In fact, one of the contributions that feminism has made to my thinking, at
least, is that binary dichotomies, even ones on a continuum, are too limited
a way of understanding the world. When I was young and wild, this was
criticized as "male thinking" by Ti-Grace Atkinson, for example. Our analyses
have gotten more subtle since then, but I still believe dualism is an
artifact of patriarchal ideology built on an absolute male/female difference.
Could the volatility of any discussion of parent/child interaction be based
on a dualistic understanding of "kid with disability = oppressed; parent
without = oppressor"? It's certainly one of the most reliable hot buttons on
this list. Anything that sparks so intense a feeling is worth examining: who
laid the mines?
This was one reason I found Hillyer's _Feminism and Disability_ so
refreshing: it admitted the shades of complexity and multiple roles.
At 3:55 AM -0500 on 7/19/99, SOC microlab 1 said, in part:
> This has been an interesting exchange of views on where, or if, we can situate
> disability on a traditional left-right continuum and I don't really know that I
> can add too much to what has been been said other than that i've long had
> problems with conceptualising ideology on such a simple scale. This in a sense
> has also proved to be the case with other 'new' social/political movements
> as thay are often refered to (feminism, green politics etc.) which as many have
> already noted often contain a bewildering mix of left, right and everything
> in-between. [snippo] A simple left-right dichotomy simply leaves out too much and
> makes things appear to be much more simple than they really are and so in that
> way can only ever be of a very limited usefulness.
Jesse the K - Madison WI USA - <[log in to unmask]>
Information is not knowledge.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|