People love to talk about whether or not disabled people can work
but if you can work just fine and your disability is destroying your ability to have a life outside of work (because work takes all your energy and more)
Dead silence. Nobody cares.
File this under, oh you can be active for 4 hours? You can work part-time. Um no, I have to get ready for work (30 min) get to work (15 min) get home from work (15 min) feed myself all day (30 min) maintain myself, my home and my life (15 min, yeah right), which leaves 15 min for work and absolutely nothing else.
This is so accurate, back after I’d relapsed I wanted to try and go in for one class at school so I could still stay in contact with the education system. I let slip during a meeting that I managed to drag myself to that I could manage about 4 hours of activity a week, which the teacher sprang on to mean I was being lazy for just trying to get to 1 hour class. Never matter that it was 30 minutes travel, that I would have to get washed and dressed, that I would probably still need to recover for 3 days from it.
Far too often abled people see the things they do easily as “non activities”, they don’t realise that for many disabled people these things have to be carefully planned and measured, and sometimes they simply can’t be done.
reblog bc the non activities thing seems really important words
I get X number of pain-free steps per day right now, which means that, for large conventions (like SDCC), I need to be in a mobility device. I had someone ask if I used up my steps every day before transferring to the scooter, and look surprised and a little horrified when I said “no, I save them so I can go to the bathroom unassisted.” Like, they had never considered that walking is involved in peeing.
!
Reblogging for the important point that the term “activity” may mean something very different and much broader for a disabled person with a chronic pain or fatigue related condition compared to its meaning for a non disabled person. If you’re tired enough, simply sitting up in a chair rather than lying in bed is an activity that drains energy otherwise usable for other things. A thing I knew from other people with pain and fatigue related conditions, but worth reinforcing for followers who didnt know or had forgotten.
Okay mom literally wouldn’t let me get a vaccine until university REQUIRED me to get all my shots and shit because she thinks it causes autism. Binch. I am already autistic. Three psychiatrists have already confirmed this. What the fuck do you think is gonna happen if I get the fucking shot am I gonna level up and become a super autistic kid??¿¿ am I gonna grow too strong and you’ll lose health points in battle quicker because I got a shot that protects me and those surrounding me??¿ what’s gonna happen to me that hasn’t already happened when I get this shot like
somethin’ i am a little bit sick of is that because i am a 6′2 trans woman, i often get people commenting on my selfies with things like “please step on me” and “i want you to beat me up”. what is it about me that makes you think i’d want to do either of those things? i am very gentle and also my body is chubby and weak and i get fatigued from walking up anything steeper than a 20 degree angle hill, i’m definitely not going to have the energy to defeat you in combat.
i think there’s a Bad Attitude online that it’s somehow okay to make unsolicited advances towards people if you’re submissive about it. i’m a very affectionate person but comments like that from strangers make me feel uncomfortable.
i see a similar thing to this too where trans men are constantly infantilized and refferred to by cutesy terms, and like, and obviously this isn’t something i personally experience, but i’m really suspicious of the ways people describe trans bodies without our consent. i love strong women and i love cute men, but i’m so tired of how the gender expression of trans people is so often dismissed in favour of someones personal preferences. i’m not a big muscle babe who can beat you up, i have about as good fighting abilities as a 3d character who’s motion capture was performed by a bionicle, and i am sure there are a lot of trans men out there who are very bothered by being called things like “cute soft boii” or whatever.
it’s also an example of how trans bodies that don’t conform to cis expectations get turned into an object that’s fetishized along multiple fronts, you can’t just be seen as a man you’re someones smol cutesy boy not just as a woman but as a muscley strong gladiator woman.
this is all extremely true.
note that also the infantilisation of trans men and the idea of trans women as inherently violent and dangerous (i.e. man-like) has different material effects, i.e. trans men considered as a non-threatening kind of man allowing trans men to get away with abuse in many cases, while trans women considered inherently suspect and ready to be violently attacked and expelled whenever it’s convenient. [that doesn’t mean the infantilisation isn’t extremely crappy to trans men who aren’t abusers, it’s an awful dynamic all round]
it also should be noted that this fucked dynamic is heavily connected to white supremacy – the same “please beat me up” shit is regularly applied to woc (trans and cis, and especially Black women), [and also trans- and Black-coded fictional characters, i.e. media consumption reflects the real life dynamic], by white wlw – including white trans women. so this is doubly compounded for trans woc.
Yep, they took a post I wrote and just added on their gross little twist at the end. I also have them blocked, so I’m a bit upset that they apparently don’t care that I don’t want their interaction and took something I wrote anyway. Ever heard of respecting boundaries?
