It's undeniable that what we are taught as a culture to believe about disability is at odds with traditional notions of masculinity.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I watch 'Mad Men' and I see the patronising attitudes to women that are so shocking for all of us to watch now, I feel that I've lived and see the same evolution in this regard around disability.
There are real-world, devastating consequences for disabled women marginalised by the kinds of attitudes that deny them full agency over what happens to their bodies.
Masculinity is a terrible problem, as we construe it and shape it.
How come women are treated differently from men all the time? Not only handicapped people, but women - and handicapped women, forget it!
We think we know what it's all about; we think that disability is a really simple thing, and we don't expect to see disabled people in our daily lives.
I love it now that a large minority of people who are handicapped prefer to call themselves crippled. This is all part of the game, like queer theory.
Men don't have as many difficulties and are more supported to combine the different aspects of their life.
To me the definition of true masculinity - and femininity, too - is being able to lay in your own skin comfortably.
I find the question of whether gender differences are biologically determined or socially constructed to be deeply disturbing.
A woman is handicapped by her sex, and handicaps society, either by slavishly copying the pattern of man's advance in the professions, or by refusing to compete with man at all.