people were either just not seen at all, locked away in hospitals, institutions, charitable homes or a few were performing and being gawped at in traveling circuses and "freak shows," some by choice but many not. (TV could still be treating disabled people this way unintentionally but more of that later.) The two world wars began to change all this as service men returned disabled and the government had to respond, wounded soldiers couldn't be gawped at in freak shows, they'd be looked after instead usually at home or in institutions.
The last 60 years have seen a hard struggle by disabled people and a gradual acceptance by some in society that we should have rights, including the right to work, access services, transport, education, basically live life! Part of that struggle is the right to be recognised by society for who we are and on our terms. This is where TV comes in.
Disabled people just don't see themselves on TV very often? If we do see disabled people on TV they are often plaid by non disabled people. I'll argue now that disabled people are currently the most under represented "minority group" when it comes to TV. Think about it, TV caters for older people and kids, for men and women, religion, it's getting better when it comes to ethnicity and entertainment and TV has always had loads of gay and lesbian performers and is at last representing this honestly and openly. Disability lags behind, even though there are disabled performers, production staff, writers out there doing brilliant work.
The disabled people of my childhood TV watching (late 70s and 80s) were rather limited. There was the blind grandmother in Heidi, who was brought soft rolls to eat from the town. It became an in joke with my friends when I was older that like the blind grandmother I needed soft rolls too. Heidi also had the tragic, sickly sweet Clara who could not walk. I was often likened to her as a child because like her I had long blond hair. I was a kind of cross between the two characters blind, well partially sighted in my case, like the grandmother but had long blond hair like the tragic Clara. Of course all Clara needs is some fresh air on the mountain side and she's soon running about with Peter the goat herd, totally cured. It's the typical Victorian take on disability those who are good and deserving will transcend their disability on the green pastures of heaven! Those bad get struck down Rochester in Jane Eyer has to be blinded in order to learn humility. Shakespeare loved using disability as a metaphor too, when he was blind he could see when he had sight he could not see (see as in understand)
In the 1980's the other disabled people I'd see on TV would be on a Sunday tea time when there would be a charity appeal on quite often for things like the Variety Club sunshine coaches. I used to actually worry as a child that if I wasn't good and worked hard at school I might be sent to one of the special schools featured on the TV appeals. I didn't want anyones help. I have to say there were positive role models too, I knew who Ian Dury was as a child my parents have good taste in music thankfully!
But things must have moved on now surely. I am pleased to say they have but things still aren't good. I think there are still far too many cheap tawdry documentaries in the true spirit of the freak show. Mitchel and Webb have the brilliant sketch about a spoof Channel 5 documentary "the boy who has an arse for a face." We've all seen them advertised those documentaries just about a person with a particular rare or extraordinary impairment for us to gawp at and feel thankful that we aren't afflicted.
When was the last time you saw a disabled person in an advert? Yes an advert? I would love to know if anyone has spotted a disabled person even a celeb who is disabled in an advert. I guess ad agencies think disabled people have no money to spend so no point including them in adverts and I'm sure they have plenty of research that shows that audiences don't want to be flogged yogurt / car insurance or furniture by a disabled person. Stephen Fry doesn't count by the way I've just remembered he does the odd advert voice over.
Everyone needs role models, so where are the role models for disabled people?
This is such a huge area I can't cover it in one entry on my blog but I'll revisit this one again I'm sure.
Monday 7 December 2009
Pink Stinks - like a rose?
The BBC London evening news just ran a story about the Pink Stinks campaign. Although the news article mentioned that the campaign is about persuading marketers and toy makers to provide more toys aimed at girls that are more positive and not just about beauty, clothes or looking after babies. The news item then just focused on the question "Should girls have pink toys?" This involved interviewing lots of little girls in Hamleys', garish pink "girls floor." Of course all the little girls said that they loved pink. They wouldn't be in the pink girls floor of Hamleys if they disliked it.