I just wanted to apologize for any hurt that was caused by their version. I’m sorry if it was confusing or upsetting. It was a horrible, shitty excuse for a “joke” that offended people and while I know that I had no part in their offensive version, I still feel bad for creating the content they used to hurt people. I’m sorry.
holy shit I’m so sorry this person did this to you
so they copied your post, word for word, after you blocked them, and turned it into a joke?
that’s a violation of tumblr’s TOS, i’ll report them for harassment
i should really report like half of exclusionist tumblr for that tho, since screenshotting after being blocked is also a TOS violation for harassment, and they dearly love doing it
You have nothing to apologize for! Your post was lovely and heartfelt, it’s not your fault exclusionists decided to be gross with it!
you can also say they’re unfairly using your intellectual property
Can we talk about how the Deadpool movie, which the media has largely referred to (in so many words) as a fuckboy’s wetdream, not only gives a female sex worker an empathetic role, but treats her and her work more respectfully than about 99% of so called feminist media?
.
At no point does the movie imply that Vanessa is tainted because she is a sex worker. At no point does the movie imply that Vanessa is unworthy of love because she is a sex worker.
At no point is Vanessa portrayed as “broken.”
At no point does the movie imply that being a sex worker makes Vanessa a bad girlfriend. At no point does Deadpool ask or expect Vanessa to sacrifice her job for their relationship.
At no point is Vanessa slut-shamed for her job, by either protagonists or villains.
Think about that.
Denigrating sex workers is so taboo within the Deadpool movieverse that even the villains won’t do it.
We know that Vanessa experienced sexual abuse, and that it’s shaped the person she’s become and influenced the choices she’s made. The movie clearly acknowledges that sexual abuse is real, and that it is damaging, and that people who experience sexual abuse struggle to lead “normal” lives and get “normal” jobs.
But the movie never hands sexual abusers the mic.
There is no sexual abuse porn in this movie. There are no voyeuristic rape flashbacks. There are no misogynist monologues. The audience learns about Vanessa’s abusive past from Vanessa, on Vanessa’s terms, through Vanessa’s own words.
This seems like the bare minimum of dignity any female character should be granted, yet so much media fails to meet this extremely low bar.
The movie makes it very clear that Vanessa has a life outside of sex work. She does not live on a stripper pole. Sex work is something Vanessa does. Sex work is not who Vanessa is. She has an apartment. She wears pajamas. What other fictional universe can say the same? I can think of one tv show, but that’s about it, and that show’s viewership is nothing compared to Deadpool’s.
Now on the one hand, I’m not necessarily happy that Vanessa’s character arc revolves almost entirely around her romantic relationship with the lead male protagonist. But on the other hand, I find it very refreshing to see a sex worker in the media whose character arc does not revolve entirely around the fact that she is a sex worker. Hate to say it, but for sex workers in the media, being relegated to the role of love interest is actually a step up.
Most feminist media would rather pretend sex workers don’t exist than write storylines of any kind for them.
This.
And the people who call Deadpool a fuckboy’s wet dream sure as heck didn’t watch the same movie I did.
The movie has:
A very funny moment in which the joke is on those who assume that sex workers have abusive pasts, not on the sex worker. (The comparing abuse thing gets ridiculous enough that they’re both clearly lying).
The male lead repeatedly posed in female come-on positions. This one is my favorite:
He’s even on a bearskin rug in front of a fire. The humor in this pose is “Haha, isn’t it silly to pose a character like that.” It’s designed explicitly to make people think about how commonly female characters are shown in these kinds of ridiculous poses. Going to tell me that’s not a feminist visual joke?
An under-age female character who is never sexualized. Yeah, this girl
Look at that. A practical costume, her breasts are minimized rather than emphasized. We only see Negasonic Teenage Warhead as badass, not “cute.” And she’s treated like a teenager, not a child or an adult.
Oh, and Deadpool doesn’t rescue Vanessa in the end. He throws her a weapon so she can rescue herself. Which she does, because she’s badass.
I’d actually call Deadpool a feminist movie, and an important one. Why?
Because they probably tricked an entire bunch of fuckboys into watching a feminist movie ;).
So, why was it so feminist?
Two words: Ryan and Reynolds.
Ryan Reynolds wanted to do this movie. He wanted to do this movie for years. Reynolds is basically a Deadpool cosplayer who managed to convince a movie studio to pay him a lot of money to be a Deadpool cosplayer.
Guess what Ryan Reynolds also is?
