There's a blog I love that I've probably told plenty of you about. It's Feminist Mormon Housewives, and generally it's fabulous. Conversations over there are like Relief Society with your favorite sisters--the strong, fierce women who never let anything get them down and always offer an interesting perspective. The problem is, I've noticed a disturbing trend or habit or something that just goes on at this blog: the women use really ablist language. For example, this was posted Sunday night: "His wife started having convulsions or something because out the corner of my eye I see her eye balls roll into the back of her head and then she starts shaking. I almost called the paramedics.. oh wait..no.. she just thinks that I am wrong." That's not a pleasant thing for an epileptic to read. I'm not particularly overjoyed when people make light of what is a real physical challenge in my life. So I noted in comments that the wording was offensive and we might try to back off the ablist language in the future. The author of the post didn't bother to respond, but a fellow commentor (going by the sweet name "letswhine") felt it was her duty to hush me by saying, "Or maybe we could forego humor all together," because, as we disableds know, the best humor is humor the demeans and dehumanizes. So I explained, without anger, that when you wake up scared and confused, in your own feces and vomit, seizures don't seem "humorous" anymore. Again, the author of the post didn't bother to respond, though a commenter responded for her, saying, "P.S. Although I don’t condone making jokes about disabilities, and I do believe we need to be careful about the topics we joke about, I do not believe the author intented to offend anyone. Although it’s important to be careful not to offend, let’s also be careful not be offended, hmm?" It's great that she has insight into the author's intentions, but I have been told about 500 times too many to be careful not to be offended. When people make jokes about disabilities it is offensive!!! I don't think that should be a surprize. I don't think people should be shocked that I am offended, and I don't think people should try to hush me when I speak up about it. Would you speak up if someone made a blatantly racist joke? If you wouldn't, you are a coward. You are more interested in keeping your racist friends than you are in standing up for what you believe in. How is standing up for people with disabilities any different? In both cases, a person with privelege is dehumanizing people who do not have the same priveleges.
Part of this is reflective on LDS culture. Mormons are told to be slow to offense. So many times I've seen Mormons use the "you shouldn't get offended at this because you should be slow to offense" excuse. I even had one girl use it when I commented that her halloween costume was racially insensitive (it was--a lot). The problem here is a basic issue of pride. Instead of backing down and saying "ok, I made a mistake, I'm sorry," we turn the blame on the other person and say "you're worse than I am, you're taking offense." But I ask, who is at fault, the offender or the offended? In nearly all cases, we'd have to say the offender.
Another reason the suppression of calling out offense doesn't work in this forum, is because FMH is supposed to be a feminist blog--and feminism works by calling out the offenses patriarchal society commits against women. Shouldn't a feminist blog, then, be the right place to call someone out on offensive language?
One thing that has been a hot topic in many of the feminist blogs of late is the topic of intersectionality--how feminism (or any -ism) intersects and relates to any other -ism (race, disability, class, religion, etc). It has been said before that feminism is for upper-class and able-bodied white women. The movement has been trying to reach out beyond this perception and have more women of different backgrounds involved in feminism. FMH itself is the result of intersectionality--the intersection of feminism and religion (and housewifery, if you take it that far), but of late I have felt that they don't want to allow any further intersections to be made. That's a pity, because there are some of us out here who would love to be a part of a community like that--minus the offensive jokes about disabled people, and/or plus the advantage of being able to speak up and be heard and acknowledged without being hushed.
