No More Stares

Note: No More Stares was written in the early 1980s and both our thinking and our language about disability has evolved since then. Some terms used in the book, such as “mental retardation” and “short-stature” are rooted in medical diagnoses and are now considered inappropriate and stigmatizing. Use of the original language was maintained for historical accuracy.

Preface

by Corbett Joan OToole and Victoria Lewis

Disabled children have to be able to believe as much as any children in the world that they can continue to live and be happy and functional…that there is a future for them. This puts a lot of responsibilities on disabled adults to show them that.

 
A deaf woman, recalling her childhood, remarked, “I thought I would die before I grew up because I had never seen an adult deaf woman.”

For the most part, disabled children grow up without knowing adults with disabilities. Typically, their peers are either all disabled (the child is in a special school) or all non-disabled (the child is in a regular school). In differing ways these situations hinder the integration of the disabled experience into the total personality: the child’s basic self-image is incomplete. Thus the child, already faced with lowered cultural expectations and encumbered by architectural and attitudinal barriers in the society, is further weakened in her/his attempt to lead a meaningful life. Any attempt to promote the integration of persons with disabilities into the mainstream must address this problem of self-image, a problem generated in many cases by a lack of positive role models for disabled children.     Continued below.

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Preface Continued

In October of 1980, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Inc. (DREDF) in Berkeley, California, received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Women’s Educational Equity Act Program (WEEA) to investigate the educational experiences of disabled females. WEEA was concerned that these experiences might result in discrimination for disabled females. DREDF, a not-for-profit public benefit organization staffed primarily by disabled professionals and lawyers concerned with the civil rights of disabled persons, was and is interested in this issue because it documents the experiences of a population of disabled persons not previously addressed thoroughly. Many previous projects, including those of the Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education, had only collected data on a narrow range of disabilities or educational programs not broken down into disabled student populations: these projects had produced work that was well-documented but difficult to transfer to include other disabilities, specifically the educational experiences of disabled girls. The Disabled Women’s Educational Project, a joint effort of DREDF and WEEA, represents the first serious investigation in the U .S. of the issues both of disability and sex equity. One result of our investigation was this book, No More Stares.

No More Stares. provides both a frank discussion of the problems of growing up female and disabled and a documentation of a wide range of possible role models. We drew on the experiences of persons with physical, hearing, learning, emotional, visual, communication, and health disabilities, excluding only those whose disabilities were primarily based on alcohol or substance abuse. In order to make the book accessible to a wide range of ages and reading abilities, we have designed the book to give photographs and text equal weight. Another important aspect of concentrating on pictures as well as words is that disabled females are in a visual vacuum. Except for a few scattered poster child images, and an occasional famous actress with a hidden disability, there are very few images of disabled females. 

The words and images in No More Stares. combine to form a powerful and lasting picture of the diversity and excitement in the lives of disabled women and girls. But the writing of this book also testifies to the power of the memories of loneliness and isolation in a group of women who grew up disabled. 

Dorothea Lange, a world-famous photographer who was mildly disabled by polio, speaks of the intensity of the disabled experience in this little-known quote:

“No one who hasn’t lived the life of a semicripple knows how much that means. I think perhaps it was the most important thing that happened to me. [It] formed me, guided me, instructed me, helped me and humiliated me. All those things at once. I’ve never gotten over it and I am aware of the force and power of it all.”

The Diversity of Disability

This book has also served to impel disabled women to identify themselves as role models for disabled girls. We have tried to overcome the tendency in all groups to simplify. The media often portray a disabled person as a handsome young white man in a wheelchair, while the national service agencies portray a young white child on crutches. While both of these images are reflections of parts of the disabled community, neither is truly representative. 

The disabled population in the United States comes from all racial , age, ethnic, class and cultural groups. Some of these persons think of themselves as disabled and some do not. The only basic common ground among them is the common discrimination faced by all persons with disabilities, for there is always difficulty. 

Is disability defined to include persons with only physical, visual, hearing and learning disabilities? Or does it also include persons with emotional, mental, speech and health disabilities? What about persons suffering from alcoholism and substance abuse? Or persons labeled as disabled, such as the overweight or gay or prisoners? There are no easy answers to these questions. The inclusiveness of the list depends at present on a group or person’s individual beliefs and expenences. 

