NYCartist—in public I conceal my characteristics so that people will pay attention to my ideas instead.

The legend about not being able to catch HIV from a disabled person is a new one for me.  I thought I’d heard them all.  As for rape, that’s more about power than sex, I think.  Mostly disabled people are supposed to be angelically above it all.

I take ‘normal’ to be a social convention, like race.

I don’t think you need to be Black to speak about the exclusion of Black persons from fashion shows, modeling, and other fields; it’s something anyone can observe.  Racism damaged White people, too; they were mostly deprived of the beauty, intelligence, energy and faith of Black people for generations—and it was their own doing, collectively speaking. 

Black people, like women, have been pretty much excluded from the world of big-ticket art, by the way, although that may be changing now.  Or not.

NYCartist…

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist the joke!  But I’m not sure whether you’re happy or sad to see that age, as you call it, pass?

The joke on legs is fairly typical of an age going, going, soon gone….(B’s comment below this.)

I remember a case in New York where a construction worker lost both legs in a tragic accident, but when the civil lawsuit came to trail the judge dismissed it saying the plaintiff didn’t have a leg to stand on!!!

Anarcissie:I looked at Ferguson’s work.  I liked it.
It highlights the problem of content and being labeled,disabled artist, doesn’t it?  Gets back to Spike Lee’s “I want to be known as Spike Lee the filmmaker, not Spike Lee the Black filmmaker.”.  I have to deal with the “box”:
  -woman artist (feminists have been dealing with this
  since the 1970s; problem not yet solved)
  -disabled (my work covers several topics, nontopics,
    media varieties as sculptor and maker of political art on paper, limited editions.
Same problems carry over from being a woman artist, pre-disability to woman artist after becoming disabled.  See previous comments.  Showing and selling is harder for us because of two areas of discrimination:women, disabled.  As we discussed on the Warhol and big sales article awhile back, it’s about “the suits” who told you that it’s about selling.  It’s also still an “old boys’ network”.

Anarcissie: a quick reply to reply after some resting:
  Let’s stick to the big picture. 
1. It’s true about what you said that disabled people
  are thought to be asexual - yet during the height
  of the AIDS epidemic, in some places, men thought
  if you had sex with a disabled woman, you would
  not get AIDS.  (I’m serious that some men thought
  that.)
  Rape:very often perpetrated against disabled women.
  (One source, with documentation: http://www.notdeadyet.org  had link to a study on abuse and
rape of people with disabilities.  But it’s a problem not much addressed in the media in general.)

  2. I do hate the term “abnormal” and spend a lot of time/stamina on language suggestions to folks.

  3. Not being Black, I don’t speak about things
such as Black people and fashion shows.  (I’m an
atheist Jew.)

  I can’t figure out an easy way to get to see your reply and not lose this.  Tech-klutz am I.

  I can’t remember if you are a woman or a man.

NYCartist—‘KA’ disparaged the reality show described above: ‘First, what, exactly, is “missing” here, aside from the fact that some contestants are missing limbs? Could it be a sense of humanity, then?’  In other words, it is humane to keep the disabled and deformed out of sight regardless of their desires, inhumane to exploit them by attempting to publicly facilitate their (voluntary) entry into the world of modeling. 

I think this corresponds pretty well with the similar exclusion of Black persons from the same field fifty years ago, for pretty much the same reasons, but in addition I think we have the infantilization thing—disabled people are supposed to be asexual as well as mostly invisible, so they shouldn’t try for careers in entertainment, modeling, or any other field where sexual attractiveness is part of the business. 

Even ordinary romantic behavior is looked upon unfavorably.  I’m familiar with this because some of my close friends are visibly disabled and I hear about their predicament from time to time.

I’m not sure how disability works in the art world or which way it plays.  Consider the work of Laura Ferguson (http://www.lauraferguson.net) which is in part informed by her struggles with scoliosis; while she has been able to make a niche for it, it doesn’t seem to go over in the Chelsea galleries.  But then, neither does a lot of other work which I consider to be of considerable worth.

It’s true the concept of normality is pretty dubious, but people exhibit a sense of it regardless.  That’s why ‘KA’ thinks it’s inhumane to allow people who are missing limbs to try to be models.

Anarcissie, Keeping in mind that CFS/ME (my disabling illness) has cognitive aspects, I am still unclear about what you meant and KS meant that elicited your response.  (Outgo, verbal, is easier than, input, verbal.)  I need to reread parts of the original article.

I enjoy your comments.  I think it’s up to people in the group to decide if they want fashion shows, etc.

In the 1980s, after I became disabled, already a professional artist, I entered some professional art shows in the regular art world juried shows, won prizes, awards just so I could get on my “soap box” about open shows,etc. as I spelled out in my previous comments.  It’s about choice, but also about who is sponsoring/running/making the decisions about the event(s).  If I see the word
“quality” used anywheres about art and an artist who is disabled, I get angry. That’s one downside re segregated shows:not taken seriously, ignored by “real” art world. (We’ve discussed the art world before on this site, I recall.)

