GUEST POST: Into the Woods

This morning I received an (unsolicited) guest post from one of the students on my new final-year course Blindness and Vision in French Culture. I am delighted to publish it below.

(this photo shows Christine Baranski as Cinderella's stepmother and Tammy Blanchard and Lucy Punch as her two blind sisters, complete with white canes and dark glasses, on set during filming of Cinderella's wedding at Dover Castle)

Into the Woods: A Review

A Guest Post by read_and_dream

While I loved Into the Woods on a superficial level for its fun songs, clever interweaving of various fairy tales, and its gentle mockery of Hollywood stereotypes; I found the sexual undertones of it interesting as well, and the implications of what “into the woods” actually meant. However, there was one thing that I found problematic, something that wouldn’t have bothered me before I started the course Blindness and Vision in French Culture: this was how blindness was presented. I was expecting the prince from Rapunzel to be blinded, as I already knew the original story, but I was not familiar with the Aschenputtel version of Cinderella, in which the two evil sisters are blinded by the birds that Cinderella has at her command. It is not so much that I have a problem with this (although considering blindness as a punishment is problematic), but it is the way in which the sisters are presented after they lose their sight. Their blindness is presented as comic, as they blunder around. Had they suddenly become deaf, or wheelchair using, we would not have felt permitted to laugh, so why laugh at blindness? I think it may lie in the theory that we laugh at things that make us anxious; in this highly ocularcentric world, most of us, deep-down, have a fear of losing our sight, as we perceive it to be our most important sense. Or it could be classed as dark laughter; laughter that comes from a sense of superiority over others who are suffering. Why do you think so many people watch Big Brother?  It is not because it is good television. Going back to the film, I definitely felt uncomfortable at the fact that people were laughing at the sisters. I also felt  uncomfortable at the tragic presentation of the prince’s blindness; yes, it is horrible to fall on thorns and have your sight removed in that way, but he still manages to find Rapunzel using his hearing, and yet we are hardly given time to appreciate this before she has healed him with her tears. He is not given the choice over whether or not he wants his sight back; just like Gertude in La Symphonie Pastorale, it is taken as a given.  For once I would like to see a film where someone is given the chance to regain their sight, but refuses. I think that this would challenge people’s perceptions about the tragedy of blindness and let them see that it is just another way of being. A way of being without seeing.

Book Review: What is Visible by Kimberly Elkins

This fascinating and enthralling novel is a fictional (auto)biography of Laura Bridgman, the first deaf-blind American to be taught to communicate using the manual alphabet. Bridgman, who was educated at the Perkins School for the Blind by Samuel Gridley Howe, is now much less well-known than her more famous - and more photogenic- successor Helen Keller, but in mid-nineteenth-century America, Bridgman was one of the most celebrated women of her day.

As the book's 'Afterword' demonstrates, Elkins is a careful and respectful researcher who has used her detailed knowledge of both Laura's life and the wider historical context to recreate one version of Laura's 'most fascinating and complex inner life'. The novel's prose brings Bridgman to life in ways which are both touching and intriguing. Throughout the book, we gain a real sense of what Laura might have been like through the passages written in her own voice which express inner thoughts, feelings and desires which she might have kept from those around her. The novel's readability comes from Laura's complex, persuasive and compelling narrative style: she is at once both astonishingly naive and startlingly perceptive; deeply expressive yet stubbornly secretive.

Elkins's treatment of Laura's sexuality is a particularly intriguing element of the novel. Female sexuality was a taboo subject in Victorian America and many people still struggle to imagine disabled people with full and active sex lives. Rather than avoiding references to sex, Elkins celebrates Laura's uninhibited and unorthodox responses both to her own body and to the bodies of the people around her.

Laura's intimate first-person narrative alternates with the thoughts, letters and journals of the main people in her life - Gridley Howe, his wife Julia and Laura's teacher Sarah - to create a multi-layered narrative in which the reader is often shown several versions of the same event and asked to make sense of them. Through these other characters' chapters we realise that sightedness does not necessarily lead to insight and that blindness can be moral, emotional and political as well as physical. It would have been very easy for Elkins to fall into the trap of portraying Laura as a 'blind seer' (much like Victor Hugo's Dea) who paradoxically understands more than the metaphorically 'blind' sighted characters. Instead, Elkins uses her multi-perspectival narrative to show that no-one can truly know themselves or be known by others. Knowledge, like sight, is over-rated and misunderstood. We are never really visible.

As well as providing an enthralling tale of several interwoven lives, this novel also offers an insight into the political and religious tensions raging in mid-nineteenth-century America. Laura was used as a pawn by several factions and through both her responses and the thoughts of the other characters, we gain a real sense of the issues surrounding women's suffrage and emancipation, the abolition of slavery and the racial tensions which led to the American Civil War.

Bridgman was not only deaf and blind, she also had no sense of taste or smell. Elkins's focus on Laura's sense of touch can be read as a celebration of the tactile which emphasises that the absence of the other senses does not necessarily lead to a less-full existence. Indeed, Elkins's novel does an excellent job of refuting the 'blindness as tragedy' myth which circulated in Laura's time (as it still does today). Whilst the novel is full of characters who pity Laura, she never sees her blindness as a tragedy. She is sensuous and passionate, always wanting to experience more of life. If she is disabled, it is by her guardians and teachers whose words reveal how they sometimes see her as less than human - she is variously a burden; an embarrassment; a trophy; something 'special', fragile or volatile; a child to be protected; an animal to be tamed. What we see, from her own words, is an intelligent and responsible woman who is just as much of a person as those who both limit and judge her.

Above all, What is Visible raises important questions about how both non-disabled people and disabled people might relate to questions of pity, dependency and trust. As such it resonates with current debates around independent living, care-giving and the place and status of disability in society.

The Charity Dilemma

This blog was originally intended as a personal and professional response to my work as a partially blind academic in a resolutely sighted world. But as it has become more well-known, I am increasingly asked to write about various national and international initiatives related to sight and sightlessness. Whilst I am always happy to review books, films and other art works created by or featuring blind or partially blind people, I have very mixed feelings about helping charities promote their work. In this post I'd like to try and explain why.