Sadly, I think the Pink Stinks campaign asks for this kind of treatment by the media though, because of its name. Great marketing, grabs attention but the media aren't inclined to dig deeper. I am all for promoting more positive role models for girls and young women. I think the media really needs to sort out its act when it comes to how it portrays women. The trouble is the pink stinks campaign alienates all those girls and women who do like pink particularly when treated shallowly by the media. I was a real "tom boy" until I was about 5. What a loaded statement that is? A tom boy, what do we mean by that? Well it was sometimes used to describe me because I only wanted to wear trousers or dungarees, I had shortish hair for a while, my favourite toys were cars, I was always climbing trees and getting myself in a mess. But I liked cuddly toys and dolls too.
When I got a bit older I went to the other extreme, I wore long skirts, grew my hair long, loved pink, played with my Cindy dolls. I still climbed trees, built dens, played football with the boys and even cut the hair of one of my Cindy Dolls so she could be Cagney from Cagney and Lacey. (Pretty strong, if dysfunctional role models for me there!)
But in my childhood, during the 70s/80s the marketing men and women hadn't got their teeth into exploiting the under 16s as they do now, and certainly not the under 10s. What for the girls of today?
My oldest niece went through a pink phase for a couple of years, everything had to be pink, but she is now 6 and her favourite colour is red. She is fascinated by volcanoes, likes to pretend to be a vet rescuing animals in danger, she also like dancing and looking at the pretty dresses worn by the dancers on Strictly Come Dancing. She doesn't just want to wear those dresses though, she wants to design them. She has a self assuredness that many girls of her generation and a little older seem to have. They do feel that anything is possible. When she plays with cooking utensils it is because she wants to be chef not a slave to the kitchen.
So things look positive for my niece's generation, unlike my Grandmother's and my mother's generation, she won't have to fight for basic rights, to work, to have a family, to carry on working if she wants etc. Unlike my generation she won't have the burden of being the first to make full use of these rights, to test the waters and push and fight against those slow to change. My nieces generation won't have such burdens.
So what am I worried about? Why aren't I denouncing the Pink Stinks campaign as superfluous?
It's not superfluous but the message for me seems skewed. I'd rather see a message that says Pink is for anyone! Boys and girls who want to wear pink, play with pink toys, live in pink rooms should be allowed to and their choices valued. Boys and girls who want to play with cars and Lego should be allowed to and their choices valued.
What worries me by the Pink Stinks title for the campaign is that it devalues and ridicules a choice of expression that many girls go through, and many boys would like to if they weren't discouraged for being "sissy" or some other insult. Yes the market is saturated with pink and pretty gifts aimed at girls, there needs to be more variety and choice. I believe that no one has the right to say that dressing up, making up and wearing pink is wrong what ever age or gender you are.
Being interested in beauty or appearance does not equal shallow or valueless, (Just look at Dolly Parton) buying into that message only perpetuates stereo types about women as air heads, and bimbos. We need balance and we need to value people even if their choices are not the ones we would make. The saturation of pink toys and goods certainly doesn't promote diversity and we need more positive goods available. But attacking the toys and goods that already exist and those who enjoy them only divides girls, boys, women and men.
Strong, successful, creative and intelligent women are everywhere; some are interested in fashion and beauty, some might never wear as much as lip gloss, some might work as scientists and doctors one of these wonderful women might be your cleaning woman or your Mum.
Sadly, I think the Pink Stinks campaign asks for this kind of treatment by the media though, because of its name. Great marketing, grabs attention but the media aren't inclined to dig deeper. I am all for promoting more positive role models for girls and young women. I think the media really needs to sort out its act when it comes to how it portrays women. The trouble is the pink stinks campaign alienates all those girls and women who do like pink particularly when treated shallowly by the media. I was a real "tom boy" until I was about 5. What a loaded statement that is? A tom boy, what do we mean by that? Well it was sometimes used to describe me because I only wanted to wear trousers or dungarees, I had shortish hair for a while, my favourite toys were cars, I was always climbing trees and getting myself in a mess. But I liked cuddly toys and dolls too.
