All,
Predictably, the 'hot buttons' activate my brain cells (what's left),
and I offer a couple responses.
To Jesse, who wrote:
> I still believe dualism is an artifact of patriarchal ideology built on an absolute male/female
> difference.
Given the internal frictions *within* any given group (men competing for power, women
competing for men, some disabled people's antagonism towards nondisabled researchers
and parents, etc.), I think the problem is larger than M/F difference. Think of Buber's
"I and Thou," or even Goffman's "in-group vs. outgroup"--I think difference is crucially
involved in personal I.D., for the reflection of attributes one rejects or adopts as one's own.
Also, as regards another "bon mot" from the typically eloquent Jesse the K:
>who laid the mines?
One might answer, "capitalism" or "patriarchy" or "media" or.....
But whoever is in charge of the minefield, it effectively segregated
parents from adults with disabilities--who could have been so helpful
in setting the parents' 'agenda.' I remember asking, some (gosh) 25
years ago, "Where are the disabled [well, I said 'handicapped' at the
time] adults? Who can be an advisor and role model for me and my
son?" Not only did I have the terrible feeling that disabled people
did not LIVE to see adulthood, I had no idea what that life might be
like. Who designed this terrain, which makes parents afraid of the
answer to "Is there a future"?
When disabled adults and parents new to disability can cooperate and
share histories and struggles and goals, perhaps we'll be one step
closer to sweeping the minefield and making heady advances onto (the
real) enemy territory, known on social maps as "status quo."
Dona M. Avery
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
www.public.asu.edu/~donam
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