A feminist. He says he’s going to push for even more badass ladies in the sequel. (I think we’re going to see Vanessa with superpowers. They had her long enough to expose her to the agent, if not to activate it).
I’d love to see Vanessa with superpowers, and I enjoyed the hell out of Deadpool.
I forgot one, and an important one.
When we are shown the strip club Vanessa works at, it is not filmed the way movies always film strip clubs.
It’s filmed as if we were going to an office. It’s just “this is where Vanessa happens to work.” No low shot angles to show off women’s bodies, no soft porn music.
Just very…matter of fact.
Can we also bring up that Deadpool does NOT shame Negasonic’s name choice? It screams OC but he’s still supportive of it.
Of course he’s not gonna shame it, it’s the best fucking thing he’s ever heard in his life and he’s pissed at himself that he didn’t think of it first.
“i don’t judge people based on race, creed, color, or gender. i judge people based on spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.”
i hate to burst your pretentious little bubble, but linguistic prejudice is inextricably tied to racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, and ableism.
ETA: don’t send me angry messages about this…at all, preferably, but at least check the tag for this post before firing off an irate screed.
no one seems to be following the directive above, so here’s the version of this post i would like all you indignant folk to read.
no, i am not saying that people of color, women, poor people, disabled people, etc, “can’t learn proper english.” what i’m saying is that how we define “proper english” is itself rooted in bigotry. aave is not bad english, it’s a marginalized dialect which is just as useful, complex, and efficient as the english you’re taught in school. “like” as a filler word, valley girl speech, and uptalk don’t indicate vapidity, they’re common verbal patterns that serve a purpose. etc.
because the point of language is to communicate, and there are many ways to go about that. different communities have different needs; different people have different habits. so if you think of certain usages as fundamentally “wrong” or “bad,” if you think there’s a “pure” form of english to which everyone should aspire, then i challenge you to justify that view. i challenge you to explain why “like” makes people sound “stupid,” while “um” doesn’t raise the same alarms. explain the problem with the habitual be. don’t appeal to popular opinion, don’t insist that it just sounds wrong. give a detailed explanation.
point being that the concept of “proper english” is culturally constructed, and carries cultural biases with it. those usages you consider wrong? they aren’t. they’re just different, and common to certain marginalized groups.
not to mention that many people who speak marginalized dialects are adept at code-switching, i.e. flipping between non-standard dialects and “standard english,” which makes them more literate than most of the people complaining about this post.
not to mention that most of the people complaining about this post do not speak/write english nearly as “perfectly” as they’d like to believe and would therefore benefit by taking my side.
not to mention that the claim i’m making in the OP is flat-out not that interesting. this is sociolinguistics 101. this is the first chapter of your intro to linguistics textbook. the only reason it sounds so outlandish is that we’ve been inundated with the idea that how people speak and write is a reflection of their worth. and that’s a joyless, elitist idea you need to abandon if you care about social justice or, frankly, the beauty of language.
and yes, this issue matters. if we perceive people as lesser on the basis of language, we treat them as lesser. and yes, it can have real ramifications–in employment (tossing resumes with “black-sounding names”), in the legal system (prejudice against rachel jeantel’s language in the trayvon martin trial), in education (marginalizing students due to prejudice against dialectical differences, language-related disabilities, etc), and…well, a lot.
no, this doesn’t mean that there’s never a reason to follow the conventions of “standard english.” different genres, situations, etc, have different conventions and that’s fine. what it does mean, however, is that this standard english you claim to love so much has limited usefulness, and that, while it may be better in certain situations, it is not inherently better overall. it also means that non-standard dialects can communicate complex ideas just as effectively as the english you were taught in school. and it means that, while it’s fine to have personal preferences regarding language (i have plenty myself), 1) it’s worth interrogating the source of your preferences, and 2) it’s never okay to judge people on the basis of their language use.
so spare me your self-righteous tirades, thanks.
Oh my gosh YES, this post got so much better.
this is sociolinguistics 101. this is the first chapter of your intro to linguistics textbook.
and
and yes, this issue matters. if we perceive people as lesser on the
basis of language, we treat them as lesser. and yes, it can have real
ramifications
(Also, most of what people loudly defend as “proper English” is nothing more than an adherence to one particular style guide over another–it was what they were taught, therefore it is the only way. Heh, nope. Learn some more. Linguistic descriptivism for all.)
“Most dangerous monster? Well, vampires are pretty easy–just carry pencils. Ghosts are mostly irritants, werewolves collapse at silver, and dragons keep to themselves… Naw, it’s one no one expects. It’s–”
backup blogging platform 