When I got a bit older I went to the other extreme, I wore long skirts, grew my hair long, loved pink, played with my Cindy dolls. I still climbed trees, built dens, played football with the boys and even cut the hair of one of my Cindy Dolls so she could be Cagney from Cagney and Lacey. (Pretty strong, if dysfunctional role models for me there!)
But in my childhood, during the 70s/80s the marketing men and women hadn't got their teeth into exploiting the under 16s as they do now, and certainly not the under 10s. What for the girls of today?
My oldest niece went through a pink phase for a couple of years, everything had to be pink, but she is now 6 and her favourite colour is red. She is fascinated by volcanoes, likes to pretend to be a vet rescuing animals in danger, she also like dancing and looking at the pretty dresses worn by the dancers on Strictly Come Dancing. She doesn't just want to wear those dresses though, she wants to design them. She has a self assuredness that many girls of her generation and a little older seem to have. They do feel that anything is possible. When she plays with cooking utensils it is because she wants to be chef not a slave to the kitchen.
So things look positive for my niece's generation, unlike my Grandmother's and my mother's generation, she won't have to fight for basic rights, to work, to have a family, to carry on working if she wants etc. Unlike my generation she won't have the burden of being the first to make full use of these rights, to test the waters and push and fight against those slow to change. My nieces generation won't have such burdens.
So what am I worried about? Why aren't I denouncing the Pink Stinks campaign as superfluous?
It's not superfluous but the message for me seems skewed. I'd rather see a message that says Pink is for anyone! Boys and girls who want to wear pink, play with pink toys, live in pink rooms should be allowed to and their choices valued. Boys and girls who want to play with cars and Lego should be allowed to and their choices valued.
What worries me by the Pink Stinks title for the campaign is that it devalues and ridicules a choice of expression that many girls go through, and many boys would like to if they weren't discouraged for being "sissy" or some other insult. Yes the market is saturated with pink and pretty gifts aimed at girls, there needs to be more variety and choice. I believe that no one has the right to say that dressing up, making up and wearing pink is wrong what ever age or gender you are.
Being interested in beauty or appearance does not equal shallow or valueless, (Just look at Dolly Parton) buying into that message only perpetuates stereo types about women as air heads, and bimbos. We need balance and we need to value people even if their choices are not the ones we would make. The saturation of pink toys and goods certainly doesn't promote diversity and we need more positive goods available. But attacking the toys and goods that already exist and those who enjoy them only divides girls, boys, women and men.
Strong, successful, creative and intelligent women are everywhere; some are interested in fashion and beauty, some might never wear as much as lip gloss, some might work as scientists and doctors one of these wonderful women might be your cleaning woman or your Mum.
Wednesday 25 November 2009
Does disability language matter part two...
I did not really tackle the language of charity, in my last entry. It relates to the whole special needs thing in a way. I shall blog about it tomorrow. In the mean time I'd like to thank @Katitkatetweets for posting this excellent example of the charity model of disability language brought right up to date in the 21st Century. It's about Lewis Hamleton, and he's cool! I think this style of language and attitude in the article is the one I find most difficult to deal with but more on why tomorrow...
Does disability language matter or is it all just PC nonsense?
So this morning I was having a twitter conversation about language and disability. So I thought I would blog about it. You can't really say everything in 140 characters! This entry has turned out to be very long and meandering and hasn't tackled what I thought it would but I hope it isn't too boring :-)
I have a real love of language, I have studied the English language, literature and even felt able to teach English in secondary schools for a short while. I do not claim to be an expert I just love studying how we use words. As many of you know I have also recently started learning Japanese a language very different to English, thrillingly different in my humble opinion! I am also disabled, I am partially sighted, always have been. I'm also a bit mad, or have a mental health condition. So the language of disability has always been of interest to me.
