Disability Rhetoric

1. Title and Author: 

“Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History” by Corbett Joan O’Toole

2. Summary:

O’Toole begins their piece first with the statement, “I love being disabled.” They explain that this statement is something most people don’t hear outside of disability circles because nondisabled people have a tendency to think of disabled people only in terms of “Sickness, diagnosis, and aberration.” They then brings up an anecdote from when they were a part of a women’s conference of a progressive national organization where chose small topics, O’Toole’s being disability. The women put up three signs, “Disabled,” “Nondisabled,” and “Not Sure.” Every single of the women who placed themselves in the “Not Sure” category could have easily been considered disabled, but were too “isolated in their own worlds… and working intensely to hide the fact of their disabilities from the people around them.

The section on isolation from others with disabilities nicely transitions into understanding how to have a successful life as a disabled person. O’Toole references research that says that support from peers and resourcefulness are the most important things a disabled person can have in order to live fulfilling lives, because the majority of people with permanent disabilities face enormous social and economic barriers.” Next O’Toole describes the ways societal views on people with disability affect their everyday lives in terms of lack of representation. They state that, “The current U.S. media representations of disabled bodyminds demonstrate a profound failure of imagination.” The messages surrounding disabled people in popular culture are simplistic and easy to swallow, and confirm negative biases about those with disabilities.

When disabilities are seen as primarily a bad thing that parents should test for so they can abort “abnormalities,” the numbers of people with say, Down’s Syndrome decrease. O’Toole takes issue with this because they know and have enjoyed the company of people with Down’s before and absolutely doesn’t believe the world would have been better if they hadn’t been born.” They uses the example of how changes have been made in the treatment of people with Down’s Syndrome and how when once they were routinely institutionalized, they are now treated with more human respect in our culture and are more able to lead rewarding lives. 

Next O’Toole goes into the idea that “normal” isn’t real, and shouldn’t be something that we strive to emulate, especially when it leads to ableism. They says that, “a society that leans toward “normal” creates significant disenfranchisement for everyone who is ‘not normal.’” Part of the issue with the desire for normalcy is the implication that competency is tied to it. Disabled people are routinely assumed to have less competence in various areas than they really do, and are forced into educational tracks that they don’t belong in because incompetence is seen as an overarching label for disabled people despite the variety of disabilities that exist in the world. They states that presuming incompetence leads to fewer disabled people being hired in nondisabled work environments because bosses assume they will not be able to effectively do their jobs despite little to no evidence of that idea. 

3. Quotes:

• “For many of us, the reality of being disabled, the way our bodyminds function, is cause for celebration. (O’Toole, 13-14).”
• “The forty women who joined the “Not Sure” group were all women that Marj and I would easily consider to be disabled (O’Toole, 14).”
• “Disabled people who are connected through disability circles have a much higher quality of life.’⁹‘ Notice that I did not say that they have fewer impairments. Their quality of life goes up because, often for the first time, they are surrounded by people who see their wholeness, in contrast to the medical system that primarily sees their brokenness” (O’Toole, iy).
• “All bodyminds are on a continuum. At different points in our lives, we have more and less function and move closer or further from the “normal” end of the spectrum” (O’Toole, ig).

4. Personal Reflection:

The most important message I took away from this reading was the idea that although it takes creativity to live a rewarding life with disabilities, that doesn’t mean that a life without disabilities is inherently better, in fact, “You get proud by practicing,” (Hershey, 14). I also really like how O’Toole described the example of the women’s conference and how very few of the disabled women were willing to describe themselves as such due to a variety of factors, the main one being shame. It seems that if were are able to eliminate the origins of this shame, a lot of people would be able to access the resources they need instead of being forced to deal with their difficulties by themselves.