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Author Topic: Social science, activism patriarchy and generalities
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 31 August 2008 09:32 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
OK, here are a few ideas.
1) Acknowledging change. A generality or pattern you observe in a category of folks or things justifies generalizing, but that doesn't mean the pattern is static, or unamenable to change through action, awareness, input, natural evolution, resistance, people wanting to break free of the pattern, our improving the observation, etc.
2) Acknowledging fine structure. Within a general pattern, there may be any number of variations. The general pattern exists because of certain determinants and historical influences, but it plays out in variants, depending on specific conditions, histories, observers, other determinants. Like any picture, it is read one way at a certain distance and produces other pictures at other distances. Each pattern is no less real.
3) Acknowledging the envelope. Any generality is only true within a certain realm. Outside of that envelope, it isn't valid. So time and space act as limits to the scope of each generality, keeping generalization honest and away from any essentialist interpretation.
4) Exceptions. Even within the envelope, generalities often have exceptions and contrary forces that help us think dialectically not only about the patterns observed but about what subverts them and our perspective, the power of the disempowered, for instance.
5) Occam's razor. This philosophical principle reminds us that a generality is simply the most economical solution to a problem, the one with the least unnnecessary assumptions. Yet, we know through mathematics that any problem has an almost infinite number of solutions. ("That object speedingtoward me with 'Greyhound' on the front may be trouble, but it may just be a clever Martian trying to fool me.") So generalization does not have to tie our hands as would a stereotype or a stifling "blanket". It's simply a simple but important rational first step to inquiry (and sometimes survival).
What do you think? Do you find that using generalization is useful in your life and activist concerns, given what you know, even if you keep trying to refine that process?

That is a very nuanced and fair minded reply. However, I think that you need to go out and speak to more women, and certainly more feminists from diverse backgrounds. You consistantly speak about first and second wave feminism, but there seems to be nothhing in your philosophy from the third wave.


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remind
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posted 31 August 2008 12:14 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What is this about CMOT, and/or where did it arise from? Who made the quotes portion?
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 31 August 2008 01:19 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
He's responding to my latest post in the Men's involvement with feminism thread, remind.

Actually, CMOT, I have never mentioned waves in my posts about sexism and the women's movement. Like Ms. Communicate, I find this classification Eurocentric. As for the differences and specific character attributed to each alleged "wave", they are often superficial and a tad too convenient for those who wish to dismiss preceding feminists and a more grounded analysis, common to feminist movement in general. We don't split patriarchy in various "waves", do we?

[ 31 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
remind
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posted 31 August 2008 02:10 PM      Profile for remind     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for the clarification Martin, and I checked my pm's and responded.
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 31 August 2008 02:36 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
He's responding to my latest post in the Men's involvement with feminism thread, remind.

Actually, CMOT, I have never mentioned waves in my posts about sexism and the women's movement. Like Ms. Communicate, I find this classification Eurocentric. As for the differences and specific character attributed to each alleged "wave", they are often superficial and a tad too convenient for those who wish to dismiss preceding feminists and a more grounded analysis, common to feminist movement in general. We don't split patriarchy in various "waves", do we?

[ 31 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


No, but I still think you could benefit from entering into discussions with feminists who are not part of the Dworkin/Mackinnon faction.


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martin dufresne
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posted 31 August 2008 04:19 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"faction"? Your rethoric is showing... Actually, how do you know I don't? I have quoted many other thinkers whom I find inspirational, (e.g. Ehrenreich, Faludi, the authors of standpoint theory) and who oftentimes disagree with the Dastardly Duo, and I work everyday with feminists who have never read their works, so I think you may be barking up the wrong tree.
Instead of haphazardly putting me on trial like this, why not tell us what you find most challenging and truthful according to your expoerience in the anti-patriarchal books, websites or films you take in?

From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 31 August 2008 05:14 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
For instance, I would really like to know what brought you to confront systematically Israel' s horrendous oppression of Palestinians. I am really impressed by your commitment to that cause. Have you ever taken the time on a previous thread to explain your process and motivation? I'd like to read that.
From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 31 August 2008 05:57 PM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm just popping in here to add some of my thoughts on meta-arguments and generalities.

I majored in Sociology at both the undergrad and graduate levels, and am a great lover of large meta-theories and hypotheses to explain social phenomenon. There is much value in doing so, but it's very important in how language is used.

