Gendering Disability--"Critical Race Theory, Feminism, and Disability"

I've been reading Gendering Disability over the past two days, not necessarily because it discusses mental disabilities, but because it's a title that I keep seeing over and over again in disability readings. So, here's some relevant points that I've identified in my brief reading:

Asch, Adrienne. "Critical Race Theory, Feminism, and Disability: Reflections on Social Justice and Personal Identity." 9-44

Asch applies Critical Race Theory (CRT) Disability Theory in her article. Asch's article is relevant for my dissertation because it addresses issues related to "Human Variations" (determining who is or who isn't disabled), how those "variations" influence the "worth" or profitability of the disabled individual, and how the disabled constitute "communities" and how community membership acts as a means of agency leading to social, legal change.

Asch cites Richard Delgado: "Because racism is an ingrained feature of our landscape, it looks ordinary and natural to persons in the culture... [W]hite elites will tolerate or encourage racial advances for blacks only when they also promote white self-interest" (qtd in Asch 9).

In regard to discussions of the representation of autistics as children, never adults: "Many commentators note that people with disabilities are expected to play no adult social role whatsoever; to be perceived as always, in ever social interaction, a recipient of help and never a provider of assistance; and to be more disliked by nondisabled others if they are clearly competent than if they are perceived as incompetent at a task" (Asch 11).

An interesting point made by Asch as to why minority theory doesn't necessarily "work" in regard to disability theory: "First, impairments are multiple and various; the same impairment may affect several individuals differently, depending upon other factors in their lives. The same impairment may affect the same individual differently at different times in life. [This is particularly true of autistic individuals.]

"Second, making notions of impairment equivalent to forms of human variation would reduce the need to decide who is 'in' and who is 'out' of the group of people counted as people with disabilities, which has become on of the major methods of denying people protection under the employment provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act. ["Human variation" model discussed in a moment]

"Third, people with various conditions have a range of needs that influence their ability to take advantage of legal entitlements to education, employment, or public services. Without income to meet certain impairment-related expenses such as medications , transportation, personal assistance services, particular diet supplements, or items of clothing, for example, individuals may not flourish. Without the assistance of job coaches or other support staff, persons with emotional or cognitive impairments may not receive the individual assistance that permits them to manage the demands of typical schools or jobs. Without equipment or work schedules adjusted for rest or medical appointments, people with limited energy or with chronic pain may be unable to perform work for which they are otherwise well suited" (Asch 13).

Scotch and Schriner explain the "Human Variation" model that Asch believes ought to be applied to issues of disability: "In this...human variation model of disability, the problems faced by people with disability might be seen as the consequence of the failure of social institutions (and their physical and cultural manifestations) that can be attributed to the institutions' not having been constructed to deal with a narrower range of variation than is in fact present in any given population" (qtd in Asch 14). According to Asch, this model "has many advantages for people with a range of impairments [...] because it removes some of the pejorative specialness and exceptionality--some of the 'us and them' quality--from disability and reminds everyone that human beings come in a variety of physical, mental, and emotional make-ups that change over time" (Asch 14).

In regard to the ethics and financial interests involved in autism issues: "society will balk at making modifications tat include everyone unless dominant members of that society can be perceived to benefit as a by-product of these changes" (Asch 14).

Also in regard to the financial "worth" of the disabled according to the nondisabled and making disability issues relevant for the nondisabled: "Until it is legitimate, respectable, and acceptable to be a person with a disability in the world, until the nondisabled majority recognizes how ubiquitous impairment is and how likely it is that everyone will experience it themselves or in someone they love, and until the nondisabled majority perceives the millions of people with impairments are fully human and can contribute in meaningful ways to the economy and the family, that world will fight against every legal or moral claim made upon it to change institutions, cultural practices, and institutional and physical structures to become readily inclusive" (Asch 15).

"Instead of discussing which kinds of people have impairments or disabilities and which people do not, instead of saying that some members of society are disabled and others are not, we should consider which people cannot perform which activities in given environments and question how to modify the environments so that they are not disabling. Arguably, any person now living could, without any change in his or her physical, cognitive, sensory, and emotional make-up, be considered impaired [...] Instead of discussing impaired individuals, attention should go to determining which environments--which social, physical, bureaucratic, and communication structures--could incorporate the widest array of individuals in all their diversity of capacities and then determine which environments were impairing and how they could be modified" (Asch 17).

"impairments impinge upon people differently from one another depending upon a host of psychological and social factors that all are external to the biomedical condition" (Asch 19).

Important for discussions of who's "autistic enough": "The medical model of disability would [...contend] that people with substantial departures from a notion of 'species-typical' cognitive, orthopedic, hearing, and visual norms may be the only ones with genuine impairments" (Asch 19).

"If people labeled as mentally ill are filing complaints of discrimination in employment, it may derive from the existential anxiety occasioned by contact with someone whose behavior may be feared unpredictable, out of their or our control, or whose modes of social interaction startle those with the power to make employment decisions" (Asch 21).

In regard to her discussion on community, Asch notes, "Even for those who acquire their conditions at birth or in childhood and young adulthood, most characteristics are not genetically transmitted, and thus only a small fraction of the millions of people with disabilities grow up in a natural community of others with their same characteristics" (Asch 23).

"Lack of natural community, the variability among impairments, and the domination of medical services and philanthropic disability service organizations by nondisabled professionals have all mitigated against developing a strong, coherent, politically powerful community of people with disabilities" (Asch 23). I see online autism communities as part of creating this community to enable social change--creates agency.

Online communities are important, according to Asch, because they challenge the medical model of disability that so often presents disabled children and adults as unwanted, unhappy burdens. Communities create counter-discourses to that "[c]ontrast the views of disability as burdensome and disappointing to families expressed by many philosophers and physicians" (Asch 27). Counter-discourses are necessary considering that "most families who raise children with disabilities fare as well as others in overall life satisfaction and enjoyment of their children" (Asch 27).

Smith, Bonnie G. and Beth Hutchison, eds. Gendering Disability. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2004.