Last week I was contacted by Blind Children UK who asked me to support their new campaign which aims to 'help raise awareness of the challenges faced by children with sight loss and the work that Blind Children UK is doing to help, by sharing their new 'Opening up the World' film online'.

A quick look round their website tells me that Blind Children UK do some great work. They help families access benefits and support services, provide mobility training for blind and partially blind children and produce customised large-print books for use at home and school.

Blind Children UK are clearly doing valuable and important work with children and their families. So why do I feel uneasy about endorsing their campaign?

There are a number of reasons. Firstly, as I said in my post about Children in Need, I don't think it should be up to charities to provide children and young people with essential services. Surely every child in the UK should have proper and equal access to educational and leisure activities no matter what their abilities. Shouldn't it be the duty of the government, funded by the tax payer, to ensure that every child's (and indeed adult's) access needs are met as a matter of course? By doing such excellent work, aren't charities actually letting the state off the hook? And the government isn't the only culprit. Why can't publishers work harder to provide a range of low-cost alternatives to standard print books? And why are libraries' large-print and audio collections always much more limited than their 'normal' print collections? After all, readers who can access 'normal' print can also read large print. And what if schools stopped mainly teaching using sighted methods and adopted a multi-sensory approach to learning where all children were taught to use all their senses to explore the world? Why not teach sign-language - or even Braille - as part of the national curriculum? If it is true that more and more children are being registered as blind or visually impaired each year, then surely it would make sense to put universal access into place now.

Secondly, a lot of work that Blind Children UK do is around what they call 'emotional support' for families. Unfortunately, we live in a society where the majority of people still think of blindness as a tragedy. This means that when a child is diagnosed with a visual impairment their parents have already been conditioned to experience feelings of sadness, worry or even mourning. But as I have said before, and will say again, blindness is not a tragedy. It is just a different way of being. Sure, it has its inconveniences, but life is often inconvenient for many reasons. People are not disabled by blindness, they are disabled by society's attitude to blindness. Whilst I'm sure Blind Children UK do a great job of supporting emotionally vulnerable parents, I would like to see a society where this kind of support is no longer necessary. What do we need to do in order for society to celebrate blindness? How can we rid blindness of its associations with stigma, weakness, passivity and failure?

Thirdly, I am very worried by the ease with which many charities - not just Blind Children UK - resort to the rhetoric of 'inspiration' 'overcoming' and 'triumph over adversity' to manipulate the public into pity giving. Perhaps I'm paranoid, over-sensitive or just plain critical, but I can't help seeing this kind of subtext in the 'Opening Up the World' film. I'd like to see this film as an illustration of the kind of pride that all parents feel when their children achieve things. But the combination of moving music, soft-focus shots and stirring visual metaphors (such as the swing's chain being slowly released) suggests that the film's producers want us to come away thinking that these children have achieved their various triumphs despite their blindness. One parent even says that her daughter is still smiling. In our minds we complete the sentence with 'even though she was born blind'. The subliminal message is that these are brave and determined children who have overcome great odds to get where they are. But children aren't born knowing what society thinks of blindness. They aren't born knowing that they see differently from other people. Walking, swinging and doing maths come just as naturally to blind children as to sighted ones. But if society conditions us to expect less of blind children, then even routine activities become momentous achievements in the eyes of parents, teachers and the world at large. And every time a blind child is called 'brave', the blindness-as-tragedy myth is reinforced. In their press release, Blind Children UK describe their film thus: 'It’s a beautiful film that shows how, with help, these children and their families are overcoming huge obstacles to build their lives. It really captures strength in the face of adversity.' This kind of sentimentalised description comes dangerously close to what Disability activists have called 'inspiration porn': read this brilliant blog post by Cara Leibowitz to understand how these kinds of images (which may be very well-intentioned) serve to perpetuate negative attitudes to disability.

Blind Children UK are no doubt doing a brilliant job of offering support to children and their families. But I'd also like to see them, and others, think about how to change attitudes to blindness amongst the non-disabled population more generally. For it is only when blindness has lost all its negative connotations and becomes an entirely unremarkable way of being that blind and partially blind children will be part of a society that is happy to have them.

David Bolt; The Metanarrative of Blindness (2014)

The image shows a hardback copy of David Bolt's The Metanarrative of Blindness: 

A Re-Reading of Twentieth-Century Anglophone Literature 

(Ann Arbor: Michigan U.P., 2014)

There is nothing quite like the combination of excitement and fear an academic experiences when they come across a book which is closely related to their current research. This is exactly how I felt when I heard about David Bolt's new book, The Metanarrative of Blindness. I was excited by the potential for new discoveries, discussions and connections which this book would provide, yet I was terrified that David's work would somehow duplicate or pre-empt what I am trying to say.

I am pleased to say that by the time I finished reading the book, my fears had vanished and my excitement had more than doubled. This is a fascinating and readable exploration of how a range of fictional and autobiographical texts represent ‘blindness’ and ‘the blind’. Its originality lies not so much in David’s discussions of the texts themselves, but more in his argument that fictional representations of blindness have created a set of myths and stereotypes of blindness which dictate how society treats the blind. Indeed David even makes the important point that blind people themselves have also been unwittingly influenced by such images. David’s book is different from much traditional literary criticism because it constantly compares his own experience of being blind with fictional representations of blindness in order to show the gap between reality and fiction.

Aside from this overarching argument, there are many useful elements in the book and I will certainly be using it with students in my new undergraduate course ‘Blindness and Vision in French Culture’ which I am teaching at Royal Holloway from September .The Introduction provides an excellent summary of the major trends and tensions in Disability Studies in general, with references to authorities including Goffmann, Garland-Thomson, McRuer, Davis, Mitchell and Snyder, and Chapter One explores the politics of blindness in particular. Here, David very carefully explains his somewhat controversial choice of terminology. Unlike many blind activists and scholars, including myself, David rejects the terms ‘the blind’ and ‘blind people’, preferring to use ‘those of us who have or do not have a visual impairment’. There are good reasons for him to do this, not least because his decision highlights the very problems of terminology he is trying to avoid, but I find his choice of words clumsy and at first I was frustrated by how much it disrupted the flow of both his prose and his arguments. Like Georgina Kleege in Sight Unseen, I prefer to proudly reclaim terms like ‘blind’ and ‘partially blind’ as celebrations of a state of sightlessness usually considered negative. But David’s explanation of the reasons behind his choice do make sense. In fact they do a great job of revealing the advantages and disadvantages of the medical, individual and radical social models of disability, the potential pitfalls (or possibilities) of political correctness and the power of even apparently neutral language to influence and (mis)inform. Like myself, David is speaking at the Society of Disability Studies conference in Minneapolis next month: I'm looking forward to discussing his choice of terminology with him and others at the event.

