To be annoyed that disabled woman have no air time on TV?

[RedSuedeShoes]

Like a previous poster I am getting really annoyed about the ancient ugly men on TV and the thin pretty women. Good to know our lives are over by the time we're thirty.

Anyway, for a while I've become aware that there are no women with disabilities on TV. The News has a blind guy and a guy with a stammer but have you ever seen a disabled woman? NO, because woman have to be pretty, bubbly and size 10!

I completely agree with you.

The number of men on our screens is absolutely and totally misrepresentative, in virtually all programmes barr soaps in which it is about 50/50. And not just a little bit but a HUGE differentation. Fucks me off just about everytime I try and find something to watch, especially in the evening. Flick now, do about 10 channels and count the number of presenters/protanists who are men to women and see the difference. (Films are even worse)

Disabled people are completely unrepresented in general and as for female disabled presenters/protaganists, can think of none other than those on Cbeebies.

So add the combination of those two and it's terrible.

It's such an obvious medium to demistify disability and yet is completely ignored.#

Makes me

Of course children notice that Cerrie doesn't have two full arms - how would they not? She doesn't try and hide it - my DS1 asked why she didn't have two hand and I told him that she wasn't born with two, some people aren't. He said he thought it would make cutting things difficult. End of conversation and a person lacking a limb normalised for another child.

Disabled women aside it's a bit irksome that once women are over a certain age they are generally but on the scrap heap - didn't something like that happen on Stricly Come Dancing despite it having a man over 150 still on it?

Was Cerrie born like that then? I always wondered when a see her telly if she born with it or whether she was in an accident?

Ceri was born like that

Oh, and she was born with her hand missing

Yes, there never seems to be anyone with a disability on a show that isn't made into an issue (children's tv aside) - i.e in Neighbours (or soaps or whatever) if there is a blind person, the plot is always centered around their blindness, their blindness is made into a big romantic thing where its all so tragic and lovely and romantic and then just as they have met the man of their dreams and are about to marry him because he loves them for who they are, they regain their sight and walk down the ailse and get to see the look on his face as they do so.

Etc etc.

If someone is paralysed, they always regain use of their legs to walk down the FUCKING aisle!!! Because you cannot possibly be worthy of love and a normal life if you dont have the use of your legs, could you? Or could you? Grrrr.

Having said that, there is an actress I saw on some BBC news thing last night or the night before (?) who is in her 50's, has been on Loose Women, and Grumpy old women, who is at least 40% deaf (so at least moderately deaf) in one ear and partial hearing loss in the other too. She is pretty deaf by "deaf" standards - moderately. So if she were a child today she would almost definitely have amplification (with parental consent anyway)

She was saying how being an actress is actually a good career for her - she can stand on the right, she can learn others lines beforehand, etc etc! Good point!

She's really quite well known, I need to google and find out who she is to add punch to my point.

What is my point? That she is technically "disabled" for want of a better word, but we didn't actually know until now.
Well, I didn't.

FlyingintheClouds, we must be kindred spirits. When Holly joined This Morning I couldn't believe it. Nice girl but she looks like a barbie doll and who wears that much make up?!

And whoever suggested that I was suggesting that disabled people couldn't be pretty, bubbly or size 10 is being a twit on purpose!

Stephanie Beecham

She was never known as Stef, because at school she was "deaf Stef"...

Did you know that?

Noooo. Holly isn't like a Barbie doll at all! She has a very curvy, womanly figure and a really bubbly personality, yet can be very serious as well with certain sensitive subjects.

Poor old Holly had big shoes to fill though (no pun intended). Whoever replaced Fern to Fern's fans would have been a dolly-bird-slut. Can't win.

She's no skinny minnie bones type but she does have big blonde hair - then again, so did Fern when she was that age.

redsuedeshoes- it's not about having someone 'just like me' on the tv, it's about representing the nation at least a bit, at the moment the nation, if taken from the tv would be about
70% male
and 0.1% disabled
and about the same number of women over 50.

I agree and I hate the fact that old ugly duffers have lifelong careers on TV but woman are thrown on the scrap heap once they reach a certain age/refuse plastic surgery!

I do like Holly, but really does she reflect those that watch TM? If I looked like that then I wouldn't be sitting watching morning TV! LOL! It's always the same. The female sidekick is leggy and blonde and lasts 1/5 of the length as the men!

OP I think the amount of discussion about Cerrie on this thread rather proves your point - 3 pages of thread and people have only come up with a tiny number of names.

YANBU.

(btw Thefirstmrsdeveerie, your post is fabulous, I couldn't agree more.)

Mikey from Big Brother was blind.

Plus they had the wounded solider guy this year (sorry didn't watch it this time, Steve was it?)

And Pete the guy with Tourettes, or does he not count?

There was also a singer in a wheelchair who did rather well on one of the first series of the X Factor. Terrible at remembering names.

Also there was a blind guy singer and his girfriend... I remember them because they lived in our newspaper's area and I had to interview him (am a journalist at local paper). Nice bloke, really clever.