On January 30 the National Organization on Disability released a poll that shows the majority of people with disabilities are insufficiently prepared for disasters and are anxious about their safety. “The disability community has good reason to be anxious,” says NOD director Alan Reich. “The 54 million American children, women and men who have disabilities are among the most vulnerable in disasters.”
The poll, commissioned by NOD and conducted by Harris Interactive, reports that 44% of disabled people say they know who to contact about their community’s emergency plans; only 39% have plans to evacuate quickly and safely from their homes; and 43% of disabled people say they are “somewhat anxious” about their personal safety, compared to 36% of nondisabled people.
SOUNDING OFF: DISABILITY AND GENDER:
Cheryl Marie Wade I think how hard cripdom is on a person, female or male, depends on much more than just the physical/mental manifestations of the disability. I live in a very progressive state with excellent resources so I’m sure it has been easier for me to navigate these often treacherous waters of living with a majorly boogered-up bod than for some poor dude living in a place where there’s no real support. But in general, I think our society values women less than men and crip women even less than that. So if there are resources available, they’ll go to support a male before a female.
Vini Portzline When I became disabled my son was 2 and I felt like a failure because as a mother I could not physically take care of him anymore. While I was in rehab there was a young, married dad, also with a 2-year-old. He needed to use a wheelchair for the rest of his life, just like me. Again, my main concern was how to take care of my son while my husband was at work — his was how will he ever fish again! It is equally hard for men and women to have a disability in this culture, but both have a different viewpoint on what makes it difficult.
Tim Gilmer To me, the main difference between women and men with disabilities, from a cultural perspective, has to do with perceived power, whether it be the power of sex/physical beauty, intellect, athletecism, or qualifications to run a Fortune 500 company. Disabled men have less stigma to overcome in these fields because of ingrained cultural patterns, but also because of the way physicality influences power. In other words, it’s easier for a wheelchair-using man to get respect than it is for a woman with a similar injury because the physical bearing of a woman is so blown out of proportion culturally. Could there be a female Steven Hawking? Chris Reeve?
Eleanor Smith Most people would accept — and others vigorously dispute — data showing that overall it is harder to be a nondisabled woman than a nondisabled man in this culture. Women in general are more often the victims of domestic violence, get lower pay for the same work, hit a glass ceiling, have a harder time breaking into the blue collar trades, talk less than men when in mixed groups, etc.
Assuming that disabled women and men have harder lives than nondisabled women and men, a question becomes, “Does disability so strongly impact people’s lived reality that it alters the relative weight of regular gender inequality? Decrease the relative oppression gap? Or increase it?”
Jo D’Archangelis I have always thought it easier in our culture for women than it is for men. Men are under much more societal pressure to deny having a disability than women are and when men acknowledge their “disabled-ness,” they have more difficulty coping with it.
Traditionally, men have been thought of as the ones who provide for the family, who serve as protector and defender, who compete and succeed. When a man has a disability, he finds it more difficult to live up to this cultural stereotype. He feels “feminized,” even “infantilized,” unable to provide for and protect himself, least of all others. His whole manhood becomes questionable — not a good thing in our society.
Psychosexually we (women) may have serious doubts about being sexually “attractive” to someone else, but I think men probably feel the same way — whether they admit it is another question. But our role in the sexual act itself is more passive than that of men’s, so we aren’t usually hung up on not being able to “perform” the way we ought to and having our whole womanhood put into question.