In the rest of the book, David explains how three interrelated neologisms - ‘ocularnormativsm’, ‘ocularcentrism’ and ‘opthalmocentrism’ - both belong to and persist in creating a 'metanarrative of blindness', in other words, 'the story in relation to which those of us who have visual impairments often find ourselves defined, an overriding narrative that seems to displace agency' (p. 10). David's analysis of a wide range of texts shows the persistent presence of a number of myths of blindness which I have also found in some of my nineteenth-century French texts. The ‘seeing-knowing metaphor’ (p. 18), the ‘blindness-darkness synonymy’ (p. 21) and the odd idea that people are either fully blind or fully sighted (pp. 69-70), are particularly widespread. In Chapter Two he shows how the use of labels such as ‘the blind man’ and ‘the blind girl’, creates a belief in blindness-as-difference which sets blind characters apart from the (implicitly sighted) reader. Chapters Three and Four both deal with a range of misconceptions surrounding blindness and sexuality. One of the most interesting arguments in Chapter Three is the discussion of how the recurrent infantilisation of blind characters frequently rests on the misguided assumption that independence is more valuable than dependency. By challenging the independence-dependency hierarchical binary which underpins traditional notions of rehabilitation, lifestyle and progress, David is able to criticise dominant medical and social discourses of disability. This is just one example of how readings of fictional representations of disability can help to problematise current ways of thinking. This is something which I hope my own analyses of blindness in fiction have also been doing.

In the following chapter, David criticises positive stereotyping by showing how 'more than being inaccurate, cultural representations of extraordinary senses serve, at best, to render magical the talent and achievements of people who have visual impairments and, at worst, to justify the ascription of various animal-like characteristics' (p. 67). Chapter Five is an insightful survey of blindness’s association with contagion in science-fiction writing (including readings of key works like H. G. Wells' 'The Country of the Blind', John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids and José Saramago's Blindness) in which David challenges the recent tendency to read references to successful blind characters as a celebration of disability. Instead he argues that stories featuring blind communities tend to emphasise the differences between the blind and the sighted which in turn suggest that ‘the blind' are somehow inherently different from the sighted. Chapter Six uses the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault to criticise the hierarchical binary relationship between the sighted gazer and the blind object of the gaze whilst Chapter Seven calls the blindness-as-tragedy myth into question.

David’s discussion of a wide range of twentieth-century texts represents an impressive survey of representations of blindness and the blind. I find him most convincing when he compares his discussions of fictional depictions with the lived experience of the blind and the partially blind: his use of examples from his own life, as well as extracts from the autobiographical writings of Georgina Kleege, Stephen Kuusisto and John Hull is particularly informative and should teach sighted readers much about their own misconceptions of blindness. This emphasis on lived experience is important because it demonstrates that the 'metanarrative of blindness' occurs in society as well as – or perhaps even more so than - in fictional representations. David is an accomplished social commentator who uses evidence from twentieth-century fiction to demonstrate how 'the blind' are perceived in modern society.

The main problem I have with David’s book does not in fact have anything to do with blindness as such and it feels a little churlish to mention it here, particularly as it is related to my (in fact unfounded) worries about overlap with my own work. I find the subtitle of the book, ‘A Re-reading of Twentieth-Century Anglophone Texts’ misleading, perhaps even insulting. Whilst the majority of his texts were written in English, David also pays sustained attention to several French authors – Roland Barthes, Georges Perec, Jean-Paul Sartre, André Gide and Jacques Derrida - whose works were neither originally written nor published in English. I am worried by this refusal to acknowledge the linguistic and cultural identities of these texts: not only does this negate the huge influence that French literature and culture has had on the history of representations of blindness, it also reflects a wider tendency amongst anglophone academics, publishers and readers to ‘claim’ such texts for the dominant Anglo-American canon when it suits them to do so. I am pretty sure that my French friends and colleagues would be outraged to see French classics like La symphonie pastorale and Histoire de l’oeil described as ‘anglophone’!

This niggle notwithstanding, this book is a crucial contribution to 'Blindness Studies' and comes very highly recommended.

Blind Spot at Two

Happy 2nd Birthday Blind Spot Blog

When I started Blind Spot two years ago, I thought I would use it to chronicle my research project on blindness in French culture as well as my experiences as a partially blind academic. In my first post I promised to write about my research findings and I renewed that promise on the blog's first birthday. In fact when I look back at the 80 or so posts I have written since Blind Spot started, only a handful of them are overtly about my academic work. (See, for example, 'Reading in Detail'; 'Therese-Adele Husson'; 'Flaubert and the Medical Model of Disability'; 'The Taboo of Blindness' and 'Touching the Book'.) What started out as a research blog has gradually become a collection of writings on blindness, disability and the tyranny of the normal. My most popular posts, (which appear at the bottom of this page) are about Children in Need, audio description, the unwitting dangers of ableist society and blindness in popular film and fiction. My favourite posts are about my relationship with BBC Radio 4, the joy of public transport and learning braille. What all 80 posts tell me is that this blog has helped me both claim and celebrate my blindness, it has made me into a disability activist and it has introduced me to many new people and experiences.

I may not mention my research very often but it is still the driving force behind this blog. My thoughts on blindness in the modern world are always informed by the work I am doing on nineteenth-century French fiction (and increasingly the reverse is also true). Indeed the most interesting of the 40 or so novels featuring blindness I have worked on so far are the ones which challenge or critique some of the misconceptions about both disability in general and blindness in particular which still haunt modern society.