That old rhyme of "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" is just baloney. As a child I soon learnt that if someone hit me I could hit them back harder, but it was the brutality of words that really had the lasting impact on me. It was the teasing words that haunted me. When my class mates would call me "Triple glazing" or shout "Fit the best fit Everest" at me because of my thick glasses, it was annoying sometimes hurtful but sometimes I could see the funny side. (Those too young to remember the Everest line was from a popular 80s double glazing ad.) What really hurt was if someone called me a "spaz" or a "Joey" and they didn't just call me this, these were popular insults of the 1980s British playground. (As gay seems to be now, sadly.) For me though the words were loaded, I knew they referred to disabled or "handicapped" people as they said back then. That was me, that was my uncle with muscular dystrophy, it just seemed so unfair to me as a child for those words could be used as insults.
Kids love bad words, and can be viciously cruel with language. It isn't just kids though. The English language is a rich and wonderful one. It's a myth that the Inuit have 100 words for snow, but the principal of the myth is true. We give many names and euphemisms to the important things to us culturally. In English we have boundless words for the concepts of being drunk, death, sex and rain to name a few.
Lets take being drunk you could be plastered, sozzled, bladdered, squiffy, pissed, inebriated, tired and emotional, sloshed, wasted, tipsy, and so I could go on. We give many names to things that are important, or taboo. For death the words are more euphemistic so we don't actually mention the d word, passed on, passed over, in a better place, even kicked the bucket is a way of avoiding saying the d word.
So language can be loaded with many meanings, we can use it to hide things, avoid things, to hurt and of course to empower as well. When the civil rights movement talked of black power and black is beautiful they were claiming the word black and empowering each other with it.
Disability language is full of euphemisms, and words that hide or cover up something that society is afraid to approach head on. It is also full of words generated in fear that are used consciously or unconsciously to distance the user from the issue they are afraid of; to make the user feel more powerful than the person or people they are talking about.
The best examples but not the only are the myriad words to describe madness, from nutter, crack pot, psycho, schizo, to loony, doolally, barmy, crazy, loopy and bonkers. I think in that list you can find the words which are used harshly and crudely and those we use every day now to describe people who have no kind of mental health condition at all. Madness terrifies people and society greatly. On an individual basis none of us like to be faced by someone behaving in an unusual way, which is distressing to them or others. We like people to behave in the same way we do. Organised society, certainly in the west, is afraid of madness because mad people are unpredictable and may not behave in the structured way the society dictates. (Personally I think societies should just get over it and let people behave as they like as long as they aren't hurting anyone or themselves.) I am not going to go on about Christianities role in how we talk about or see madness or disability, that is a whole new blog entry. I also think that everyone on a personal level is also afraid of confronting the issues of madness because they know it could happen to them, it is very real we need to be distanced from it.
Fear has lead many societies to do many terrible things to the people or things that they fear. So with mental health we have had centuries of mad people being locked up, promoted as hate figures or comic figures to be feared or mocked. Society will keep them in their place, locked up, or terrified but they won't be rocking society's boat or upsetting our sensibilities. Even now the media is obsessed with stories about people with mental health conditions such as schizophrenia being potentially violent. Even though every statistic points to the fact the overwhelming number of people with schizophrenia are more likely to harm themselves than any other person, the media ignores this. "Nutter on the loose" stories sell papers, generates clicks to websites.
Mental health as I said isn't the only disability to be portrayed in this way. People with learning disabilities have been subjected to centuries of being labeled stupid, the village idiot, simple, weak in the head, or called names like mong. All though not feared in quite the same way as mad people, and I would argue that is because society does not see people with learning disabilities as much of a threat as mad people. People with learning disabilities may not submit completely to all of the subtle rules of society but those in power have thought that they are unlikely to undermine these rules in the way a mad person might. They aren't going to form and army and rebel. (Or so the people in power think...) Many other disabilities are feared in similar ways but I think mental health and learning disability are the easiest to reference.
