bowspearer February 16, 2020 at 10:28 pm

This might be necromancing, but given the recent developments with the Disability Royal Commision and the ableist responses I received in this thread are textbook evidence of how feminism and Intersectionalism “help” people with a disability who have been abused, in the same way that the KKK “helps” people of colour, I decided to speak truth to power here one more time. I have done this for the sake of anyone coming across this article and its vile, ableist comments, from this point onwards. People ablesplaining their ableism or uppity re**rding people with a disability – as I experienced at the hands of multiple people, is unacceptable and inexcusable. It is especially so in the current climate of the Disability Royal Commission Climate. TheAIMN, if you do not publish this comment, then you are simply further proving my point. Furthermore, no amount of trying to hide behind “lies, damned lies and statistics”, will change the fact that my following comment is fair, reasonable and accurate.

I seem to recall Kaye Lee saying somewhere that feminism needed to take care that it did not ignore the plight of people with a disability. Yet when I spoke as someone who is a disabled survivor of abuse, and noted how in no uncertain terms, that feminism, due to core aspects of its ideology, actively harms people with a disability, I was uppity re**rded, by numerous people here who repeatedly ablesplained their ableism. Kaye Lee was one of them, as was No Matter, Dan Dark, Kath Malcom, Bob Fanside and corvus boreus and Anne Byam to a lesser extent. Even the author, Letitia McQuade, couldn’t help herself.

The fact is that feminism and Patriarchal Dominance Models are intertwined; they have been since the 1970s.

The fact is that Patriarchal Dominance Models dogmatically regard all abuse as exclusively being “a manifestation of the oppression of women and the product of male power”, where “women are only victims and only males are perpetrators”.

As a segue to female-on-male abuse against the disabled, it is a fact that where female-on-male abuse in general is concerned, the limits of this model mean that it is only capable of responding to female-on-male abuse by blaming the victim and accusing the victim of “oppressing their abusers into abusing them”. This can reasonably be considered the sole position of female child abusers, female paedophiles, female rapists, female DV abusers, their enablers and their apologists. Any studies carried out within the limits of this framework, are going to be ideologically predisposed to producing results which reinforce this view.

It gets worse when you talk about female-on-male abuse against people with a disability, as we have no real power or agency, and the notion of us oppressing anyone is laughable. Yet the limits of this model mean that it is only capable of responding to female-on-male abuse against the disabled by blaming the victim and arguing that the victim’s mere existence oppressed their abusers into abusing them”. This treats those of us who are disabled male victims of female-perpetrated abuse like useless eaters in all but name, and it is literally the position of a Nazi.

We’ve learned since the Royal Commission into the abuse, exploitation and neglect that those of us with a disability are orders of magnitude more likely to experience sexual and domestic violence than those without a disability. We’ve learned that one of us with a disability in this country, will face an act of violence or abuse every 10 minutes in this country. One person with a disability facing violence and abuse is one too many! This applies even more-so to victim-blaming disabled victims of violence and abuse in the worst way possible.

Yet look at how feminism’s default approach to abuse, treats those of us who are disabled, abused and male, when our abusers are female. The only way feminism is ideologically capable of responding to us, after having Patriarchal Dominance Models at its core for close to half a century now, is to victim blame us and to treat us like “useless eaters” in all but name.

A few years back, there was that ghastly story of a female principal in Canberra, locking a 10 year old boy on the Spectrum, in a cage. I’m honestly not sure what’s more shocking – the fact that it happened, or the fact that those of us with a disability weren’t surprised it could have happened to begin with. Yet the only way that feminism is capable of responding to ghastly incidents such as this, is by blaming that poor little boy, and claiming that “his mere existence oppressed his abusers into abusing him”.

As someone on the Spectrum, from the ages of 6-29, female relatives took it upon themselves to “discipline the disability out of” me. That included one time where I dislocated my foot and was told to sit there and shut up while it wasn’t treated. My female teachers were so abusive that a member of staff disclosed to my mother after I left that they were my “worst bullies”. When I was a teenager I was indecently assaulted multiple times and then threatened with rape; my female year coordinator hauled me into her office in response and terrorised me into silence while comparing me to “women who cry rape” [sic]. In my 20s, I was the victim of egregious partner violence, which regularly included sexual-coercion based partner rape, which one child sexual abuse survivor I disclosed it to, described as “worse than rape” [sic]. Yet the only way that feminism is capable of responding to decades of abuse I endured, is by blaming that me, and claiming that “his mere existence oppressed his abusers into abusing him” to try and justify it.

This is equally true in practice; every example below is simply me encountering a system which is applying Patriarchal Dominance Model based approaches to abuse in an authentic manner.

In the case of the domestic violence, I was bounced around, dismissed or offered perpetrator treatment programs. And yes, I did try “doing something about it”, only to be stonewalled at every turn.

In the case of the sexual partner violence which had been described by others as “worse than rape” [sic], the organisation I reached out to for sexual trauma counselling, cherry-picked my disclosure and then tried to manipulate me into attending a sex offender program!

Read that last one again!

