I'm very interested in the social model as it currently stands and its
application to wider issues. One article I've read by Charlotte Cooper
(1997) "Can a Fat Woman Call Herself Disabled" in Disability and Society
12/1 1997, applies the social model to fatness, and concludes that fat
people are indeed treated in much the same way as disabled people,
especially because they are considered to be inferior and are often blamed
for their failure to overcome their fatness. My research is concerned with
the body is portrayed on television, and I believe that the social model can
also be applied to the "body fascism" which comes out of Hollywood
especially, and which dictates that women must have long hair, big lips, a
skinny, well-toned body and inordinately large breasts. This "beauty" is
anything but "normal". The average American soap star is, in fact, becoming
progressively less natural. And cosmetic surgery makes older actors look
anything but young. It's unacceptable NOT to have facelifts - have you seen
an American actor over the age of 60 who looks as though he/she hasn't? So
my view on Michael's thoughts is that we are talking about ideology, and
using the social model to expose dominant beliefs surrounding disability,
and also wider issues of attractiveness. I'd be very interested to hear what
other people think about this.
Lynne
> ----------
> From: M.G.Peckitt
> Reply To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Monday, March 6, 2000 4:09 pm
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Ideology, Truth and the Social Model
>
> To all
>
> Excuse the fact that is yet another question about the social model I am
> putting forward, but there is a question which has been bothering me for
> some time.
>
> Is the Social model meant to be taken as 'truth' - the way disability
> 'really' is, or is it put it forward as way to counteract the current
> ideology of medicine - an ideology to defeat an ideology, but truth has
> nothing to with it.
>
> I ask this because, if it is meant to be the way things 'really' are then
> I find it dangerous - I always beware of peole telling the way things
> really are - like the medical system telling me disability is really just
> something to be cured.
>
> If it is just another ideology, a counter ideology, then that is more
> acceptable to me and a fine way to conduct activism. But for me the more
> interesting maneouvre is to examine the method and conditions for
> 'truths' to become established as such in society, and then criticise
> those conditions and use the social model for resisting the current
> ideology - but be under no pretense that the model is 'true'. Why in
> short are quite a few (but not all) disability theorists afraid of
> perspectivity of knowledge - it is hardly going deep into the underground
> of postmodernism.
>
> Michael
>
>
>
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