  Another “down side” of the segregated shows, while it did give people exposure and awareness to the general population, it further “locked in” separateness and “difference” in the minds of the ablebodied general public.  To paraphrase Spike Lee,
“I want to be known as a filmmaker,not the Black filmmaker.”. 

At the same time, I believe in self-identity, identification.  I have been involved with disabled artists for 24 years.  That’s a whole separate story.  I have been asked to produce segregated art shows.  Physically (CFS/ME), I couldn’t and I wouldn’t if I could.

I have a visceral, gut, emotional reaction to words like “normal” and “abnormal” in re disability.

It would seem that disability, as your last line suggests, is the “last group”...
And, I add, the last of the last are mentally disabled/mental illness and people with deformities (although people who are deaf are dissed,too).

Note that disabled people cut across EVERY other group:color, geography, economics (although most people with disabilities are poor)...I’m done…(CFS/ME physically….the brain is a muscle. When it’s overdone, quickly with this disease, it then makes the whole rest of the body “go”...like the marathon runner at the end of the 26mile line or permanent flu…  Thanks for reading, reply.

The software doesn’t recognize this as a new comment.

Anarcissie, Keeping in mind that CFS/ME (my disabling illness) has cognitive aspects, I am still unclear about what you meant and KS meant that elicited your response.  (Outgo, verbal, is easier than, input, verbal.)  I need to reread parts of the original article.

I enjoy your comments.  I think it’s up to people in the group to decide if they want fashion shows, etc.

In the 1980s, after I became disabled, already a professional artist, I entered some professional art shows in the regular art world juried shows, won prizes, awards just so I could get on my “soap box” about open shows,etc. as I spelled out in my previous comments.  It’s about choice, but also about who is sponsoring/running/making the decisions about the event(s).  If I see the word
“quality” used anywheres about art and an artist who is disabled, I get angry. That’s one downside re segregated shows:not taken seriously, ignored by “real” art world. (We’ve discussed the art world before on this site, I recall.)

  Another “down side” of the segregated shows, while it did give people exposure and awareness to the general population, it further “locked in” separateness and “difference” in the minds of the ablebodied general public.  To paraphrase Spike Lee,
“I want to be known as a filmmaker,not the Black filmmaker.”. 

At the same time, I believe in self-identity, identification.  I have been involved with disabled artists for 24 years.  That’s a whole separate story.  I have been asked to produce segregated art shows.  Physically (CFS/ME), I couldn’t and I wouldn’t if I could.

I have a visceral, gut, emotional reaction to words like “normal” and “abnormal” in re disability.

It would seem that disability, as your last line suggests, is the “last group”...
And, I add, the last of the last are mentally disabled/mental illness and people with deformities (although people who are deaf are dissed,too).

Note that disabled people cut across EVERY other group:color, geography, economics (although most people with disabilities are poor)...I’m done…(CFS/ME physically….the brain is a muscle. When it’s overdone, quickly with this disease, it then makes the whole rest of the body “go”...like the marathon runner at the end of the 26mile line or permanent flu…  Thanks for reading, reply.

NYCartist—in regard to disability or other physical abnormality and sex and infantalization, one of the things I have noticed is that, in general, disabled people are not supposed to be sexual but rather asexual and childlike.  (This is also true of retarded people.)  A few people do have erotic fetishes about missing limbs and so forth, but these are usually all about the fetishist and not about those he’s attracted to—not usually a good basis for romance.  For the most part it goes the other way, in any case—any sort of disability renders a person asexual in the eyes of most people.  The negative attitude of “KA” to the show described above is the typical mainstream response.  But of course disabled people have the same variety of interests in sex and self-display as anyone else.

Probably segregation is necessary at this stage of things.  A generation or two ago, Black women who wanted to be in fashion shows or beauty pageants could not enter the mainstream versions, but they had segregated ones in which they could participate.  Now we’re all enlightened, except about people with disabilities.

Additional thoughts, overnight:
Segregation: as an artist, who is disabled by chronic
  illness beginning midway thru my art career,
  is a dislike of segregated art shows - that is
  separate art shows for artists with disabilities.  I prefer integrated art shows.
  I think art shows should be controlled by the
  artists and open shows to all based on limits of
  space (an idea I’ve shared with other feminists
  in the women’s art movement since the 1970s, pre-
  disability and I carry the idea into disability
  awareness and advocacy).

So I think the models should be included in “everybody” model shows, not just disabled.

(If some women want a fashion show of women who are
disabled, I’m OK with that.  It’s about choice and control.)  There are fashions for people with disabilities that are tailored for the needs of people with disabilities, the ease in getting them off/on, etc.

Infantalizing of disabled women: I notice the middle photo has a woman dressed like a doll.  One of the first things I noticed when I became disabled, was that my status as an autonymous adult was challenged.  People would ask my husband if I wanted something, rather than speak to me in my wheelchair.  (An aside: on women as sex object-
  from the time I was 16, men only spoke to my
  chest, not my face - until I became a wheelchair
  user at age 45 or so, and then when speaking to
  me, looked at my face.  I was delighted!!!)