When a few years back, my wonderful wife was terrified I’d try to kill myself, I reluctantly relented to her pleading and called up an abuse support line. Despite me clearly stating I was a victim of abuse and there were concerns I’d self-harm, the moment I mentioned the words “domestic violence”, I was immediately screened to see if I was a danger to others, and then fobbed off when I wasn’t.

After all, what’s one less “uppity re**rd of a patriarchal s***lord, who needs to check their privilege and stop pretending they know what REAL oppression is”, right?

And don’t tell me that isn’t how it is; I’ve experienced exactly that far too often!

I’ve experienced it when I’ve tried calmly and civilly discussing the matter with political candidates, only to have well off women in high paying jobs, howl me down repeatedly with “YOU’RE A WHITE GUY!”

I’ve experienced it on Social media where I’ve been told: “Disabled white men still benefit from whiteness and misogyny in ways disabled WOC [women of colour] don’t.” [SIC] This equates to an assertion of “disabled white males cannot be oppressed, because disabled white males are more privileged than women of colour” [SIC].

I’ve even experienced it in disability advocacy groups where I’ve been told “I know you probably feel angry as a person with a disability, but if you are white, male_you will NEVER be as far behind as a female.” [SIC]

All of these Intersectional responses amount to a response of “STFU you uppity re**rd of a patriarchal s***lord, check your privilege and stop pretending you know what REAL oppression is”.

How exactly does being white and male help a child with a disability, being locked in a cage by a grown woman, with a duty of care to them? I’ll wait.

The cold hard truth is that this ableism is part of the true face of ableism; it has been for close to half a century, while feminism has happily profited monetarily and politically from it, while openly treating disabled survivors of abuse like myself, who you clearly regard as “uppity re**rds” and “useless eaters” as nothing more than collateral damage. Apparently feminism and Intersectionality, never got the memo from Nuremberg, that “never again” means never again- full stop! It has had roughly 50 years to course correct and has militantly refused to, so stop pretending that it has any excuse here.

I am a disabled survivor of abuse, I have experienced feminism’s and intersectionality’s response to myself and other disabled male survivors of abuse, I condemn it for its blatant and shameless ableism. I find its “help” for people with a disability to be utterly wanting to the point of actively perpetrating harm. Academically speaking, I grade it all Fs and I expel from from the University for failure to maintain academic progress.

Helping women, in no way shape or form, excuses feminism from actively treating disabled male victims of abuse like “useless eaters”.

Helping women, in no way shape or form, excuses feminism from actively being part of the reason that disabled little boys are locked in cages by women in a position of power.

Helping women, in no way shape or form, excuses feminism from actively being part of the reason that people with a disability are orders of magnitude more likely to be victims of sexual and partner violence, than those without a disability.

Helping women, in no way shape or form, excuses feminism from actively being part of the reason that someone with a disability experiences an act of violence or abuse every 10 minutes in this country.

Helping women, in no way shape or form, excuses feminism from actively being a part of the reason that the current Royal Commission is both long overdue and sorely needed.

Until this festering ableist cancer, along with the festering cancer of intersectionality, is cut from feminism’s ideological core, then people with a disability, will need feminist, as much as people of colour need the KKK. If feminists don’t like that cold hard truth, then the simple answer is that they need to engage in some serious and fundamental course correction.

Furthermore, the notion that to oppose this ableism is to hate women, is to argue that such ableism is an inherent trait of women; that is actual misogyny.

On that note, I’ll address one last thing.

It is worth deconstructing the misogynist shaming tactic, as it is the rhetoric of homophobes, ableists, chauvinists and abuser excusers. “Misogynist”, “incel” etc, are gendered shaming tactics which are tantamount to slut shaming a woman. All play on how men and women are traditionally conditioned by society to both value themselves and construct their identities. In the case of the male version, they play on men’s ability to provide for and protect “women and children” and their sexual prowess. When combined with “he doesn’t like girls” being a euphemism for homosexual, the whole thing – at best – amounts to a slur of “sexless, effeminate, women hating homosexual loser”. Note the homophobia, actual misogyny, misandry and chauvinism, even at its most benign.

It gets worse. When the target is a survivor of female-perpetrated abuse, it reinforces through it’s effeminacy allegations, the chauvinistic trope of “real men are never victims – especially of women”. Through its “woman-hater” allegations, it reinforces the feminist notion that male victims of female-perpetrated abuse “oppress their abusers into abusing them”. As such, and as it effectively blames abused males for being abused for “failing to man-up” and “oppressing their abusers into abusing them”, when used against a male abuse survivor, said shaming tactic is the act of, at best, an abuse apologist – if not an enabler or even an abuser themselves.

It gets even worse when the abuse survivor happens to have a disability. Those of us with a disability have no real agency or power. Ergo the only way “they oppressed their abusers into abusing them” can maintain internal consistency, is by arguing that “their mere existence oppressed their abusers into abusing them”. This effectively regards the target of said slur as a “useless eater” and it is literally the rhetoric of a Nazi.

So the next time someone feels the urge to baselessly engage in such a slur, I’d strongly suggest that they ask themselves just how badly they’re determined, to build a home and a mausoleum, on the wrong side of history.