O Aishwarya of Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, has won the first prize in the Onmanorama Blog It contest. The 22-year-old visually-challenged blogger's insightful entries from the blog 'Sight Unseen':
A Modern Princess
Because like everything else in this patriarchal world, our fairy tales need a major overhaul too
If fairy tales are real then she is the kind of princess no prince or king could ever handle
She was not made for parties but battlefields and saddles
When you tell her about all the things she cannot be,
She reminds you that she is both war and woman and says, “you cannot stop me.”
She needs no prince or knight to fight her fight
for her strength alone can tame the dragon’s might
Born to lead armies and conquer worlds,
To bring forth tempests and hale gales
Unto those who tempt her wrath
She cannot be tamed and her fire defies all waters.
Born to savor the victory of war and might,
She is the kind of princess future bedtimes stories will talk about at night.
What is Ableism?
Introducing a Much-Needed New Word into your Vocabulary
A few of my earlier posts have mentioned the word 'ableism'. However, unlike racism and sexism, use of the word abelism has not really become widespread. So, in case you don’t know, here’s a quick post about ableism.
Basically, ableism is discrimination against persons with disabilities. It also includes prejudices and stereotypes of people with disabilities. For example, inaccessible public places and government buildings are the easiest to understand.
Ableism can be intentional as well as unintentional. Barriers to access of public spaces, for example, is an example of deliberate or intentional ableism. Ableism has been so normalized and integrated into society that sometimes ableism happens unintentionally as well (this does not make it ok to be ableist, however). A good example for this would be the assumption that the differently abled people are not autonomous, and rushing to help them even when help is not solicited (I can’t count the times people have just grabbed my hand when I walk alone with a cane).
Ableists view differently abled people as being inferior to the able-bodied. As a result of this, differently abled people everywhere are treated as defective rather than just different (evidenced – if evidence is even necessary – by the number of people who come up to me and tell me to so-and-so ayurvedik doctor or read such-and-such verses in the bible).
What I want to emphasize here is that ableism is not just building inaccessible public places, but much more than that. To most able-bodied people not discriminating against people with disabilities begins and ends at building ramps. Ableism (and especially viewing differently abled people as inferior) has been so normalized in our society that people aren’t even aware of the forms ableism can take. Building a more inclusive world demands a mass annihilation of ableist attitudes and behaviours, which will happen only if we bring ableism into the mainstream rhetoric.
The Land of Normalcy
The land of the normal is a strange place to me
And it is certainly a place I never wish to see
Normal is a place where it is true
That girls like pink and boys like blue
Normal is a place where people speak with their mouths,
Not where people talk in signs, not aloud
Normal is a place where princes always fight
And where princesses stay home, afraid of the dragon’s might
Normal is where people write in printed letter trails
Certainly not the place where they’d use Braille
Normal is a place where boys play with trucks
And girls play with Barbie dolls at dusk
Normal is a place where the use of a cane
Is something bad, treated with disdain
Normal is where girls wear high heals
And not where they race around in a chair on wheels
Normalcy land excludes people like me
And therefore it’s a place I have never wished to be
And now I hope you understand and know
Why normalcy land is a place I have no wish to go