So, if I say "patriarchy benefits all men, but not in the same ways" everyone is likely to agree with that.

What if I say "A given man's power under patriarchy is mediated by his racial identity, his current class status, where he is on the dis/Ability spectrum, gender identity, sexual orientation"?

For me to say something like "All men have power over women" would be untrue and I hope I've never said anything like that on babble or elsewhere. Poor men of colour, immigrant men, First Nations men, men with disabilities, queer men who are poor, immigrant, of colour, do not have more societal power than women such as Belinda Stronach, Olivia Chow, Barbara Amiel, etc. Yet, there remains value in my first statement "patriarchy benefits all men, but not in the same ways".

I'm not making statements about individual men, I'm making statements about groups of men, in a patriarchal society. That's sociology, really.

I could re-write this entire post from the perspective of race, or ability, or class, or sexual orientation. All are valid, meta-lenses to look at the world through, and to try to understand how systems impact us in the day to day.

P.S. To Martin, I like your point about waves of patriarchy, but patriarchy isn't a social movement, it's a system of oppression. In other words, it don't need no waves. But that said, we can look at specific historical and current backlashes, some beginning immediately after a gain for the women's movements (all waves. I'll use the flawed waves structure for now for the North American context). What else are backlashes but patriarchy responding with force, might, ridicule, whatever, to diminish accomplishments and achievements by social movements? If we broaden our understanding of patriarchy and name it (from bell hooks) white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, it does the same with the civil rights movement, gay liberation movement, etc.


From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 31 August 2008 08:29 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
What else are backlashes but patriarchy responding with force, might, ridicule, whatever, to diminish accomplishments and achievements by social movements?
Yes, they do that, but they also bash women when they are not in movement, between active phases of feminist movement. In a personal essay entitled "Backlash" that was sold through the classified ads of off our backs magazine, some ten years ago, Redstockings member Brooke Williams made what seemed to me an interesting point about that, saying (I'm paraphrasing from memory here) that it would be a mistake to conceptualize male oppression as basically a backlash, and to think that women or early feminists had had it "easier" before a reaction kicked in. Male active hostility to women and their rights is not merely a reaction to feminist movement, she argues: it has always been there, and it has always been extremely hard and dangerous for women. Indeed she makes the point that the notion of backlash - with its implicit focus on women's agency having an effect - can seem gratifying but it can contribute to justify a blaming of women, as if it was their demands and advances that had "pushed" men into an oppression mode (the backwash answering the wave, the pendulum needing to swing back, etc.). Not the case, she says: male oppression was there before feminism and it was at least as harsh as the current version.
Seems to make sense: consider the various forms of sexis oppression: rape, wife battering, low/no pay, sex harassment, substandard retirement conditions, etc. All of them existed whether feminists were active or not.

[ 31 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 31 August 2008 08:49 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
...Poor men of colour, immigrant men, First Nations men, men with disabilities, queer men who are poor, immigrant, of colour, do not have more societal power than women such as Belinda Stronach, Olivia Chow, Barbara Amiel, etc...
True. But would you agree that, compared to women that are similarly situated on other categories than gender,these various categories of men do have more societal power, generally/sociologically speaking (there are always exceptions and local conditions), than their female counterparts? When compared with women who are disabled, immigrant, First Nations, queer, homeless, etc. like them, each of these categories of men is - relatively - privileged. The same pattern is true for the categories at the other end of the social scale: Stronach, Amiel and Chow may trump poor or disabled men, but they are almost always trumped by their male equivalents among the rich, the well-connected and the political class. So...

[ 31 August 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 01 September 2008 07:56 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
True. But would you agree that, compared to women that are similarly situated on other categories than gender,these various categories of men do have more societal power, generally/sociologically speaking (there are always exceptions and local conditions), than their female counterparts? When compared with women who are disabled, immigrant, First Nations, queer, homeless, etc. like them, each of these categories of men is - relatively - privileged. The same pattern is true for the categories at the other end of the social scale: Stronach, Amiel and Chow may trump poor or disabled men, but they are almost always trumped by their male equivalents among the rich, the well-connected and the political class. So...

This is why, After a certain point, I feel that discussions of privilage become irrelivant.

It's all to easy to engage in opression contests, and ignore the challenges faced by marginalized groups. Is it really that important to point out that the newly immigrated disabled black man has more privilage then the newly imigrated disabled black woman beside him, when both are struggling to find adiquate housing, and fighting to be accepted by Canadian Society?

