Comments on: Feminists are fine with being bigots if it’s just ableism

By: Threads for the Physically Challenged - About the Forum - Page 2 - City-Data Forum

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 01:19:11 +0000

[...] [...]

By: Things that upset me « Digital immigrant

Things that upset me « Digital immigrant — Thu, 07 May 2009 09:20:15 +0000

[...] uses hateful and ableist language. The p-word, the s-word, the c-word, all of [...]

By: “Oh! Thank god! I’m not like you crazy!” « Taking Up Too Much Space

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 03:39:20 +0000

[...] backing down from *never* using crazy. But it’s not just a PC overreach and yes, it does matter, and yes, we [...]

By: Official Shrub.com Blog » Blog Archive » This is as serene as I get

Official Shrub.com Blog » Blog Archive » This is as serene as I get — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 05:15:57 +0000

[...] sure that I was one of those “internet feminists” she was chiding. I say this because she and I exchanged words on a post where I said that I was strongly considering dropping the “feminist” label because I [...]

By: Shazia Shamim

Shazia Shamim — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 11:09:28 +0000

Thanks for wonderful post. After reading this article i did lot of search on “what is Feminists”. This is real issue in 3rd world. I don’t think we can improve situation but with education only…

By: Words and Able-ism « Feminist Philosophers

Words and Able-ism « Feminist Philosophers — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:07:23 +0000

[...] Filed under: bias, disability, language — Jender @ 3:07 pm A post on Feministe led me (via Takenji) to this very informative post arguing that certain terms commonly used in a negative way on [...]

By: tekanji

tekanji — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:20:56 +0000

Kokie: I was unaware that “stupid” was being used in that capacity. I’ve removed it from the list. Thanks for the heads up

PS. I looked for the term “dumb” but didn’t find it (nor do I remember adding it). Do you see it on the list?

By: Godless Heathen

Godless Heathen — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:36:03 +0000

“Lame” drives me up a friggin wall as an insult. Not “a lame excuse”, but “They nerfed Hunters? Well that’s lame.” I cannot stand that this word – which is a perfectly good word to describe a disability – is synonymous with stupidity, badness, and wrongness. By extension then lame people are stupid, bad, and wrong? Every single time I hear it I want to clock the offender with my cane.

I’m with Cayce on attacking the substance of a thing and not the person responsible. “Bullshit” is a perfectly serviceable word for any and every situation. Given that the prevalent “polite” language is hurting people, using a little honest blue collar dialect seems to be harmless in comparison.

By: Kokie

Kokie — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:36:48 +0000

I can understand where you are coming from. But shouldn’t stupid and dumb be there too? I mean, people can’t help if they are stupid or slow (not retarded but just slow or not even up to society’s expectations). Someone can not help how smart they are and saying “that’s stupid” is putting down people who aren’t quite as smart as the average person. My mother works in Special Education and she hates the word stupid. They constantly see people who say “this is stupid” as an attack on them as well because they actually identify as being stupid. My mother will say “You’re not stupid you’re just x” (fill in the variable).

To all the people saying to use stupid instead of retarded how about something like: “This doesn’t make logical sense” instead of “This idea is stupid.” That way you aren’t putting down anyone’s level of intelligence when you are speaking. Can’t we all get past personal attacks and just talk calmly and reasonably about things?

By: Cayce

Cayce — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:50:15 +0000

I think this is a really useful post, and I hope it continues to get linked and discussed around the anti-oppression-ospheres. I’ve thought about this issue a little in the past but it wouldn’t have occurred to me to frame it in the context of ableism.

To the people asking for alternative insults to replace “crazy”, “nuts” etc., one possibility that occurs to me is to determine in a given context whether it’s necessary to come up with a pejorative description of the person responsible for the “crazy” book/blog post/whatever, or whether characterizing that person’s statements (or actions) would suffice. In the latter case, a world of useful negatives like “tripe”, “horseshit”, “poisonous nonsense”, “morally reprehensible”, “incoherent” and so on are available to us (and I, at least, find it relatively easy to come up with those kinds of alternatives even if my first inclination was to say something like, “That’s insane“).