Why do I Have a Label?

Uhhh. Sadly, most of us as we age find our bodies don’t perform as well as they did 20 years ago. Or maybe as well as yesterday.  

I know my 75 year old body resists so many things that I could easily do just a few years ago. I use to open jars for other people, now, I need help in opening the ones I want to use. Thank heavens they make nifty little gadgets these days to help open jars, to help reach and pick up things.

I love my grabbers. I have them inside and outside. They let me pick up something off the floor without asking somebody else.  I can get stuff down off a high shelf.  Why the hell did I put stuff up there? Was I taller when I put the stuff up there? Must be.

And if I can’t  right off put my hands on that little piece of rubber made to help open jars because some invisible occupant of the house did not return it to its spot, I can slam that sucker down on the counter to loosen it up or better yet, I have a pair of channel locks that can get tops off most jars.

My balance continues to worsen, but I can still get where I want to go in the house. And outside I have my trusty scooter to get into the garden or down to the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

It is the rest of the world who calls me disabled. The people and places who do not make their homes or businesses accessible. If they were available to me to spend money in, I would be just like ever other 75 year old.  No longer disabled.  Only old and that’s fine.

It’s funny that if anyone is anything that falls outside of the white, male, abled, wage earning, ideal that has been set up as what we all need to be or at least aspire to, we are disabled and see displays of prejudice every single day.  

In 1964, we had a law that gave civil rights to African Americans who had never been covered by the Constitution before. They were then able to vote and attend integrated schools.  Although that has worked a little bit, we have not yet gotten past the inculcated racism that is endemic in our country. We can certainly see it in the Republican party these days with the candidates telling us how wholesale racism will make this country great. Go figure. 

The Equal Rights amendment was proposed in 1923 and again in 1972. It has not yet been ratified by the number of states required to make women equal to men. For some reason that’s OK with women. Go figure. 

The ADA was made into law 25+ years ago. It has not yet done much.

So maybe instead of making laws about disability rights, gay rights, rights for people of color, women’s rights, we need to just have equal rights for the entire population.  Why must we be ranked? And who does the ranking and the ensuing separation?

Really, male citizens of the US, is power and control so important to you that making everyone else feel small, powerless and not part of your tribe, that you do not follow the laws of the country and feel justified in doing so. 

Living in a Romance Novel

 “He silenced her with his lips. He subdued her squirming because he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her.  His lips found hers, suppressed her cries and soon she melted into him.”

I know that I could never write romance novels or any novels, for that matter. The words above are just one example of the suppression of women by men.  And we don’t even know it. In fact, we seem to like it.  And I can’t figure out why.

It starts when we are young. In school, teachers call on boys more than girls. Even preschool, boys begin to realize their privilege and power over girls. He gets to take chances, she is dressed in a tutu and expected to sit quietly and play with crayons.  She is taught to be subdued, be quiet and then is dressed so she can’t move freely to climb a tree.

During school years, young women are taught how to please young men. They must dress appropriately so as not to arouse young men into raping them, but have to look nice, wear makeup and carefully keep grades down so young men won’t feel inferior. It’s OK that girls feel inferior. After all, they are considered to be by the rest of the world.

As we move into adulthood, we are pretty much brainwashed; we don’t even realize we are already considered ‘less than’. After all it’s where we are meant to be.  In college, rape, no matter its name is often considered to be the woman’s fault. Dress codes exist in schools because men cannot be expected to control themselves. After all, they should get everything they want because they always have gotten what they want.

In adulthood, we women know that our job opportunities are limited pretty much to the ones men don’t want. How many of you men have said or implied that they could never work for a woman because of so many idiotic reasons.  If men don’t do their jobs, it has to be because the boss is a woman, never because they are not capable of doing the job they are being fired from.

Just have a look at what the leading Republican candidate, Donald Trump is saying today.  Right now. And a good percentage of women will vote for him. Scary, but hey, we learned our place long ago.

How many times have you asked a woman friend to have lunch, go to the movies, see a show and she says, “I will have to ask my husband because he doesn’t like it when I go out without him.”

WTF?  Does he ask her or does he tell her when he is going out? 

During the ’70’s, I thought we were on our way to equality, but the Equal Rights Amendment  never even passed in the US and now here we are going backward again.

Now, in this very post, I want you to include the word disabled where you see woman.  Do you now get some idea what we live through on a daily basis.  The world is stacked against us and we seem be unaware or to welcome it.

Until we can make our own worlds as we see them. As long as we accept  second or third class citizenry, we will never change it.  Or maybe we just don’t want to.