Rights of people with disabilities and carers.

[CaramelTree]

I've started this thread because I am concerned about the treatment of people with disabilities, both on MN and in general society. With the cuts, the new regulations around benefits and workfare and the quite disturbing representation of people with disabilities in the media, I believe that society is becoming increasing hostile towards them.

I feel this is a feminist issue because

1. Carers are disproportionately female.
2. Prejudiced attitudes to disability feed into ideas about how people contribute which I think are contrary to feminist views about the kind of world we want to live.
3. The arguments on MN on recent threads include the belief that people with disabilities and their carers are discriminating against mothers by wanting priority access to wheelchair spaces. Discriminating against mothers is a feminist issue, but I have never seen a regular poster from the FWR support this argument and I consider the analogy in itself to be disabilist.
4. A shorthand set of terms is being used to create a stereotype around MNers who are carers or have a disability. While we are strident, crazy and angry, they are considered to be bitter, selfish and needy. I feel we need to challenge the language and the goading of posters with disabilities.

There have been threads before on here where posters have asked if the situation around carers is a feminist issue, and while it was acknowledged that it was, I think 'we' (people who are on the boards a lot - not suggesting there is a hive mind) lacked ideas on how to support them. I know people on here campaign about the cuts, but I think it would be positive if 'we' could support people on MN who have experiences with disability, because it seems to me that those posters are leaving/considering leaving, and MN will be intolerable without them.

I should perhaps make it clear that I am not suggesting feminists and people with disabilities are two mutually exclusive groups, either on MN or in life in general.

Great OP, Tree. I agree with everything you've written.

Good thread Tree, I look forward to seeing where this goes.

Totally agree Tree. TBH I don't venture out of FWR that often so tend not to see this stuff anymore here. Maybe we could have some kind of pm system to support posters and challenge anti disability stuff? Would be happy to do this if you think it helps?

Agree OP.

I think mothers and carers of small children have actually been advantaged, to some extent by the advances that disabled activists have made e.g. more nappy changing areas as they are often in disabled toilets (although I don't necessarily think that is a great solution), ramps to shops and other public areas, lifts in public areas, greater space for prams on buses etc.

I wasn't involved with the bus thread but read part of it since. There is correlation between the non-recognition of privilege with some able-bodied people and the non-recognition of privilege from some men. There was also a sense of entitlement too.

Goading is the right word. I don't understand people's vehemence in going on those threads to tell a minority/oppressed group how they should act/feel and to invalidate their actual feelings. And the language is stereotyping and dismissive. When it comes to language used and allowed on MN, feminists and disabled people are fighting similar battles.

good thread OP. Completely agree.

I agree very much with the OP.

I haven't read the bus thread but I can well imagine what AbigailAdams describes. Also that Independent article is awful.

Just posting in support.

Another reason this is a feminist issue, especially with cuts putting more pressure on families, is that disabled people and their carers are more vulnerable to abuse. There are precious little resources for women and children fleeing abusive situations but even less for those with specialist needs.

Abigail I have tried to make a smiler point to yours several times in the context of a call by mnhq for thoughts on doing a funding campaign for women's aid and refugees. These are worthy and important services but not necessarily accessible to women who have children or even young adults with complex needs.

I think it is a feminist issue that women who are the majority of their carers are seeing a reduction of short and long term respite care thus throwing the full weight of medical and social care on them at the risk to their health, their mental well being, their ability to work, and their social activities.

Another example would be in the realm of the welfare benefits reforms currently being targeted at disabled people. Women will be hit in two ways that are separate from the rest, of the population.
1.) Women often end up in the part time low waged jobs. These are the jobs that the government want to see the "benefit scroungers" or sick and disabled to you and me, end up in. Their is no long term plan to up skill or retrain to make employment more affordable or better paid. Their is a huge tax payer funded machine been set up to firstly deny benefit, and then put people through demeaning and largely pointless "training" programmes that deal with issues like interview skills, or work placements that are slave labour. The result will be that women particularly in areas of the country that have long term poor economic performance will be having to apply for far fewer jobs, against people who are fitter, more experienced, better qualified, and more flexible.

2. As part of the welfare reforms ESA may only be payable for 12 months non means tested, after 12 months and if other income comes in to the house, from a partner or child's earnings, a pension, a set amount of savings, then no ESA will be paid at all. Housing benefit will stop, council tax rebate will stop. Women I think will be placed in a more insidious position as they face homelessness or dependency of friends or family.

All of the above reasons are good. But fundamentally, before any of those reasons, I think disability rights should be a feminist issue because equality only for women who are able-bodied and neurotypical would be a pale and hypocritical equality. I'm a disabled woman: I live with disability every day, and if feminism can't include disability issues then it becomes pretty irrelevant to my life.

I think disability rights should be a feminist issue because equality only for women who are able-bodied and neurotypical would be a pale and hypocritical equality.

Yes to this MNMarmite.

MMMarmite: I shyed away from saying what you did as I am not female, however having read enough about equalities and human rights, I think many marginalised groups become even more marginal if a impairement or long term health problem exists.

In fact only today I was at a meeting that brought together a range of groups and workers all of which would be identified as working with marganalised groups to look at how people who identify as LGBT can be better served and welcomed by LGBT organisations if they were aware about how disability or ethnic origin were also part of the LGBT persons identity. What became clear is that some people had real difficulty in seperating the label of LGBT from the other parts of someones life and identity.