The figure of the passive blind beggar is a recurrent feature of nineteenth-century French literature. The way that he is often used as a symbol of failure or tragedy finds a sinister echo in contemporary images of blindness such as the offensive advert I wrote about last year. Such depictions insidiously emphasise that blindness is a disaster, a tragedy, almost a fate worse than death. But my research shows that not all nineteenth-century French writers were happy to accept this predominant stereotype. One such example is a 1892 primary school textbook by Vessiot which includes a short story in which two schoolgirls discover the hitherto unsuspected intelligence of their local blind beggar. Like another story which appeared in 1887, 'L'Aveugle' by Alphonse de Launay, this seemingly innocent tale in fact encourages a whole generation to rethink their preconceived notions of blindness by teaching them that appearances can be deceptive. One of the things I will argue in Visions of Blindness in French Fiction 1789-2013, the book which will eventually come out of my research, is that it is only by understanding how and why the blind were depicted throughout history, whilst also analysing the works which critique such depictions, that we can hope to finally rid society of its pervasive and devastatingly negative view of blindness.

Blindness in Fiction 6: She is Not Invisible

She is Not Invisible  is a Young Adult mystery thriller by Marcus Sedgwick. I was keen to read this book when I heard - via the facebook Disabookability group - that it is narrated by blind protagonist Laureth. Books with blind narrators are relatively rare. In my experience, most books featuring blind characters are narrated by a sighted person who describes the blind character from a sighted person's point of view. It is wonderfully refreshing for me to read a book whose vision of the world is close to my own. Not only is Laureth very attuned to the smells and sounds which surround her, she is also wonderfully self-aware. She is thoughtful and articulate about what it is like to be a blind person in a sighted universe, and she is particularly interesting when she talks about what she feels she has to do in order to make sighted people feel more comfortable around her.

By the end of the novel I was utterly in love with Laureth. And I really hope she reappears in future Sedgwick novels. But for the first few chapters I was very angry with her. Laureth spends the early part of the book pretending she is not blind. She goes to the most confusing of public places, an airport, and attempts to 'pass' as fully sighted. When I first read these parts of the book I was furious. Why, I thought, is she so intent on hiding her condition? Is she ashamed of being blind? Has she internalised all the stigmas associated with blindness to such an extent that she refuses to accept her own reality? Doesn't she realize that this kind of denial emphasizes the 'blindness as tragedy' trope which is all too common in both fiction and the media? Doesn't she know that a white cane can function as a badge of honour, not a symbol of shame? Doesn't she realize that by 'outing' herself as a strong, funny, capable and caring blind girl she could teach every sighted person she meets not to judge people on how they do (or do not) look?

I very nearly gave up the book at this point. But I was already hooked by the beguiling storyline. And I was curious to see how far she could get. I'm glad I persevered. As the book goes on it becomes clear that Laureth has very good reasons for hiding her blindness. And these are related to plot rather than to her own identity. She is in fact a mature, thoughtful, adventurous and practical teenager who will do anything to keep her family together. Throughout the book the author throws in a number of apparently incidental details which subtly tell us that Laureth lives a life which is just as fulfilling as that of any other sixteen year old.

More than Laureth's healthy attitude to her own blindness, what I like most about this book is its plot. Without giving anything away, I can say that the plot is fast-moving, complicated and utterly compelling. It is the kind of book which keeps you reading and which leaves your head spinning with its own possibilities. What is more, as soon as you have finished it you will want to turn straight back to the beginning and read it again. But what I like best about the plot is that it is not dependant on Laureth's blindness. Unlike so many books which feature blindness, the essentials of the story would have been more or less the same had Laureth been sighted (except, perhaps for the presence of her two travelling companions). Aside from the scene in the hotel room in the penultimate chapter, where Laureth uses her blindness to her advantage, the action would have run more or less the same course. This is important because it shows that blindness is not the be all and end all. It is one element which can influence a person's behaviour. But it is not the over-arching defining feature. Laureth is blind but she is so much more. And in the book we learn that her blindness is not the most important thing about either her or her story.

I do have some misgivings about the book's portrayal of blindness. Although I can now see why Laureth hides her blindness at the beginning of the book, I still don't understand why she doesn't use a white cane later on. It felt odd to me that she didn't refer to one at all, not even to explain why she has chosen not to use one. Unlike her brother, Laureth is a bit of a techno whizz yet it doesn't occur to her to use the GPS function on her iphone (which would have been especially handy in NYC). The author has clearly researched his topic well and this book does much to undermine several stereotypes of blindness. But in his Author's Note, when he thanks the students and staff of New College Worcester, he makes one slip which I'm sure Laureth would have hated. He describes this school for the blind as 'a genuinely inspiring place to visit'. 'Inspiring' is one of the words disavowed by Disability Studies because it tends to paint disabled people as either awe-inspiring heroes or victims to be pitied, and in both cases as unfortunate beings who spend their days overcoming obstacles and battling against adversity. This depiction is in danger of aligning itself with the 'blindness as tragedy' myth which this brilliant book does so much to dispel.

My Problem with Children in Need

Pudsey Bear: the 'Children in Need' mascot

Last Friday the BBC ran their annual 'Children in Need' appeal to raise money for children and young people in the UK. According to their website, the 'Children in Need' vision is 'that every child in the UK has a childhood which is safe, happy and secure [and which] allows them the chance to reach their potential'. This year, nearly £32 million was raised on appeal night, as the British public watched a series of heart-wrenching films alternating with celebrity appearances, songs and features.

'Children in Need' is something of a British institution and I have watched it all my life. But it is only this year that I have begun to think critically about both the nature of the appeal, and the methods they use. Their aim is a laudable one, but shouldn't a happy, safe and fulfilling childhood be the birthright of every child? Why are we depending on the good-will of the British public to make this happen? Shouldn't it be up to the government to fund these services? Many of the projects featured on Friday's programme seem pretty crucial to me: hospices, bereavement counselling and assistance dogs don't feel like luxuries. They should be at the centre of a joined-up welfare system which ensures that every child is given what they need to achieve their potential regardless of where they live or their family's income. (Not to mention the problematic focus on the UK when children are dying all over the world right now).