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 01 September 2008 08:09 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Would you agree that it is for the women in each group to determine that? I have worked with disabled men and women in Montreal, and - even when acknowledging a common cause - they agreed that disabled women faced a specific oppression - both social and from intimate partners - that made consideration of their specific issues paramount... if only to be more effective in their common cause efforts.
Let's not repeat a traditional mistake of the Left that essentially said to feminists: "Let's not quibble and split forces: we're all oppressed by the Capital."
I am wary of a natural tendency to dismiss as "irrelevant" an oppression one doesn't experience, as often do whites, or men, or temporarily-abled persons, or the rich.

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 01 September 2008 08:39 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Would you agree that it is for the women in each group to determine that? I have worked with disabled men and women in Montreal, and they agreed that disabled women faced a specific oppression - both social and from intimate partners - that made consideration of their specific issues paramount.
Let's not repeat a traditional mistake of the Left that essentially said to feminists: "Let's not quibble and split forces: we're all oppressed by the Capital."

I relize that (The oppresion faced by disabled women when it comes to issues of sex and sexuality seems to be ten times worse then it is for disabled men) but there are times when one needs to put aside the magical scalpel of meta analysis and focus on the larger picture. Otherwise you may end up minimizing concerns of people, who while they may be relatively privalaged, still suffer terribly because of societies biases. The most downtrodden in society should no be seen as the enemy, regardless of whether they are male or not.


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martin dufresne
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posted 01 September 2008 09:00 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Indeed, it seems that the most downtrodden in society, category by category, are the females of each category, so I support your imperative but not your apparent conclusion.
Thanks for acknowledging the specific oppression of disabled women. In my experience, female disabled rights activists meet with great difficulty when they try to raise this problem in disabled circles and confront "their" men on issues of violence, misogyny, exploitation. It's good to know that you can be an ally in that struggle too.

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) recently held a conference on Violence against Women with Disabilities. Here is a summary report, hot off the wire:

quote:
Last Thursday August 28, CATW, Swedish Member of European Parliament (EP), Eva-Britt Svensson and the European United Left/Nordic United Left Parliamentary Group (GUE/NGL) co-organized a seminar in the European Parliament on Violence Against Women with Disabilities. The
Seminar was well-attended, and individuals and organizations from all over Europe, Africa and Asia contacted us to receive information, despite not being able to travel to Brussels to attend the seminar. Importantly, Anna Zabrowska, who is the chair of the EP FEMM committee took part in the seminar.

The panel speakers came from France, Sweden, Norway and Belgium. Wiveca Holst of the Swedish Women's Lobby and the NGO, Forum, Women and Disability, spoke about the particular vulnerabilities of women with disabilities who are victims of different forms of male violence, including through prostitution and trafficking in human beings. Claudine Legardinier, who is a French author and journalist and active in the organization Mouvement le Nid, analyzed the discourse of the new prostitution apologists in France, Switzerland, Denmark and the Netherlands who argue that "people" (men) with disabilities should be given access to women in prostitution through government subsidized sexual caretakers. Helle Hagenau, who is the head of office for the Norwegian Association of the Disabled described a recent study carried out by the Norwegian association for Battered Women's Shelters on lack of access to services for women with disabilities who are victims of male violence. Finally, Gunilla S. Ekberg, CATW Co-Executive Director spoke about root causes of prostitution and trafficking in human beings, with a focus on the behaviours and violence committed by men who purchase women for sexual purposes, using two recent cases of trafficking in human beings (national and trans-border) in Sweden and Finland where several hundred men purchased and sexually abused two young women with severe intellectual disabilities. The audience was also given ample time to comment and ask questions. The seminar will be followed up in 2009 with a one-day conference on the same subject.

Gunilla S. Ekberg
Co-Executive Director
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International



From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 01 September 2008 12:26 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Indeed, it seems that the most downtrodden in society, category by category, are the females of each category, so I support your imperative but not your apparent conclusion.

Yes, but is it necesary to enter the realm of meta analysis all the time when talking about political issues?

I am an very privileged person, for all that I have a disability. I'm Mr. Big. Come and get me. But don't you dare try to pretend that a newly emigrated Urdu speaking Pakistani janitor in Bramton is in fact, powerful and privileged, or that the problems faced by men who do not have the privileges that I do(ethnicity, education, class gender speaking english as a first language) should be minimized in favor of a single cause that you consider more important than all the rest.

