{"id":2428,"date":"2012-07-09T09:52:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T13:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/?p=2428"},"modified":"2015-07-15T11:50:09","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T15:50:09","slug":"disabled-people-arent-your-metaphors-susan-gubar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2012\/07\/09\/disabled-people-arent-your-metaphors-susan-gubar\/","title":{"rendered":"Disabled people aren’t your metaphors, Susan Gubar!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was all excited to read Memoir of a Debulked Woman,<\/a> Susan Gubar's account of her diagnosis and treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. Since Gubar is a noted feminist literary critic, I expected a powerful combination of personal details and polemic yielding a strong, thought-provoking critique of the medical industrial complex.<\/p>\n

I did not<\/i> expect gratuitous similes about people with disabilities. At least twice in the half of the book that I read [before throwing it across the room in disgust], Gubar compares her social withdrawal and disinclination to talk about her condition to having autism.<\/p>\n

NO! Your social withdrawal and disinclination is NOT like having autism, Susan Gubar. More accurately, your social withdrawal and disclination to talk about your condition correspond to your personal stereotype<\/i> [also a cultural stereotype at large] of how autistic people act in social situations.<\/p>\n

In any case, please shut up. You are not like a person who has autism. Only people with autism are like people who have autism. And do I need to remind you that people with autism are actual, real people, as opposed to fodder for your literary flourishes?<\/p>\n

While I'm on the same subject, people need to stop using "blind," "deaf," "crippled" and other words that refer to people with disabilities as metaphors. No, in fact, you're not <\/i>"blind" to the obstacles facing you or "deaf" to criticism and therefore "crippled" by your inability to heed advice. You may be inattentive <\/i>to obstacles, heedless <\/i>of criticism and therefore challenged <\/i>by your inability to heed advice, so use the right words, rather than ones that don't belong to you.<\/p>\n

Also, everybody, stop using any form of the word "lame" to refer to something that you think is pathetic, insignificant, not good enough, unconvincing, etc. Look at how many synonyms I just listed in the preceding sentence! Pick one of them instead, not a term that shows how horribly prejudiced you are against people with disabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was all excited to read Memoir of a Debulked Woman, Susan Gubar's account of her diagnosis and treatment for advanced ovarian cancer. Since Gubar is a noted feminist literary critic, I expected a powerful combination of personal details and polemic yielding a strong, thought-provoking critique of the medical industrial complex. I did not expect… Continue reading Disabled people aren’t your metaphors, Susan Gubar!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[667,696],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ableism","tag-books-that-piss-me-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5302,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions\/5302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}