As a female carer i would like to thank you OP for starting this thread. I am a carer for my husband who has ischemic heart disease and decreased lung function and arthritis.
Im sooo sick and tired of disabilism not being taken seriously. Im sick and tired of the scapegoating in the media (and when they do this they always make out that DLA is an out of work benefit when it fucking isnt.) Ive had enough. Im so bloody tired of it. Carers make a lot of sacrifices to care and not only does it go unacknowledged,we are made out to be scroungers as well. There are also problems in my marriage which ive talked about a lot on these boards which doesnt help but thats only my situation. There will be a lot of carers and other disabled people much worse off than me and im sick and tired of society not giving a fuck!

I think we do care. But we don't understand. Despite having two close friends who are carers for family, I don't understand. As they don't seem to feel the same way as other carers. Obviously there is no hive mind.

Sorry nailak i was generalising. Not all carers feel the same way about their situations. No 2 situations are the same.

what I am trying to say, is I have a good friend with a disabled son, she has to take him to appointments all the time, he requires attention in the night and uses oxygen mask and feeding tube in the night, but when she is feeling tired out or fed up with children (she has 3), or has to attend to him in the night etc she doesnt see it as more difficult as others with 3 kids attending to their kids or feeling worn out etc. If she lets of some steam about her kids, and I do the same about mine, she is more likely to say "at least mine go to sleep on time" or something like that, rather then get offended that as a mother with 3 NT children I cant understand her difficulties and stress etc.

and another friend who is carer to her MIL, she is always taking her MIL to appointments and picking up prescriptions etc. But she doesnt seem to have the same attitudes as many on here. She doesnt feel like a scrounger, or demonised Her and her MIL dont feel like they are a marginalised group because of disability.

Both of these friends feel happy with the support and finance they receive. sometimes they have a little moan about community nurse, but it gets sorted in a couple of days and thats about it.

Excellent OP, I agree wholeheartedly.

I consider myself a feminist, I am also a FT carer to my DS who has severe SN. The cuts have certainly made it so much harder for us, I have less 'disposable' income and the removal of services that we used has hit us so hard, I have pretty much no help with my son now meaning that during school holidays I am literally a prisoner in my own home as I can't take him out anywhere without some support. So we just suffer for six weeks, each of us becoming more and more frustrated, bored etc.

I used to work in advocacy for people with disabilities, I was a very active campaigner and was always shouting loud and hard. Now, I'm knackered TBH, I don't have the time or energy to shout and complain anymore so we go around in circles.

Thanks for starting this thread. Last year I came on here to ask for advice re handling discrimination due to disability- its v similar to feminist debates...

I became disabled in the last 2 yrs- when the country seems to have turned upon the disabled, it's been bloody awful & the level of ostracisation, ignorance & selfishness is astounding.

Nothing is set up to help a disabled mother (of a baby/ toddler but prob all ages)... Infrastructure, equipment, benefits... Nothing. The whole world is set up so its too ruddy hard for me to join in with, it feels like I have to make a fuss to be 'allowed' to do even basic everyday things... & it's alot easier to let my world contract to the size of my bed.

You can EITHER be a mother or disabled, & I've had people look on me w disgust when it becomes apparent I am both. Huge amount of prejudice, & a basic belief (unsaid but strongly held) that disabled people shouldn't bring children into this world... & if they do, then they don't deserve help.

I've had it said many many times to me that it's ok as 'I didn't know I was becoming disabled when I got pregnant'... By people who am sure would be horrified at the idea of what their own words imply...

Many 'mummy friends' are no longer friends as I make them feel guilty for complaining about how hard it is being a mother (err, does one experience invalidate another?). Other people have refused to believe there is anything physically wrong w me, telling me that motherhood is hard for everyone (ffs)...

Anyway, have a thousand stories to bore you with, but bottom line is... Glad you started this thread

Would it be helpful to have disabled mothers group? Is there a need for it? Should I suggest it?

There already is one nailak. It's called parents with disabilities, and it's under the main sn board, alongside children with disabilities.

I suspect your friends may find life more difficult than you suspect, tbh. If you were my friend in rl, you would say I was always happy and cheerful, and dealt with my lot well, no problems. This would be because I don't want you to pity me because of my beautiful children, don't want you to look on my beautiful children as a burden, and because i actively seek to promote the normality of disability in my daily life. It doesn't mean I don't go home and sob occasionally, or haven't had huge amounts of counselling to come to terms with both the trauma of dd2's birth, the reality of caring for a child with a lifelong disability, or the stresses caused by discrimination. You really wouldn't know. tbh, even dh doesn't know about the counselling. I have my safe spaces to rant, but my rl friends wouldn't have a clue.

Anyway, the lot of carers is definitely a feminist issue. Carers allowance is an insult at the current rate, given the sheer amount of women who are pressured and guilted into not working to care for loved ones, putting themselves into the welfare system and associated benefit/ poverty trap in order to give their loved ones the best possible attention because the system has failed to provide it. Soooo tied up with the mother's role. Soooo tied up with women as nurturers, men as providers.

I am proud to say that I do know a number of youngish men who have chosen to work with youth and adults with disabilities, and they do a sterling job. In terms of caring, however, I know absolutely no male carers who are not in paid employ to do that job, and literally hundreds of women in unpaid caring roles for relatives.

Thanks for starting this and to people for sharing. I've no knowledge to add anything, but and reading and learning.