How people choose to define themselves also varies. In some circles, a person may be “handicapped,” and in other circles the same person may be called “physically challenged.” Other regional and national terms in current use are: differently able, developmentally disabled , physically different, handicapper, low vision, hard of hearing, substance abuser, and crippled. 

As one can see, there is great variety in the inclusiveness as well as the definition of the term. We do not feel that there is yet any universally acceptable term. For current purposes, where a single inclusive word was needed, “disabled” was chosen, since it is emerging as the term most commonly used nationally. 

Many persons purposely choose not to be labeled as disabled. There are still many powerful prejudices against persons who are physically and/or mentally different. Virginia Rubin remembers, “In my time, saying you had arthritis was like saying you had syphilis.” 

Whether or not one labels oneself as disabled is unimportant. What is important is that one recognizes that there are specific and ongoing discriminations practiced against those persons who are perceived as having a disability. 

Many disabled persons experience more than just a disability minority status. As Barbara Chin states, 

“I’m a member of three minorities: I’m a woman, Asian and disabled. Which do I identify with most strongly? It’s like a triangle. It depends on the circumstances which point of the triangle is on top.”

Based on an individual’s life experiences, the triangle may be weighted to keep certain priorities above others. Riua and Judy present divergent opinions. Riua states: 

“My primary oppression is Black, there is no doubt about that. I am a feminist because I am a woman. I am part of the disabled movement because I am disabled. But I would have to come out of the struggle of Black people to become a total feminist, or to become a person that thinks primarily in terms of disability.”

And Judy: 

“Disability is the primary problem in our lives. Once we identify ourselves as powerful disabled individuals, we can go back into our secondary communities, whether it be the black community, the Chicano community, the women’s community, or some combination o f these. We can go back into our communities and start making them deal with us the way they should be dealing with us.”

The authors of No More Stares. have recognized the previously limited view of disabled persons and have specifically selected images and words from a variety of persons. Please be aware, though, that each person is only speaking from her own life and experiences, just as you, the reader, can speak from yours. The key is that as a group we are far more interesting and diverse than many of us realize. It is in the celebration of that diversity that this book was born. 

Despite our recognition of the scope of disability, however, we decided in this book to concentrate on disabled girls. There are a number of reasons this book is specifically aimed at young disabled women, primarily because nothing now exists for this audience. While it is true that disabled males are equally disadvantaged by societal attitudes towards persons with disabilities, they as a group do not have the additional burden of sex discrimination. The major studies done in the U.S. on disability and work, for instance, show a consistent trend. If you are disabled and male you are twice as likely to get and keep a job as your disabled female counterpart-while earning a higher income for performing the same work. 

Disabled females are doubly disadvantaged. The problems facing disabled chidren in educational settings, those of access barriers, negative attitudes, and low expectations, are further compounded for disabled females by sex role stereotyping. This combination frequently results in low educational attainment and limited job experience. While this has been frequently observed, it was not until recently that significant documentation was available. We took advantage of this documentation, much of it collected by our project, to study the needs of a specific audience, and we designed this book for an audience primarily of disabled girls. Moreover, the book has served to give an opportunity to many disabled women to identify themselves as role models for disabled girls, who have rarely been able to identify with positive models. 

Working on No More Stares. has led us to believe that communication among disabled women will speed up needed changes. Only by talking to each other can we discover those problems we have in common and work together to fight for change. We can be role models to each other as well as to girls growing up. We can do this by making ourselves visible. Writing about our lives and our needs can help other people understand our experiences.That way not only will disabled women become more aware and organized for change, but also disabled men and non-disabled people can work with us to fight for change. We hope that eventually No More Stares. will speak to this wider audience. 

Where Do We Go From Here?

This book, No More Stares, is but a beginning effort to fill an enormous gap in the current and past history of disabled persons. There is a lot more out there to be learned. A resource section is provided in the back of the book for you to explore more possibilities on your own. But you should know that there is very little material now in which disabled people speak for and about themselves. 

This is not said to discourage you. Read this book, and then go out and write your own. Start with a story or poem about yourself; ask your friends to help. 

At times, life discourages everyone. Maybe it was a misplaced set of stairs that said you couldn’t get in, or the T I Y broke; maybe, like the artist Virginia Rubin, you are in pain every day. But in our interview with her in November of 1981, a month before she died at the age of 63, she talked about being a visual artist, a teacher, a mother and a friend to many. She said: “In the interest of living the pain became bearable. And I always thought that was the prize-LIVING.”