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To be a woman, is to be disabled? And to be a disabled woman, is doubly disabling?

So, I guess, I struggled with these "feminist disabilty politics. I am a diehard feminist and will be forever, however, I struggle with feminist ideas that seem to neglect a discourse of trust. If a woman has to get a mastectomy, does that mean automatically that if she wants reconstructive surgery to re form her chest, she is conforming to a pressure to look a certain way for the "male gaze"? Althoguh it seems important to me to always question why someone wants to do something for themselves that involves drastic change, why do we push so hard on the women who have made certain choices for themselves? Also, isn't passing up on reconstructive surgery a choice as well?

Disabilty politics/feminism is also even more complicated as we look at disabilities that are visible vs. invisable. There are many people that are not recognized as disabled. That just goes to show you how dependent we are on what we rely on our eyes for.

So, do we change society to fit our needs, or do we change ourselves to fit society's needs? So, of course I think society needs to do much more work on finding that passion to become les obsessed with the "norm" and do things that cater to communities that have been subjugated as a result of their impediments. However, I take issue I suppose with trying to cancel the problem, it almost does seem like a eugenics movement to develope implants for the hearing impaired. Maybe it should be up to the hearing impaired community, or maybe it's good that we have ear implants, but a people should be able to choose for themselves as to whether or not they are interested in that sort of change.

Lastly, the selfish thing.

I apologize for not having posted earlier, especially on this one, but it's been a really rough time for me.

So, having a child is selfish. (and honestly, it's not that I'm against having a baby, well....i will never birth a child, however, on a very basic level...i guess....i feel this way)

1) there are so many children that need homes, and we are so concerned with having children that (look like us, have our manerisms, and are extensions with ourselves) that we forget about how privileged we are to even be thinking about having a child

2) When we are deciding to have a baby, (well this may be a confidence thing as opposed to a selfish thing)..however, we are seeing ourselves as fit to be parents (and yes....i am sure that we are fit to be parents...well....maybe not now, or maybe yes!) But, the idea is that we are selfish enough to want a child so badly, we may have a higher sense of ourselves

3) Why do we have babies? So we can have a legacy? So we can raise a child to be just like us? So we can have the experience of raising a child? Doesn't it seem like these are all reasons that have to do with us, more than they do, the actual baby?

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Class summary : Novemer 8, 2007

- Lakshmi Discussion: emphasis on flesh and muscle, vs. bones and scientific structural anatomy (which is more powerful)

- Demonizing of the Norm? Is the norm wrong for trying to keep us a certain way? (Is it us, our culture, our parents, our doctors?)--is Lakshmi's surgery imposing western values?

- Importance of cultural contexts:

-biological anomaly

- important to be aware of normative presumptions

Tamarinda:
"To be a woman is to be disabled in our normalizing culture. Is this society's attempt to 'disable women'? Or, are women being promoted by this idea?"

(I really loved when you said this in class)

-Why is there something wrong with having and living with our disabilities?

-When are categories useful? When are they dangerous?

- Society's mold = dangerous, we must steer clear of our own notions and others' notions of normalized individuals.

-We are obsessed in society with this culture of "mistake, error, abnormality, and fix it"

- Are we ever really acknowledging our differences and/or our privileges?

- Temporary vs. Perpetual Disability

- Visible vs. Invisible disabilty

- Can we function in scoiety if we tailored our environments to cater to everyone?

2)