Like guide dog puppies, children are hugely photogenic. It is easy to use sad music, well-chosen words and tragic images of cute children to guilt-trip the British public into donating a few pounds. Viewed critically, the 'Children in Need' appeal might be seen as a masterpiece of insidious manipulation. People give money because they feel sorry for the brave children who are struggling with truly terrible afflictions. For the next twelve months we are comforted by the thought of our altruistic act of giving and handily forget about the terrible unfairness of a welfare system which isn't doing the job it was surely meant to do. Giving makes us feel better, and there is no doubt that people are benefiting from the donations we make. Giving solves short-term problems but it does not necessarily help in the longer term. Charities are only as strong as their bank balance. If the money dries up, the projects vanish. This is why these services need to be centrally funded in a sustained and sustainable way. Rather than encouraging big business through enormous tax breaks, the state should pour as much money as it possibly can into making sure that every child in the UK automatically has a happy, safe and fulfilling childhood.

Another issue that 'Children in Need' conveniently forgets is the question of what happens to these children when they turn 18. Adult welfare and social care is woefully underfunded in this country and it is being cut dramatically even as I type. As well as (or instead of) giving money to 'Children in Need', please consider signing the WOW petition which calls on the government to completely rethink their welfare policies and priorities. Sick and disabled adults are much less photogenic than their younger counterparts. Yet they are just as much, if not more in need. I wonder how many disabled children featured on 'Children in Need' in the past are now disabled adults who are struggling because of government cuts and punitive welfare reform. Now that would be a documentary I'd like to see.

I have always felt a special bond with Pudsey, the 'Children in Need mascot. After all we both have an apparently inoperable eye-condition which doesn't stop us smiling. But increasingly I don't like  what he stands for. He uses the language of tragedy, pity, bravery and sympathy to get the British public to happily pay for services which our government should be providing. And he uses photogenic images and tear-jerking music to blur our critical judgement so that we stop asking why.

What I See when I look in the Mirror

According to its press release, the What I See Project is 'a global online platform that recognises and amplifies women's voices'. I was delighted to be asked to be part of this fascinating project, but I was also worried by the project's apparent emphasis on the visual. As I say in my video reflection, modern society's obsession with how we look has the unintended consequence of privileging sight over all the other senses. This in turn has the nasty effect of turning blindness into a tragedy. 

I have found that society's obsession with the misery of blindness makes it very difficult for the blind and the partially blind to feel happy and confident about themselves. When pity is the prevailing emotion you encounter in strangers, it is easy to think of yourself as a victim. Self-pity is a destructive state of mind; it leads to low self-esteem and depression. But until society stops pitying the blind, how will the blind learn to stop pitying themselves?

I want to use my part in the What I See project to encourage women to think critically about our relationship with sight. Why do we care what we see in the mirror? Why is appearance to crucial to us? Do we really learn important details about a person from how they look to us? My face-blindness means I cannot recognise my family, friends and colleagues by their facial features. Instead I recognise them by their general shape, their unique style and their voice. This can have its disadvantages but it also has its uses. It constantly reminds me that we are much more than what we appear to be: we have experiences, history, memories which are not necessarily visible on our surface. As another contributor to the What I See project, Karen Morris at Beyond the Bathroom Scale reminds us, bodily appearance is overrated. Karen writes eloquently about the need to embrace the reality of how our bodies look here.

The communicator videos and ambassador profiles on the What I See webpage are reassuringly resistant to the purely visual. It turns out that I needn't have worried. Most women see much more than their surface appearance when they look in the mirror. But society at large is still obsessed with sight. Hopefully this will change in the wake of this exciting project.

Upload a video describing what you see when you look in the mirror and you might win an invitation to the What I See launch event at the Science Museum on October 1st.

Guide Dogs for the Blind

This signed photograph showing Blue Peter presenters in 1985 was one of the exhibits in the 'Who is Blind' exhibition organised by the College of Optometrists

One of the most interesting papers I heard at the recent History of Blindness conference in Paris, was Dr Monika Baar's fascinating and thought-provoking presentation: 'Guide Dogs for the Blind: A Transnational History'.

Anyone who grew up in 1980s Britain will remember the Blue Peter Guide Dogs for the Blind campaigns. Blue Peter was a popular children's television programme which encouraged its young viewers to collect silver foil and milk bottle tops to raise money for Guide Dogs for the Blind and the programme often featured reports on the work of guide dogs and their trainers.

Baar's presentation made me wonder about the unintended consequences of Blue Peter's work with Guide Dogs for the Blind. There is no doubt that guide dogs have changed the lives of thousands of blind and partially sighted people. Indeed I met several blind people in Paris whose mobility and Independence have improved thanks to their partnership with their dog. But the image of blindness conveyed by Guide Dogs for the Blind is far from positive. And this is in danger of having an ironically detrimental effect on the lives of the very people the association is hoping to help. As the sentimental music and condescending tone of this promotional video suggest, blindness is presented here as a pitiful, even tragic state which leads to depression, isolation and misery. Sighted children (and adults) who are exposed to such material might be forgiven for thinking of the blind as a sub-group of needy and pitiful individuals. But none of the dogless blind I met in Paris were anything like these stereotypical images. They were classic conference delegates: clever, funny, disorganised, sociable, irreverent and always up for a drink. Guide dogs certainly have their uses, but they also have their limitations. One blind delegate, an experienced and enthusiastic international traveller from the States, explained to me that he thought having a dog would limit his Independence because 'it would be like travelling with a clingy three-year-old child'.

I can understand why Guide Dogs for the Blind are the most successful UK Disability charity. Their Labradors are unfailingly photogenic and it feels both easy and good to give money to such an aesthetically pleasing cause. And on one level I don't blame them for using whatever material they can to get money for their cause. But if their mission really is about improving the lives of the blind and partially sighted, perhaps they need to think again about the way they represent blindness. But in the UK, generations of children have grown up thinking of blindness as a tragic condition which only a beautiful dog can remedy.