But language isn't just used to put, keep and reinforce people's positions in society's grand scheme of things. With disability, language has been used to label disabled people in medical terms. Disabled people had no say in how these words were used to label them. Maybe 60, 70 years ago a child was told by a Dr they had Polio and that they would be a cripple. That was the language used. For disabled people in the 1970's and 80s language was a big thing because they only had at their disposal medical language dolled out by professionals which quite often meant nothing to anyone else or the age old terms for disability which had been developed out of fear and pity such as cripple, handicapped, simpleton or madman or any of the other words listed else where in this blog.
The social model of disability revolutionised the language of disability. So medical terms for impairments would firmly stay describing the impairment, whilst words relating to what disables a person would focus on society's barriers and the adjustments made to overcome those barriers would be positive, hence a person is "a wheelchair user" their wheelchair is something they use to get over the barriers society creates. Trouble is no one told the rest of the world about the social model of disability. Trouble is many disabled people don't agree with all, or want more from it or just don't know about the social model of disability either. So we ended up in a world post 1990 when this change in language in terms of disability was swept up along with the whole PC "movement" and tarnished in many people's minds as being all a load of PC madness. (PC Madness, a bit like PC World but somewhere I'd feel more at home I'm sure! You can by a manic Mac or a depressed windows 7 Sony laptop :-) )
Which gets me on to the word special as in "special needs," why was this voted in the top 10 of most hated words by disabled people? I think it was because yet again it was word given to disabled people by a group of non disabled people. Most disabled children since the mid 80s will have come across this label in school. "Special Needs" covers everything from children who have a physical or learning disability to those who have "Behavioural problems." Every child I hope knows that they are special and that their parents think they are the most special child in the world. No child needs to be told on an institutional basis that they are special or have special needs. Kids are not stupid, they sniff out a euphemism straight away. They will mercilessly rip a euphemism and untruth out and use it on who ever they like. So special needs now is bandied about by kids as an insult.
I was teased a lot at school but every child in my class knew I was partially sighted, never did they chant "partially sighted" at me. Why? I think it was because it isn't a loaded statement, it isn't a euphemism. But special needs, and derogatory terms for disabled people were shouted at me. I have to say us visually impaired people do come out of the language thing fairly well. Blind as a bat is as bad as it gets or "window licker" - which when I first heard as an adult made me laugh. Once on the tube a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "I thought you were being dead brazen snorting cocaine off your book in front of everyone on the tube, but you're visually impaired aren't you?" He said it so sheepishly with a devilish glint in his eye that I just had to laugh. I don't feel so self conscious now when reading in public, nose glued to my book.
So I think what I am trying to say is that:
Language is important because it is used so subtly but profoundly as a tool to disempower or empower
The language of disability is complex and evolving
The social model of disability needs to be more widely understood
If you aren't sure how to refer to someone or to something concerning disability, ask the person involved! They will know how they want to be referred to!
I have a real love of language, I have studied the English language, literature and even felt able to teach English in secondary schools for a short while. I do not claim to be an expert I just love studying how we use words. As many of you know I have also recently started learning Japanese a language very different to English, thrillingly different in my humble opinion! I am also disabled, I am partially sighted, always have been. I'm also a bit mad, or have a mental health condition. So the language of disability has always been of interest to me.
That old rhyme of "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" is just baloney. As a child I soon learnt that if someone hit me I could hit them back harder, but it was the brutality of words that really had the lasting impact on me. It was the teasing words that haunted me. When my class mates would call me "Triple glazing" or shout "Fit the best fit Everest" at me because of my thick glasses, it was annoying sometimes hurtful but sometimes I could see the funny side. (Those too young to remember the Everest line was from a popular 80s double glazing ad.) What really hurt was if someone called me a "spaz" or a "Joey" and they didn't just call me this, these were popular insults of the 1980s British playground. (As gay seems to be now, sadly.) For me though the words were loaded, I knew they referred to disabled or "handicapped" people as they said back then. That was me, that was my uncle with muscular dystrophy, it just seemed so unfair to me as a child for those words could be used as insults.
