I would like to thank all the women who shared their time and experiences during the past three years, thus inspiring me both personally and professionally. Thanks to the staffs of the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund and Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living (in particular Judy Heumann) for introducing me not only to many of these women but also to the philosophy of the independent living movement. Also thanks to Barbara Waxman and Tari Susan Hartman for their guidance in contacting the Los Angeles community and suggesting resources. The DREDF staff also provided the research and clerical backup without which this book would have eternally remained a good idea. It was a great pleasure to collaborate with Lois Dadzie, our non-flagging research head. Particular thanks to Katherine Corbett for conceiving the book along with its wonderful title.
My deepest gratitude to Deborah Hoffmann and Pam Mendelsohn for their enthusiasm, belief, criticism and love throughout this project.
I would like to make my own personal dedication of No More Stares to Virginia Rubin. Ginny didn’t live to see this book, but she was for me in the last months of her life a role model. A role model, first, of a successful woman artist who happened to have a disability and secondly, and more importantly, of a woman who had, by the time I met her, learned the difficult task of balancing passion, humor and faithfulness in her friendship and her work.
Victoria Lewis
There are people who made this book possible, people who gave this book direction, and people who made this book fun to do.
The people who made this book possible are: Leslie Wolfe, Director of the Women’s Educational Equity Act Program, who believed that equality should be for all persons, not just those who are white and able-bodied; Robert Funk, Executive Director of DREDF, who created an agency committed to changing America’s misdirected policies for the disabled; and the disabled girls and women who responded enthusiastically to No More Stares.
Many people gave us help and direction: Merle Frosch! and Barbara Sprung of the Non-Sexist Child Development Project, NewYork City; Mary EllenVerheyden at the Equity Institute, Bethesda, Md.; Lori Grey, student at the University of California, Berkeley; Carolyn Vash, Institute for Information Studies, Falls Church, Va.; Pam Mendelsohn, Cal State University at Humboldt; and our families, who laughed and cried with us through it all. Thanks especially to Jennifer Luna Bregante for her inspired suggestions and her continuing belief in our ability to carry this book from idea to completion.
The staff of DREDF and the No More Stares staff made this book fun to do. Throughout this process of putting a book together, a first for most of us, we found that no matter how distressing or overwhelming the book seemed at times, one of us would see a funny side to the situation and we’d all end up laughing.
When we worried over not enough money, one of our kids came up with the dough, courtesy of her “Monopoly” game. As the deadlines closed in and we fretted about time, someone would call an “It’s about time for a break” party and we’d all laugh and relax.
We learned that though individually we had limited knowledge of bookmaking, collectively we could resolve every situation.
Corbett Joan OToole
May, 1982
Berkeley