ALL SUFFERING IS WORTHY OF NOTICE.

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

edited to make my janitor more oppressed.

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 01 September 2008 01:05 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Indeed, it seems that the most downtrodden in society, category by category, are the females of each category, so I support your imperative but not your apparent conclusion.
Thanks for acknowledging the specific oppression of disabled women. In my experience, female disabled rights activists meet with great difficulty when they try to raise this problem in disabled circles and confront "their" men on issues of violence, misogyny, exploitation. It's good to know that you can be an ally in that struggle too.

I'm not just talking about the standard kinds of abuse heaped on women, although that exists too.
Many disabled woman, according to my counselor, anyway, are told to forget about sex by their parents, because of fears that they will be molested and taken advantage of. Their sexuality is invisible (the sexuality of disabled man is marginalized too, but in a different way) as a result, some disability rights activists have saught to express their sexuality in ways that the stalwarts of the feminist movement, like Gloria Steinem, find baffling. After years of campaigning against objectification, they are seeing women with disabilities who wish to be objectified to a certain extent, because if a man notices your body, even a way which Steinem et al would consider sexist, at least he is acknowledging that your sexuality and sexiness exists (and no, when I talk about objetification I'm not talking about extreme examples like rape)

PS: I read an article in a new internationalist, (Internet archives are so cool!) about reproductive choice as it pertains to women with disabilities, the main thrust of which was that disabled woman have to fight to have children, whereas able-bodied women have to fight not to.

Jesus Christ. I wish there were more disabled feminists on this board so I could get more credibility.

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 01 September 2008 01:46 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What makes you so sure there aren't?
P.S.: I am sure could list a number of advantages your janitor has compared to a female "newly emigrated Urdu speaking Pakistani in Bramton", e.g. how often do you see such women being trusted with a paid janitor job, how closely is the morality and dress of your janitor monitored by his community, how likely is it that he rather than her will be battered by an intimate partner, etc.? I am not minimizing the problem of men from oppressed groups; I just need to set them in perspective as not being worse or equal to the problems of women in those same groups.

[ 01 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


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Stargazer
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posted 01 September 2008 01:52 PM      Profile for Stargazer     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
True. But would you agree that, compared to women that are similarly situated on other categories than gender,these various categories of men do have more societal power, generally/sociologically speaking (there are always exceptions and local conditions), than their female counterparts?

Absolutely. A poor black man will always have more power than his female counterpart. It's not "Oppression Olympics", its simply the way it is.


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triciamarie
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posted 01 September 2008 04:59 PM      Profile for triciamarie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:
don't you dare try to pretend that a newly emigrated Urdu speaking Pakistani janitor in Bramton is in fact, powerful and privileged

You are precisely describing one of my clients (even down to the city), who coincidentally, is also a 20-year paediatric surgeon and a med school lecturer in infectious diseases specializing in TB.

Gotta be careful with those racial generalizations, eh.


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 01 September 2008 05:14 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
For instance, I would really like to know what brought you to confront systematically Israel' s horrendous oppression of Palestinians. I am really impressed by your commitment to that cause. Have you ever taken the time on a previous thread to explain your process and motivation? I'd like to read that.

I wish I could make it sexy. I wish I was like a character in a John le Carre novel, whose past is full of tragedy and heartbreak, and yet is somehow able to remain the gentleman's gentleman and consort with devastatingly intelligent anarchist godesses, and fight injustice. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

My commitment can be traced back to an argument I had about Israel/ Palestine that I had with a family friend. I took the Palestinian side, but I didn't know enough. He was very combative and blamed Arafat and the arabs for the conflict,(it's extraordinarily funny how some Zionist apologists have transformed old Yasser into the most powerful man in the Middle East, when in fact he was just a figurehead.) The incident just about made me cry. he felt guilty, and to me a bicky in the form of a non-authorized biography of JK Rowling, which I still haven't really read. At the end of the argument(rant) I agreed with him, because I didn't know about the peacemaking efforts on the Palestinian side.
Then I discovered the Middle East threads on Babble and the arguments that peacenik activists were actually making. I can't use any of them in debate, however, because the Internet has no credibility, but just knowing he's wrong is enough. I wish that Unionist M.Spector and Cueball would come to Fernie so that I could put them on retainer, and they could argue for me.(that was a joke, there's absolutely no way I could get the money required).