The Voice Part 2 The Result

In April I wrote about Andrea Begley's 'blind' audition for UK TV show The Voice : in that post I wondered how the judges - and the voting public - would deal with the presence of a partially blind singer in the competition. Would they reward her for her voice, or would they vote for her out of a misplaced sense of condescension and pity?

I have enjoyed watching Andrea's progress in the competition. Her folksy, melancholic, guitar-strumming, female-acoustic, singer-songwriter vibe is my favourite kind of music. But in a way I've been more interested in  how the show's producers have dealt with her blindness. And I've been pleasantly surprised. In the clips which precede each singer's performance they have focused on Andrea's sense of humour, wit and independent spirit rather than her disability. They showed her at work, travelling with her white cane and chilling with friends and family. There was absolutely no talk of triumph or tragedy. The judges have been less careful in their choice of words. Their repeated use of adjectives like 'inspirational' and 'brave' verge on the patronising and speak more of their own disabling attitudes than of Andrea herself.

Last night I had mixed feelings when Andrea unexpectedly beat favourite Leah McFall to win the show. On the one hand I was of course delighted for her. Not only because this might be her way in to a notoriously shallow and judgemental business, but also because we are desperately in need of positive disabled role models. But even as I type those words I worry that by giving Andrea the responsibility of being a role-model for the visually impaired, I am celebrating her not for her voice, but for her disability. And this is exactly the opposite of what she wanted to achieve by being on the show in the first place.

I hope that Andrea's unexpected win was down to the fact that all those who love her voice voted for her. And also, perhaps, that Leah's fans were lulled into a false sense of security and thought her victory was so guaranteed that they didn't need to bother. But I worry, despite the production team's brilliant handling of Andrea's disability, that there were some people who voted for her out of pity, some people who felt sorry for the poor blind girl.  If this is the case, and I fear it is, then attitudes to blindness, indeed to disability in general, have not changed as much as the success of the Paralympics led us to believe. As I prepare to leave for Paris to speak at the International Colloquium on the History of Blindness and the Blind, I am glad that Andrea has earned herself a place in the history both of blindness and of popular culture. But I await the next chapter in her career in the hope that it will put my nagging doubts about the motives of the voting public to rest.

In Praise of Public Transport

Waiting for the bus in Nimes, April 2013

Most people assume that not being able to drive is the most negative thing about being registered blind. But I have never seen it that way. At times not being able to hop in the car at will can be mildly inconvenient but this is an occasional annoyance rather than a tragedy.

The same people who feel sorry for me because I will never drive, tend to overlook the main advantage of not driving: public transport. I love public transport. True, it is generally slower than going from A to B by car but once you've accepted that speed is not necessarily as important as Jeremy Clarkson would have us believe, and got used to a little bit of forward planning, public transport is a lot of fun.

This year I managed to convince my (driver) husband to put this theory to the test by travelling round France exclusively on buses, trains (both under and overground) and trams. French public transport is cheap, plentiful and well-organised and we managed to do everything we wanted (including a trip to the remote Pont du Gard) without a car. Public transport is a great way of feeling part of the country you are visiting. Conversations spring up easily with fellow passengers (especially when you have two chatterbox children with you) and it gives much more interesting insights into the minutiae of everyday life than a cocoon-like car. Studying train timetables and eavesdropping are two of my favourite pastimes so I am particularly well-suited to the combination of co-ordination and communality which makes public transport such a pleasure. And listening to people's conversations (especially in France) always makes me feel more at home.

Above the Pont du Gard, April 2013

Recent eco-initiatives have made public transport more popular but it is still vastly underrated. For most people is it is a second-choice or worst-case scenario. But my blindness allows me to experience the fun, adventure and camaraderie of communal travel which car drivers unwittingly miss out on.

Disability and Culture: Whose Tragedy? Workshop

** UPDATE: Audio from this event is now available here **

As part of my research on representations of disability, I am developing an interdisciplinary and collaborative research project called 'Disability and Culture'. The first event in this project is a study day to explore how the 'personal non-tragedy' approach to disability, which I have already discussed here for example, can encourage us to see disability differently. I also wanted to showcase some of the ways in which Modernl Languages is interacting with the discipline of Disability Studies.

Disability and Culture: Whose Tragedy?

Part of Royal Holloway’s Trauma, Fiction, History Series, jointly sponsored by the School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures and the Humanities and Arts Research Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Thursday March 21^st, 2013

Centre for Creative Collaboration (c4cc)

16 Acton Street

London WC1X 9NG

Programme

11-11:30 Registration and Coffee

11:30-1pm Session One

Whose Disability? Challenging Stereotypical Representations of Epilepsy

Maria Vaccarella (Centre for the Humanities and Health and Comparative Literature Department, King’s College London)

Sur mes lèvres, Deafness, Embodiment: Towards a Film Phenomenology of a Differently Ordered Sensorium

Jenny Chamarette (Queen Mary, University of London)

Beyond the ‘Narrative of Overcoming’: Representations of Disability in Contemporary French Culture.

Sam Haigh (University of Warwick)

1-2pm: Lunch (Provided)

2-3:30:  Session Two

Ana García-Siñeriz, Esas mujeres rubias (2010): disability, gender, and the medical establishment

Abigail Lee Six (Royal Holloway, University of London)

The pain of itching

Naomi Segal (Birkbeck College, London)

‘Raw data’: autistic aloneness and the category of insight in Elle s’appelle Sabine

Vivienne Orchard (University of Southampton)

3:30-4pm: Tea

4-5:30pm Session Three

Telling, not seeing: blindness and travel writing

Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool)
Read Charles' account of the day here.

On not being deaf to the blind

Kate Tunstall (Worcester College, Oxford)

Disability and Sexuality: the poetry of Denis Sanguin de Saint-Pavin (1595-1670)

Nick Hammond (University of Cambridge)

5:30 Closing Remarks and Plans for Next Stages

Attendance at the study day is free and includes lunch and refreshments. Anyone interested in attending should contact me to register for catering purposes.

The Centre for Creative Collaboration is a neutral collaborative space near King’s Cross. We are using this space to think about the  interdisciplinary and collaborative potential of the Disability and Culture project. This workshop is the first step in a project which we hope will expand into a dialogue not only between academics, but also with artistis, medical professionals, charities, activists and community groups.