Kids love bad words, and can be viciously cruel with language. It isn't just kids though. The English language is a rich and wonderful one. It's a myth that the Inuit have 100 words for snow, but the principal of the myth is true. We give many names and euphemisms to the important things to us culturally. In English we have boundless words for the concepts of being drunk, death, sex and rain to name a few.
Lets take being drunk you could be plastered, sozzled, bladdered, squiffy, pissed, inebriated, tired and emotional, sloshed, wasted, tipsy, and so I could go on. We give many names to things that are important, or taboo. For death the words are more euphemistic so we don't actually mention the d word, passed on, passed over, in a better place, even kicked the bucket is a way of avoiding saying the d word.
So language can be loaded with many meanings, we can use it to hide things, avoid things, to hurt and of course to empower as well. When the civil rights movement talked of black power and black is beautiful they were claiming the word black and empowering each other with it.
Disability language is full of euphemisms, and words that hide or cover up something that society is afraid to approach head on. It is also full of words generated in fear that are used consciously or unconsciously to distance the user from the issue they are afraid of; to make the user feel more powerful than the person or people they are talking about.
The best examples but not the only are the myriad words to describe madness, from nutter, crack pot, psycho, schizo, to loony, doolally, barmy, crazy, loopy and bonkers. I think in that list you can find the words which are used harshly and crudely and those we use every day now to describe people who have no kind of mental health condition at all. Madness terrifies people and society greatly. On an individual basis none of us like to be faced by someone behaving in an unusual way, which is distressing to them or others. We like people to behave in the same way we do. Organised society, certainly in the west, is afraid of madness because mad people are unpredictable and may not behave in the structured way the society dictates. (Personally I think societies should just get over it and let people behave as they like as long as they aren't hurting anyone or themselves.) I am not going to go on about Christianities role in how we talk about or see madness or disability, that is a whole new blog entry. I also think that everyone on a personal level is also afraid of confronting the issues of madness because they know it could happen to them, it is very real we need to be distanced from it.
Fear has lead many societies to do many terrible things to the people or things that they fear. So with mental health we have had centuries of mad people being locked up, promoted as hate figures or comic figures to be feared or mocked. Society will keep them in their place, locked up, or terrified but they won't be rocking society's boat or upsetting our sensibilities. Even now the media is obsessed with stories about people with mental health conditions such as schizophrenia being potentially violent. Even though every statistic points to the fact the overwhelming number of people with schizophrenia are more likely to harm themselves than any other person, the media ignores this. "Nutter on the loose" stories sell papers, generates clicks to websites.
Mental health as I said isn't the only disability to be portrayed in this way. People with learning disabilities have been subjected to centuries of being labeled stupid, the village idiot, simple, weak in the head, or called names like mong. All though not feared in quite the same way as mad people, and I would argue that is because society does not see people with learning disabilities as much of a threat as mad people. People with learning disabilities may not submit completely to all of the subtle rules of society but those in power have thought that they are unlikely to undermine these rules in the way a mad person might. They aren't going to form and army and rebel. (Or so the people in power think...) Many other disabilities are feared in similar ways but I think mental health and learning disability are the easiest to reference.
But language isn't just used to put, keep and reinforce people's positions in society's grand scheme of things. With disability, language has been used to label disabled people in medical terms. Disabled people had no say in how these words were used to label them. Maybe 60, 70 years ago a child was told by a Dr they had Polio and that they would be a cripple. That was the language used. For disabled people in the 1970's and 80s language was a big thing because they only had at their disposal medical language dolled out by professionals which quite often meant nothing to anyone else or the age old terms for disability which had been developed out of fear and pity such as cripple, handicapped, simpleton or madman or any of the other words listed else where in this blog.