As for my commitment, and the Israeli resistance threads, that comes from having too much time on my hands. The two jobs I have are both volunteer. If I worked full-time in a job with lots of oversight, I couldn't maintain them.
Really it dosen't take much commitment to post on message board. I'm just a guy. Cuball and Unionist are much more comitted then I could ever hope to be. Which also why I don't feel worthy of the title, feminist ally. I'm too repressed, immature and have too little experience to be anything of the sort.

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 01 September 2008 05:22 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Gotta be careful with those racial generalizations, eh.


I'm sorry about that. Has he been able to find work?


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martin dufresne
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posted 01 September 2008 05:41 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's easy enough for erudites to lay down discourse, but change happens when the "just a guys" start getting involved.
P.S.: Heroes are for novels.

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triciamarie
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posted 01 September 2008 06:01 PM      Profile for triciamarie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

I'm sorry about that. Has he been able to find work?


He was working as a carpenter (measure twice, cut once...!) but got hurt doing that, so now he works as a hurt janitor, for as long as the accident employer can be forced to keep him on. I'm trying to hook him up with a new provincial program for foreign-trained health professionals although it seems like they only want those whose English is already perfect.


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 02 September 2008 10:35 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Minor thread drift...

It could be said that the land of disability is also the land of the feminine, as well as the land of the Gay,
eldery and the new immigrant. Unfortunately, it is also the land of the well-meaning, hard-working, yet socio-politically insane, evangelical nutcase. I'm not sure which mad god decreed that such a diverse group of people should interact at the same time, but he/she or it created an interesting sociological phenomenon. There should be a paper I tells ya...

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


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martin dufresne
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posted 02 September 2008 11:03 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Cannot the same be said of temporarily-abled society in general?
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RosaL
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posted 02 September 2008 11:15 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by martin dufresne:
What makes you so sure there aren't?

There's me. My disability is neurological rather than physical. (That's a silly distinction - as if the brain isn't physical!) But it's had profound implications for my life and it's a visible disability. Or it was - I'm better at hiding it now. (I know now that I shouldn't have to hide it. But I learned to do this in order to protect myself, before I understood a lot of things.)


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martin dufresne
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posted 02 September 2008 11:46 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
CMOT Dibbler: ...Which also why I don't feel worthy of the title, feminist ally. I'm too repressed, immature and have too little experience to be anything of the sort.
Aw, come on... Just acknowledging that puts you heads and shoulders above the rest of guys.

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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 02 September 2008 12:00 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I guess, but consider:
in 13 years of public school, (I took grade 12 twice) I worked with five religious fundamentalists, (four aides and one special needs teacher, all female) . A gay man and a lesbian are part of my support network. Out of my five regular aides three are female.
When I was down at William Rudd house in New West, the staff seemed to be entirely female, except for two gay men.
I am currently living in a housing complex, where 99.9% of the residents are elderly or middle-aged. Most of them are women.

Do you see what I'm saying?

quote:
Cannot the same be said of temporarily-abled society in general?

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 02 September 2008 05:35 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, yes, there are a number of enigmas in there.
Where are the young disabled? Probably being cared for by a "volunteer" mother, sister or grandmother somewhere.
Why is the staff such a motley crew? Perhaps because the marginalized get lumped together, especially by the employment world.
But perhaps also because they have an axe to grind aganst an uncaring system and are pitching in.
It was amazing for me to notice that out of the five guys doing most of the work at Montreal Men Against Sexism in its heyday (1979-1998), all of us were more or less disabled, e.g. blindness, cerebral palsy, MS, etc.
Maybe it helps being shut out of the norm...

[ 02 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 03 September 2008 09:06 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Where are the young disabled? Probably being cared for by a "volunteer" mother, sister or grandmother somewhere.

Oh my. I'm afraid I've bred a misconception. The point I was trying to make is that quite often, the disabled, interact with members of other oppressed groups, as a matter of course, not that youngsters with disabilities are all forced to live in broom closets. This isn't 1950, (although in many ways, our attitude towards the disabled hasn't changed a lot since then). There are teenagers and young kids, who are disabled, who are able to participate in the public school system, and their communities. Unfortunately, special needs programs are being cut back in many schools, and in some of the smaller towns in Canada, it's more difficult to get support for things like outings. This is why I believe so many evangelicals are drawn into work revolving around people with disabilities. There willing to put up with things that secular people won't, simply because of their powerful belief in a higher power.

quote:
Why is the staff such a motley crew? Perhaps because the marginalized get lumped together, especially by the employment world.

