Clarifying a previous post
Mar. 19th, 2015 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydyI wish to absolutely state that pregnant people are often treated like shit, and in all sorts of horribly complex ways. The medicalization of pregnancy is built from a number of different bricks, including infantizling women, treating women as alien beings, and a desire to turn a profit on an activity which, a large percentage of the time, does not need high-priced medical interventions. There's also a bunch of weird risk assessment errors that go into this. And so on and on.
However, my point is that pregnancy, child birth, and parenting are basic human experiences and that so is disability. The way in which we try to separate out various human experiences, and treat them differently, tends to be done based on our ideas of the value of people. And those ideas of value are constructed out of things like economic productivity, and that entire system sucks diseased rats through a straw. People do things. Lots of things. Some of them fall off mountains. Some of them get born with cerebral palsy. Some of them get pregnant. Some of them break their leg, and get better. Some smoke and don't get lung cancer, some don't smoke and do. Some of them exercise daily, some of them are slugs like me. Some of them (shudder) want to make art for a living. Good gods, some of them are even (whisper it) musicians.
When we say that we shouldn't treat working mothers as if they have a disability, what we are saying, by implication, is that disability is less worthy in some way. That it's fundamentally different. And yep, it's different. Everything is. Disabled people are often, actually, not sick, at least not in any useful sense. The fact that the model for handling disabled workers and the model for handling working parents is similar points to something very important. People have lives. They need, in the words of Bob, slack. And our system is designed to take away that slack. It is a sin and a shame to put people in competition for that bit of give in the system. And in a program dedicated to arguing that parents need a bit of slack, a parent denigrated the need of another human for a bit of slack in their life. "It makes me sick," she said. She found it revolting to be compared to someone who also, for whatever reason, needs slack.
Honestly, we over-medicalize disability, too. We get impatient that people don't just "get better." We focus on cures rather than accommodations. We fail to deal with real life issues and propose "cures" without ever trying to understand the implications of those "cures."
Did I misunderstand the point of the nice lady on the radio? It's possible. But I find it telling that so many people want to engage with the medicalization of pregnancy, and don't want to engage with the fundamental flaws of our economic/social system. The scrabble over pieces of the diminishing pie is real. Pay attention. It's a problem for all of us. We need, not a bigger piece of pie, but a whole new pie.
However, my point is that pregnancy, child birth, and parenting are basic human experiences and that so is disability. The way in which we try to separate out various human experiences, and treat them differently, tends to be done based on our ideas of the value of people. And those ideas of value are constructed out of things like economic productivity, and that entire system sucks diseased rats through a straw. People do things. Lots of things. Some of them fall off mountains. Some of them get born with cerebral palsy. Some of them get pregnant. Some of them break their leg, and get better. Some smoke and don't get lung cancer, some don't smoke and do. Some of them exercise daily, some of them are slugs like me. Some of them (shudder) want to make art for a living. Good gods, some of them are even (whisper it) musicians.
When we say that we shouldn't treat working mothers as if they have a disability, what we are saying, by implication, is that disability is less worthy in some way. That it's fundamentally different. And yep, it's different. Everything is. Disabled people are often, actually, not sick, at least not in any useful sense. The fact that the model for handling disabled workers and the model for handling working parents is similar points to something very important. People have lives. They need, in the words of Bob, slack. And our system is designed to take away that slack. It is a sin and a shame to put people in competition for that bit of give in the system. And in a program dedicated to arguing that parents need a bit of slack, a parent denigrated the need of another human for a bit of slack in their life. "It makes me sick," she said. She found it revolting to be compared to someone who also, for whatever reason, needs slack.
Honestly, we over-medicalize disability, too. We get impatient that people don't just "get better." We focus on cures rather than accommodations. We fail to deal with real life issues and propose "cures" without ever trying to understand the implications of those "cures."
Did I misunderstand the point of the nice lady on the radio? It's possible. But I find it telling that so many people want to engage with the medicalization of pregnancy, and don't want to engage with the fundamental flaws of our economic/social system. The scrabble over pieces of the diminishing pie is real. Pay attention. It's a problem for all of us. We need, not a bigger piece of pie, but a whole new pie.
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no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 04:12 pm (UTC)One of my favorite movies has an obviously pregnant character. 7-8 months. It is never mentioned even obliquely. She is mugged and in physical danger. It isn't mentioned. She does not deliver in the course of the movie. It isn't a plot point at all. This movie was made in Swedenn. Where parenthood is just a thing people do (or not) and don't need to be punished for.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 05:14 pm (UTC)That movie does sound interesting, hopefully for more than just that one detail, though. But the detail itself is very telling. I have never been pregnant, nor ever been interested in having kids. But I am very weirded out by the people that try to make that either the core purpose of being human, or reject it as a terribly waste of human potential. People. Complicated.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 05:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-20 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 05:44 pm (UTC)most people have physical limitations
some of us just don't know what they are yet.
we need to be compassionate and let people do
what they can i the time they need.
when women are pregnant
there are certain actions life style accommodations
that need to be made for their health and the babies.
they are not dis-abled its not a permanent state.
temporarily they need easy access to facilities and healthcare.
extra space for motivating does become necessary
it can mess with hormones and rationality.
there is a effect that a woman continues to live with
even if they did not go to full term,
this i know from personal experience.
but what is "normal" there are people with out any physical things
that have things that need accommodation . I have a friend who
looks normal. people can't tell her feet where resewn on from an accident.
the distance for walking is limited. My dad looks & sounds normal,
you would't know he's pushing the envelope of dementia ...
we need to make accommodations for everyone.
the pushy ones take it, the ones who need it get run over.
impatience and being pushy seems a liability of the people doing it.
people need time to think when they want to say something.
the ones who don't think first are scary.
there are so many false expectations for people
no one can do everything ,
everyone has some thing they're protecting inside.
I think a person should be able to write a note
"i had to park here I have the flu"
and be allowed to use a special space
but that would be taken advantage of.
but being labeled as having chronic colitis
so the occasional need isn't the best either.
too many rats in the basket
too many people expecting profits from
a service that should not be based on profit
but on preserving good health-
it doesn't work. the people needing services aren't getting them
because its not profitable.
our society is not profiting from it in the long run.
Wisconsin had created a set of rules
designed to keep people at home as they age.
then our county discontinued home health care,
that combined with the facilities that provide health care
being closed or moved out of the county.
it makes me worried 80% of the population is retired here.
the ones in control- the county board
is not making accommodations for its aging population.
sorry I've gone off topic
or have I
it all seems to work into the areas of compassion.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-19 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-03-20 03:56 pm (UTC)The life-cycle of an LJ conversation is one I haven't sussed out, yet.
no subject
Date: 2015-03-20 02:37 am (UTC)used to be the number one killer of women.
then getting an abortion raced head on with the death privilege.
healthcare was seriously needed for childbirth.
what I have hard time seeing is why men in politics are
so damned interested in messing with woman's health care?
maybe women should do a counter attack
& deny sexual based meds or prostate healthcare for men?
I look at a protest at the family planning clinics
most of them are dried up old men who never will be pregnant.
it wasn't even a possibility for them. it doesn't affect them directly,
yet, they go out of their way to mess with the women.
Why do they care so much about something that really is None of their business?
once the baby is born they don't want to care for it or the mother?
Its just crazy
no subject
Date: 2015-03-20 04:32 pm (UTC)