The social model of disability revolutionised the language of disability. So medical terms for impairments would firmly stay describing the impairment, whilst words relating to what disables a person would focus on society's barriers and the adjustments made to overcome those barriers would be positive, hence a person is "a wheelchair user" their wheelchair is something they use to get over the barriers society creates. Trouble is no one told the rest of the world about the social model of disability. Trouble is many disabled people don't agree with all, or want more from it or just don't know about the social model of disability either. So we ended up in a world post 1990 when this change in language in terms of disability was swept up along with the whole PC "movement" and tarnished in many people's minds as being all a load of PC madness. (PC Madness, a bit like PC World but somewhere I'd feel more at home I'm sure! You can by a manic Mac or a depressed windows 7 Sony laptop :-) )
Which gets me on to the word special as in "special needs," why was this voted in the top 10 of most hated words by disabled people? I think it was because yet again it was word given to disabled people by a group of non disabled people. Most disabled children since the mid 80s will have come across this label in school. "Special Needs" covers everything from children who have a physical or learning disability to those who have "Behavioural problems." Every child I hope knows that they are special and that their parents think they are the most special child in the world. No child needs to be told on an institutional basis that they are special or have special needs. Kids are not stupid, they sniff out a euphemism straight away. They will mercilessly rip a euphemism and untruth out and use it on who ever they like. So special needs now is bandied about by kids as an insult.
I was teased a lot at school but every child in my class knew I was partially sighted, never did they chant "partially sighted" at me. Why? I think it was because it isn't a loaded statement, it isn't a euphemism. But special needs, and derogatory terms for disabled people were shouted at me. I have to say us visually impaired people do come out of the language thing fairly well. Blind as a bat is as bad as it gets or "window licker" - which when I first heard as an adult made me laugh. Once on the tube a guy tapped me on the shoulder and said "I thought you were being dead brazen snorting cocaine off your book in front of everyone on the tube, but you're visually impaired aren't you?" He said it so sheepishly with a devilish glint in his eye that I just had to laugh. I don't feel so self conscious now when reading in public, nose glued to my book.
So I think what I am trying to say is that:
Language is important because it is used so subtly but profoundly as a tool to disempower or empower
The language of disability is complex and evolving
The social model of disability needs to be more widely understood
If you aren't sure how to refer to someone or to something concerning disability, ask the person involved! They will know how they want to be referred to!
Thursday 1 October 2009
London calling
A friend and colleague of mine has alerted me to this article about how Boris Johnson has been criticised for letting down disabled Londoners by dropping all mention of disability hate crime from his equality framework. This is particularly saddening as I worked with David Morris for Ken Livingstone to pull together Another Planet which highlighted amongst other things that 50% of disabled Londoners experienced harassment or bullying in the community (so excluding work based bullying) on a frequent basis.
This article reminded me of something the gypsy and travellers were saying yesterday - that a few years ago there was a lot more innovative projects and work happening but none of it has been followed up on. I can't help but wonder if my work for the previous Mayor of London will have the lasting legacy it seemed destined to have.
We worked hard to get 100% of buses accessible. I certainly can travel more independently now that most buses (and trains) have audio announcements on them. I can't express what freedom that gives me to travel to unfamiliar places at night. But recently there have been calls by a Tory politician for less audio announcements because they interrupt his commuter snooze!
Now we find that good evidence from disabled Londoners and the Met Police is being ignored and forgotten.
I'm not surprised by this but still saddened.
This article reminded me of something the gypsy and travellers were saying yesterday - that a few years ago there was a lot more innovative projects and work happening but none of it has been followed up on. I can't help but wonder if my work for the previous Mayor of London will have the lasting legacy it seemed destined to have.
We worked hard to get 100% of buses accessible. I certainly can travel more independently now that most buses (and trains) have audio announcements on them. I can't express what freedom that gives me to travel to unfamiliar places at night. But recently there have been calls by a Tory politician for less audio announcements because they interrupt his commuter snooze!
Now we find that good evidence from disabled Londoners and the Met Police is being ignored and forgotten.
I'm not surprised by this but still saddened.
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