Well, caring for people who have chronic conditions and illnesses is still considered women's work.
Which might be one reason why gay men are in those positions as well. If you're a nurse, there's no pressure to be macho. It's safe. Now, that's not saying that a gay nurse doesn't long to be a policeman or firefighter, it's just that they can't because of social restrictions. One of the problems with finding me male workers in high school was the fact that the mines still operate here. If a young man can get tonnes of money driving a big ass truck around a hole in the ground, why would he sign up to work with the disabled, and earn less. Especially when the Church Lady with the Mother Teresa complex is waiting in the wings, willing to take up the slack.


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martin dufresne
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posted 03 September 2008 09:09 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Isn't that last sentence an unfortunate and unfair sexist putdown, CMOT? It's not women's fault if a patriarchal system gives so little value to caring work.

[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 03 September 2008 09:18 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
all of us were more or less disabled, e.g. blindness, cerebral palsy, MS, etc.
Maybe it helps being shut out of the norm...

Sam Sullivan was shut out of the norm, and he has done nothing but fight for the status quo since he was elected to office. Rick Hansen, for all he campaigned for the rights of the disabled, is also quite right wing.


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 03 September 2008 09:35 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Isn't that last sentence an unfortunate and unfair sexist putdown, CMOT? It's not women's fault if a patriarchal system gives so little value to caring work.

It isn't their fault, your right, but the second half of the sentance still stands, I think there are a lot of church ladies who work with the disabled.


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martin dufresne
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posted 03 September 2008 09:42 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Absolutely, just as there a lot of religious women who volunteer at food banks and thrift stores because they care enough. Why label them with "Mother Teresa complex"? Do you feel you are being denied "worthy" help? Or is it possible that you are bitter that these "ladies" don't measure down to the Photoshop-enhanced women being stuck out at you by the porn industry?

[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 03 September 2008 10:01 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Absolutely, just as there a lot of religious women who volunteer at food banks and thrist stores because they care enough. Why label them with "Mother Teresa complex"? Do you feel you are being denied "worthy" help? Or is it possible that you are bitter that these "ladies" don't measure down to the Photoshop-enhanced women being stuck out at you by the porn industry?

My choice of words was unfortunate. These are good people, by and large, and the ones I worked with treated me very well. You don't have some kind of Freudian condition in order to be kind. However, the religiosity of Christian fundamentalists, and come to think of it, prudery of secular individuals, influenced by the religiously induced anti-sex slant of our society, (whether they are male or female,) can be a major stumbling block when trying to achieve certain goals relating to sex and sexuality.

[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
martin dufresne
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posted 03 September 2008 10:56 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Sam Sullivan was shut out of the norm, and he has done nothing but fight for the status quo since he was elected to office. Rick Hansen, for all he campaigned for the rights of the disabled, is also quite right wing.
Good points.

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lagatta
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posted 03 September 2008 11:05 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But you also found some female disabled activists who took very rightwing, "pro-lifer" positions, arguing for example against the right to unhook that poor woman on life support in the US, for example, or against abortion rights.

Oppression and marginalisation don't necessarily lead people to progressive outlooks.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
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posted 03 September 2008 11:31 AM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Right. I never said so much. I just noticed a peculiar pattern among pro-feminist men I know, both in Montreal and elsewhere. They are more often than not disabled and being denied the spoils of "standard" virility, i.e. having common cause with most women.
As for the disabled organizations opposed to blanket "solutions" to life support needs and to right-to-death-for-others discourse, that is a whole other issue, isn't it?

[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 03 September 2008 01:20 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
But you also found some female disabled activists who took very rightwing, "pro-lifer" positions, arguing for example against the right to unhook that poor woman on life support in the US, for example, or against abortion rights.
Oppression and marginalisation don't necessarily lead people to progressive outlooks.


Those reactions may be caused by fear.

Fundamentally, Canadian society views disability, at best, with an odd paternalism, and at worst, with dread.


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lagatta
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posted 03 September 2008 01:27 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Lots of reactionary outlooks are fuelled by fear. Racism is one of the most obvious.