Flaubert and the 'Medical' Model of Disability

In preparation for a research paper I am giving at the University of Kent as part of their 'Cultural Pathologies' seminar, I have been thinking about how nineteenth-century French literature depicts disability. The nineteenth century is well-known for its enthusiasm for scientific and medical progress. It would therefore seem logical that its writers would favour the  'medical' model of disability. This model is similar to the 'tragedy approach'. Both these models of disability still exist today. (See this post for an example of the 'tragedy' approach.)  The 'medical model' sees disability as something inherently negative which must be cured, or, better yet, eliminated entirely. The most extreme version of this model led to the eugenics of Nazi Germany.

The club foot episode in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary can be read as an example of the 'medical' approach to disability. In the name of progress and patriotism, Homais and Emma convince Charles to cure Hippolyte's club foot using a new and complicated procedure. Hippolyte, who is perfectly happy with his foot the way it is, takes quite a lot of persuading. Like many disabled people, he does not see himself as in any way disadvantaged or inconvenienced by his difference and cannot really understand why the able-bodied are so eager to convince him otherwise.

When he eventually acquiesces, the operation seems to go perfectly, leaving Charles, and, more importantly, Emma to bask in the glory of his triumph. Unfortunately, however, Charles is not quite as talented as his wife would have him (and herself) believe. Hippolyte's leg soon becomes gangrenous and is eventually amputated by renowned surgeon Canivet.

The failure of Charles's attempt to cure Hippolyte is a wonderful illustration of the dangers of the 'medical' model. Homais and Emma believe in perfection, beauty and normality. Anything that deviates from any of these absolutes must be somehow lacking or inferior: a patient in need of a cure, a victim in need of pity. But their interference nearly costs Hippolyte his life. Why, rages Canivet, try and fix something that isn't even broken? Why mess with a perfectly happy and healthy man for no reason other than a misguided believe in progress for its own sake? Why indeed.

The Ethics of the 'Tragedy' Approach

Since I started thinking critically about blindness, I have repeatedly argued in this blog against the widely held view that blindness, or indeed any disability, is a tragedy. I have become interested in the 'personal non-tragedy' approach to disability and in March 2013 I am organising a study day to explore issues around tragedy and disability.

I thought that seeing disability as a tragedy perpetuated society's view of the disabled (and thus disabled people's view of themselves) as inferior, somehow lesser people. In a post on Tina Nash - the woman ferociously blinded by her boyfriend Shane Jenkin in 2011 -  I noted how Tina herself resisted the media's attempts to assign the traditional disability labels of 'brave' and 'courageous' to her. I was trying to argue that this resistance demonstrates that disability is not inherently tragic and that Tina's refusal to see herself as a victim was empowering not just for her but also for other disabled people. 

I recently received a very angry response to my Tina Nash post from Maria Brody. Maria's comments, which I found shocking and hurtful, accused me of being more immoral, more evil, than Tina's attacker. Maria's argument is that by refusing to see disability as a tragedy, I undermine the severity of Jenkin's crime and make disabled people feel guilty for wanting to be 'whole' again. Her comments, as well as demonstrating the alarming pervasiveness of myths of blindness and disability amongst the general public, raise important questions about the ethics of my 'personal non-ttragedy' approach. Maria sent me her comments by e-mail and I include them in full below in italics, with my responses in bold.

You do realize that it is a mindset such as the one you describe that contributes to torturers like Shane Jenkin getting only six years in prison? After which he can happily go out again and pluck out someone else's eyes. Creating more blindness. More tragedy, yes.
I think your post is a massive insult to victims of violence.

I did not intend to insult anyone nor to belittle Jenkin's actions. He subjected Tina to a brutal and violent assault and should be punished for it. How Tina is living with her blindness is a completely separate issue. She is living her life in a way which shows that blindness is not a tragedy and does not signal the end of life as we know it. Are you suggesting that she should give up on her life, her children and her self-esteem so that perpetrators of violence receive longer sentences? Surely this would signify a further triumph for her torturer.

Rape is probably also best responded to by "laying back and enjoying it", according to your morals?

Rape, like assault, is a violent act inflicted on somebody against their will. As such it is reprehensible and wrong. My post does not suggest that Tina enjoyed her attack. It argues that once blinded, she adopted a positive attitude to her new way of being in the world.

It's all in the mind, there's no difference really between good or bad, it's the victim's own fault if she thinks blindness is a tragedy, if only she'll stop constructing herself as a victim she'll be just fine.

 

I do not blame anyone for thinking that blindness is a tragedy. After all we are constantly bombarded by this message in language, in the media, in film and in literature. My post on David Rathband's blinding reminds us that feelings of mourning and depression are extremely common when affected by sudden sight loss. But might blindness feel less tragic if Western civilisation stopped fetishizing the eyes, vision and the sense of sight?

Oh yeah, does it really make a difference whether you see your loved one's faces or not, or a sunset, or a tree, or the sky?

 

You are asking the wrong person. I really don't think it does make a difference. But then I didn't lose my sight suddenly like Tina and David so there are lots of things that I've never seen and never missed seeing.  My life doesn't feel empty because I've never seen them. Unlike most people, I've never seen sight as the most important of the senses. I use touch and smell extensively in my contact with the world.  

Or permanent darkness.

All the same, of course!

"Black is just another color, full of possibilities."

"Rape is just another form of sex, stop calling it a problem."

Why these parallels between rape and blindness? How do you think this makes blind people feel? 

Etc.

No.

You are the one acting blindly here,

 

This is an interesting turn of phrase. Do you see how even the metaphoric language we use constantly tells us that blindness is negative? 

 

 denying that reality can sometimes be horrific. And that evil does exist.

I am not denying that Tina suffered a violent and painful attack. But I am saying that she is refusing to let Jenkin's act ruin her life.

If you believe you are benefitting disabled people, and victims of violence, by denying their feelings and the hardships of their reality, think again.

