Everyone, Go Read What Sara’s Writing
I’d like to direct your attention to Sara’s fabulous post on objectification.
CLICK HERE to read “Talking Points: An Object Lesson.”
Updated to add:
In order to further Sara’s fame, I bring you this small piece of her post:
A dear friend who is not an amputee and was raised to always be (or appear) nice and sweet, like any good, Midwestern Christian woman, hears me rant and can’t help but admonish me. “You have a choice, you know. People mean well. It’s up to you to accept their good intentions graciously.”
At this point, I begin to splutter.
As I tell my friend, it is not my job to make anyone feel warm and fuzzy about the surgical removal of my leg due to cancer.
And this one:
If you’re not blessing me but offering me practical help, accept my thanks, but also accept my “no, thanks” when that’s what I give you. Don’t make me say it more than once. Yes, I’m sure. I’m not stupid. I didn’t actually misplace my leg. It’s not lost, and it didn’t house my brain.
Now go read her post!
Posted by Melissa on March 28th, 2006 under Accomplices
March 29th, 2006 at 8:50 am
Eek! Fame! I’m not ready! ;)
Thanks for your support, Melissa. Of course, I know you have already blogged and written privately about your own experiences with people projecting crap all over you, for entirely different reasons — well, the same reason, actually, that complete failure to recognize your humanity first and your situation last. It’s amazing how easy it seems to be for us as a species to fall into this pattern of behavior, and how difficult it is to always keep consciousness of the individual humanity of other people.
Why is this so hard? Why do we have to work so hard at this all the time? Why isn’t this the default setting on the human mechanism?
(sigh) Homework. There’s always homework in life, even if you’re not in school.
I guess it’s all school.
March 29th, 2006 at 1:04 pm
Get ready, baby! Your post is wonderful and necessary for all of us to hear.
We all project when we see something visibly different on another person, but how you process it internally and especially how you handle it openly matters.
Unless, of course, you are wearing a kitty-eared stump snood. And then, I’m going to want to pet that.
March 30th, 2006 at 5:54 am
heh heh
Yeah, okay. If I happen to wander around St. Louis or Boston someday with my stump in a kitty-eared snood for all to see, you — and you alone — may pet it. But only if I can walk up to you out of the blue and touch your belly the next time you get pregnant.
Deal?
March 30th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Heh, deal.
I can just see each one of us smacking the shit out of the other one before realizing what just happened!
March 31st, 2006 at 11:39 am
Hmmm…yeah. Maybe I should be grateful for those obviously distinguishing characteristics. What are the odds that a middle-aged blonde woman of Wagnerian proportions lurching about on an obviously mechanical leg and feeling up your pregnancy would be anyone else?
And why do people do that pregnant-belly-feeling, anyway? Is that supposed to be for luck? I have never in my life felt the urge to finger a stranger’s fetus through her abdominal wall, have you? What is that about?
March 31st, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Okay, Sara, I may know that was you. Especially if I see a kitty snood.
As for wanting to rub a stranger’s belly?
NO!
I don’t think people realize that a strange person’s hand on the bottom of a pregnant belly is REALLY close to her chocha.
And a strange person’s hand on the top of a pregnant belly is practically cupping her boobs.
TOO personal!
Even in the middle of a belly, since when is it okay to fondle people you don’t know? I don’t know what the hell that is about. Maybe just checking to see if you are really pregnant and not just fat? God, who knows.