But that does not excuse disabled groups promoting "life at any cost" positions that could impact other people's decisions. No, I don't want to live in a position where I'm dependent on others for the most intimate life functions. I certainly support greater funding for care for those who do not share that outlook.

But it is very sadistic to say people have to live at any cost, when life may just be an intolerable burden to them


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 03 September 2008 04:39 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No. I wasn't clear.
Every people fears disability,
but North American society in particular isn't disability friendly. A lot of people don't want us to exist. We are reminders of death and decrepitude in a culture obsessed with youth and beauty, a society, which has really lost its capacity to deal with death. As a result, we are marginalized, employed but never really needed, included but never really accepted. In such a society, a society that would rather we didn't draw breath, we seek ways to tell the world that we do exist, that we want to be heard.
One rather extreme way of doing that is to become part of a fundamentalist church of some sort, (which while it may spew the most horrendous right wing byle provides a sense of community) and speak about life at all costs. Personally, I think it's nuts. I feel that Euthanasia should be an option just as abortion is, but I can see why disabled opponents of doctor assisted suicide would be afraid of the whole idea.
I am very glad my mom is here to fight for me. Without her, the medical bureaucracy
would be storing me in a broom cupboard.
PS: please don't describe downs syndrome as an affliction. You make it sound like the plague.

quote:
Lots of reactionary outlooks are fuelled by fear. Racism is one of the most obvious.
But that does not excuse disabled groups promoting "life at any cost" positions that could impact other people's decisions. No, I don't want to live in a position where I'm dependent on others for the most intimate life functions. I certainly support greater funding for care for those who do not share that outlook.

But it is very sadistic to say people have to live at any cost, when life may just be an intolerable burden to them


[ 03 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
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posted 03 September 2008 04:50 PM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I've been severely hearing disabled all my life but it wasn't until 2002 that I decided to go on full time disability, because working was just getting too difficult - things were getting more difficult for to cope with: meetings, telephone conversations, and so on. I even overslept a few times because I didn't hear the alarm go off. There are certain professions where a hearing disability simply is not accomodated, sadly.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
triciamarie
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posted 03 September 2008 05:12 PM      Profile for triciamarie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
CMOT, I would like to thank you for your willingness to speak so frankly about your circumstances, in this case your observations about caregivers. It is really cool to get to hear about these collateral (attendant??) issues (pun intended!) that go along with the territory of physical disability. It sounds like this is big part of the culture -- if that is the right word? -- that went right over my head, until you brought it up.
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triciamarie
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posted 03 September 2008 05:18 PM      Profile for triciamarie     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hey Boom Boom, so is that how you ended up in Belleville?

It's shocking to me how few deaf people are even employed at all.


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Boom Boom
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posted 03 September 2008 07:06 PM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by triciamarie:
Hey Boom Boom, so is that how you ended up in Belleville?

No, not at all. I went to Loyalist College the second year it opened, in temporary buildings. That was my safe place while I was on the run.


From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 04 September 2008 04:37 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
CMOT, I would like to thank you for your willingness to speak so frankly about your circumstances, in this case your observations about caregivers. It is really cool to get to hear about these collateral (attendant??) issues (pun intended!) that go along with the territory of physical disability. It sounds like this is big part of the culture -- if that is the right word? -- that went right over my head, until you brought it up.

But it isn't just attendants. It's about the support network. Which includes everybody from counselors to physiotherapists to the person who drives the special-needs schoolbus. It seems like the powers that be have given stewardship of the oppressed to the oppressed. Which really when you think about it, would give many opportunities to collaborate in civil disobedience. Unfortunately, the people who give us help often don't see us as equal partners.

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 04 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 09 September 2008 11:27 AM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Ahem...
OK.
Ableism manifests itself in many different communities(religious and secular) in most countries. People with disabilities are shunned in Cambodia, beaten in Zimbabwe, and cut into tiny pieces in Tanzania. People with disabilities living in first world nations definitely have a better standard of living than disabled individuals in the majority world, But, there is prejudice. Canada approaches disability issues the same way a happy drunk approaches a long-lost brother at a New Year's party. However well-meaning the Canadian nationstate may be when it comes to gimps, they still end up bumbling around, are incredibly maudlin, and never really address the real causes of our opression. The Canadian government wants us to exist(I'm certain it wants me to, anyway) but it doesn't want us to live.

[ 09 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

[ 09 September 2008: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged

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