I have had first-hand experience of the negative feelings having a disability can cause. Remember that I have been living with my blindness for 39 years. But I know now that these feelings are the product of society's negativisation of disability. This in turn is a result of an occulocentric society obsessed with conventional notions of beauty and perfection and with sight, vision and the eyes. Having a disability is often annoying, inconvenient, time-consuming and expensive. But it is not a tragedy.

Please.

Look again at what you wrote:

"It is significant that Tina rejects the epithets of 'courageous' and 'amazing' that the interviewer dangles in front of her. By doing so, Tina does much to demonstrate that blindness in itself is not a tragedy: rather, it is the sighted world's view of blindness which might be described as 'disabling'. If I described Tina as 'an inspiration' I would be undermining my own argument by buying into the 'disability as tragedy to be overcome' mindset. So I'll just say that hearing her voice on radio 4 this morning made me glad to know that she is there."

The last sentence must, judging from the preceding argumentation, mean: "hearing her voice on radio 4 this morning made me glad to know she is blind."

The last sentence means that I am glad that she is handling her blindness in a refreshingly positive way.

Really? That is disgusting.

 

And if this was not what you meant, what is it then making you so glad? Tina was "there" too when she had eyes, remember? - But that did not give you any thrill, did it?

True. But only because I had never heard of her before her blinding. I am not glad that Tina is blind. I am glad that she is showing other people who lose their sight suddenly that life can go on.

The real significance of Tina's rejection of the description "brave" is exactly what she is saying: She is just surviving. Praising her for bravery would in a way absolve the assailant who tortured her, making the assault "meaningful" or "OK", "not so bad after all". And Tina wants, of course, to hold on to the truth: to keep insisting that this was wrong, that this was entirely horrific and should not have happened to anyone. And that we should do our utmost to prevent similar evils from happening. To deny that is as great an insult as what he did to her.

I think we are saying the same thing here. I agree that what Jenkin did was horrific. But it would have been just as horrific - no more, no less -  if he had cut off her hands, her ears or her legs. By saying that his crime is worse because it led to blindness you are fetishizing the sense of sight and thus perpetuating the myth that says that gouging out the eyes is the most horrific punishment. Jenkin went for Tina's eyes because of society's fetishization of them. Without this privileging of the sense of sight, he might have turned his attention somewhere else.   

You, in my view, are trying to do to her mind, and everyone else's minds, what he did to her physically.

No, I am trying to do the opposite. I am trying to ask people to think again about blindness and the sighted world's understanding of it. I am trying to metaphorically open people's eyes.

One is doing disabled people no favor by denying reality and placing upon them the addition burden of guilt for still feeling deep down that they would rather be whole.

I agree. By constantly telling disabled people that they are somehow less than whole, society makes them yearn to be whole again. This creates a struggle between acceptance and self-loathing which can lead to depression or even suicide. But the burden of guilt for this lies not with disabled people but with those who constantly reinforce the 'disability as tragedy' myth, thus encouraging self-pity and immobilising the disabled in a stagnant victim culture.

It is one thing to keep a positive attitude to life in difficult circumstances - and an entirely different thing to blatantly lie about the difference between ability and disability.

I am not lying. I am questioning received wisdom and trying to go beyond superficial appearances.  

True, one can choose to use whatever one has to the best of one's abilities, and that is an inspiration to us all. But that does not mean that being disabled is not a tragedy.

Nor does it mean that it is a tragedy.

Do not deny Tina her own language of ghostliness and death. Blindness does have similarities with these conditions. You can describe your own life exactly as you like. But don't try to blind others to the truth of life. Perspective is part of reality, but not all of it.

I am not denying Tina her language or her feelings. I am celebrating her own description of her situation. It is completely understandable that Tina is in mourning for her sight. But this is the fault of a society which privileges sight over the other senses.

You are not helping, but committing a form of violence with this invasive morality of yours.

I am not a disability activist. I am an academic working on disability studies. No one is obliged to read this blog if it offends them.

That demon, Shane Jenkin, had at least a shred left in him of true morality - he said he expected to get 20 years for the gouging out of a woman's eyes. In other words, he knew he was guilty, and evil.

Whereas you, madam, try to deny both these facts.

No I don't. I agree that he is both guilty and evil.

My advice to you is to not let your mind become clouded by the present academic faith (as it really is more than a science) that language and perspective can change reality a 100 percent.

We can only hope to change the world by understanding how it works, by unpicking the myths and cliches which govern how people think.

It can't. And thank God for that, for if it could, there would be no place outside power, and no room for true love, which can only live by freedom.

Language is not an absolute, nor a magic stick which can make all your worries go away. The world is real after all. Your body, your emotions, your mind are realities beyond your representation of them. Other people are real too. And the tragedies that happen to them are real tragedies.

It is precisely because language is not an absolute that its use can be so insidious. Your own use of metaphors of blindness has shown how misuse of language can led to the confusion of myth and reality.


Here is a test whether I am right in saying that there is a real difference between being blind or seeing, or not:
You write that you are partially blind. Now, if a new technique was created which would give you perfect vision - would you use it or not?

This is a good question which I have thought about a lot. It is an academic question, a theoretical one really because there is no cure for coloboma and there never will be. But if a cure was found I would not use it. My reason for this is simple: the way I see is part of me. It has defined the way I think, behave anf feel since I was born. I cannot imagine myself without my blindness. If I suddenly regained my sight I think I would experience the kind of mourning that the sighted feel when they suddenly lose their sight. I bet you don't believe me. I bet you think that I am just saying this to further my argument. But you are wrong. I am proud of the way I look (in both senses). I never wish I could see perfectly. Sometimes I wonder if seeing better would make my life less complicated but I have never longed for sight and I'm certain that I would refuse a cure.



With regards, Maria.

Oh, and a PS: It is not "literature" which has taught us that "intentional blinding" - as you euphemistically rename this form of torture - is atrocious. What teaches us this is

1) personal experience with pain

2) compassion.  

We agree that intentional blinding is atrocious. But it is impossible to separate fiction and reality, or literature and life: Jenkin got the idea for this form of torture from a film he saw. This film, in turn, was probably inspired, either knowingly or unknowingly, by Western civilisation's fascination with intentional blinding, a fascination both nurtured by, and reflected in literature.