An Empowering Book Excerpt:
On the Language Used to Describe Women with Disabilities:
Words like "crippled," "mentally retarded," "wheelchair bound," "confined to a wheelchair," "deaf mute," "disabiities with children," "disabled persons," "persons with disabilities," and "the disabled" are still a part of women's language and are still projecting those kinds of images about women with disabilities.
We are not "crippled" because we look different; we are not "the disabled" without individual and unique personalities. We are not "disabilities with children" or "disabled persons" or even "persons with disabilities". We are "mute" only when we are silenced. We are rendered "deaf" and "blind" only when you will not speak to us or show us the way. We are neither "confined to wheelchairs" nor "wheelchair bound"; our wheelchairs are our friends and companions, our wheels to freedom. We do not have empty heads because letters do not easily fit into meaningful words for us, and we are not "mentally retarded" without thoughts or feelings because we think differently from you.
We are women. We are women with disabilities. We are women who are abused. We are your sisters. We are just like you. We have the same thoughts, the same feelings and the same passions as you have. Your issues are our issues, and each of our issues is also your issue. We are who you are. We are Women.
-From Meeting Our Needs: An Access Manual for Transition Houses, written by Shirley Masuda and Jillian Ridington for DAWN Canada: DisAbled Women's Network, second printing April 1992, Copyright DisAbled Women's Network - Canada, all rights reserved.