Wheelchairs: to me, it’s a way to not have to stay in one spot, like a car is for drivers.  There is NO STIGMA to using a wheelchair.  Yet, some people are uncomfortable with seeing wheelchair users.  I was at times before I was a wheelchair user, so I
understand.

Some people chose to or can use prosthesis(artificial limbs) or not use them.  There are groups of people who have had amputations, organized groups. I knew an artist with leg amputations due to blood disease.  It is not unknown for people with diabetes to have amputations, same for frostbite survivors, as well as those born without limbs or people who are disabled by car accidents, wars, landmines, and other.  I know a woman who was stabbed in the back by a stranger and when she woke up her legs were amputated due to blood circulation/loss.

It is wryly amusing to read people arguing which disabilities would qualify for the models show or not, such as deafness.

Final thoughts on this: An able-bodied person working in an organization “for” disabled people is not the same as a disabled person working in the executive position.  Groups like http://www.adapt.org and http://www.disabledinaction.org were formed by/for/of people with disabilities. 
Being “protected” is part of the infantalization of people with disabilities.  As an artist, I am
very aware of autonomy.  And as a woman and as a disabled woman.

  I noticed that the coup-ed Pacifica has a new
exec. dir.  (the previous, the interim, did the coup at WBAI with collaboration from new majority on Local Station Board see http://www.takebackwbai.org).
The new exec. dir. was formerly in an exec. position with a United Cerebral Palsy group.  I don’t know if she is disabled.  I knew someone from the group in my city in the mid-1980s who told me she was the only person with cerebral palsy who was in an executive position in the city’s organization.  (She’s retired now.)
 
I ask the question: how many, if any, are the people making the decisions about the tv show this article is about?  It only has validity to me if disabled people are making the choices, the decisions.

I think the disability joke on deafness in the article says something.  We live in an ableist society.  (I’m severely disabled, CFS/ME so mostly what you would see, is my wheelchair, due to CFS/ME.)

I’ve been thinking about this since I saw the article somewheres, maybe HuffPo this morning.  The Guardian online has had stories about disability and tv -
http://www.guardian.co.uk and it’s the comments that I always find most interesting.

I’m ambivalent.  I’m a part of the disability/human rights activist community and disabled for over 2 decades. Welcomed by the disability community before I had a diagnosis of CFS, I identify with the whole disability community. 

I’m also a feminist nearing ....7 0.

Should disabled women have the same opportunity to make sex objects of them/ourselves as able-bodied women?  (I don’t “do” tv, by the way and don’t miss it.)

If you google, there are photographers who are women and disabled who photograph disabled women.

Look at http://www.hoydenabouttown.com which is in Australia and feminist; see tigtog’s blog and also the blog by a disabled feminist, lauredhel.

Also google Crippen’s Blog in England.  Long url that I can’t do - low tech skills.  He’s a cartoonist dealing with disability issues.

As a woman, who is disabled, I know there has long been prurient interest in people with less limbs than the regular 2 arms and/or 2 legs, etc.  There was an article some months ago on disabled people and sex on the English news website the Independent, which made a point of showing a man with one limb.  It was a sensationalized story.

As a feminist, I don’t like seeing women as sex objects.  As a woman, and artist, I love fashions.

I think there will be a lot of variety of opinion by women with disabilities. 

Finally, I’d like to point out that people with deformities are often hidden away by family or choice due to societal reaction/displeasure (too small a word) upon seeing them.  I notice in the photos, that the women are what would usually be called “beautiful” in re face, etc.

Does anyone remember Bree Walker, the ABC newsperson who has a disability - her fingers and toes are deformed.  There was a huge hullabaloo when she was pregnant with her second child because the condition is genetic linked.  The public carried on (early 1990s?)about whether or not she should be allowed to have a child! 

And the late Frieda Zames PhD, wrote a book with her sister, Doris Zames Fleischer, on the history of disability,“The Disability Rights Movement: From Charity to Confrontation”, Temple University, 2001. Google Frieda Zames, one of the founders of http://www.disabledinaction.org (great activist group in NYC).  In the book, they tell the story of the “ugly laws” in Chicago, I think, at the turn into the 20th century, where disabled people couldn’t eat in restaurants.

And, within the last 5 years, I heard a guy who worked in China for a decade, a business man, tell of how the Chinese were not allowing disabled people to go to college because it didn’t look good.

Remember the reaction when Oprah had the woman on recently who had been attacked by the chimp (and was without eyelids, nose, some of lower face with flap of skin)?  A woman in France killed herself during the drama of should she be allowed “assisted suicide” (see http://www.notdeadyet.org on “assisted suicide” and related topics) because she had a face disfigured by tumors and was blind and it was the reaction on the street that she talked about.

So, I dunno.

“KA” made the play on words explicit.

“KA” seems to feel the reality show is bad.  But I’ve been to fashion shows for people who were disabled, deformed, and missing limbs.  It was quite an experience, a bit of mind dynamite which “KA” may not be up to—but which there is no logical or humanitarian reason to disparage or suppress.

Someone once asked Diane Arbus why she photographed so many abnormal people, and she said, “They are the nobility.  They are the ones who have been tested.”