Destroy the Joint is an Australian online feminist community who describe themselves as a place for “people who are sick of the sexism dished out to women in Australia”. Since they were founded in 2012 they’ve amassed a large following across Facebook and Twitter where whey share content around women’s and human rights, feminism, and use their platform to promote various causes.
Because of this profile, writer and disability activist Samantha Connor Facebook messaged them last week to ask them to help promote this week’s White Flower Memorial. The event is hosted by the board members of People with Disabilities Australia to remember individuals who have died a result of violence, neglect, or abuse.
As Samantha explained in her piece on The Stringer, considering that people with disabilities make up 20 percent of Australia’s population, and half of those people are women, the event was relevant to a group that aims to promote women’s issues. She Facebook messaged them about the event.
Despite the relevance of the issue to women everywhere, the group messaged Samantha back suggesting she posted the event to disability activism pages rather. Explaining, “Unfortunately we won’t be able to post this to our page as we have to stick to our remit closely, but we all wish you the best for raising awareness of this important cause.”
When Samantha replied that the event wasn’t raising awareness, but was “a memorial service for dead disabled women” her further correspondence was blocked and she was reported for being abusive.
Obviously frustrated, she took to their Facebook wall, where she publicly questioned the content they did feel was appropriate to post. Much of it was lighthearted, focusing on surface level frustrations of being a woman. Her posts quickly drew the attention of other women who in turn began sharing their own experiences of being a woman—many of which were marred by violence and abuse.
Once again, Destroy the Joint responded by blocking and banning women speaking out. Or as they explained in it a post: “Regretfully, we did have to ban a couple of people who were repeatedly spamming this post and page with a large number of obvious half truths and distortions”.
After Samantha wrote about her experience, the group later took to Facebook to apologise for their actions and acknowledged their need to be more inclusive. But despite any lessons that were hopefully learnt, the whole display was an uncomfortable demonstration of mainstream feminism’s continuing failure to see beyond the lives and experiences of abled bodied women.
As the late Stella Young explained in her 2013 Ramp Up piece:
It has often been said that women with disabilities experience a double disadvantage: we experience the same gender inequality as nondisabled women, and it’s compounded because we’re also discriminated against on the basis of disability. Granted, men with disabilities also experience discrimination, and gender can be a disempowering construct for disabled men as well, but the outcomes for women with disabilities show that this double disadvantage is very real.
Too often, women’s and disability rights are presented separately. But the reality is any concern of a woman, is a woman’s issue. When abled bodied women speak about issues like wage imbalances, public representation, family violence, poverty, and prejudice they need to make sure they’re speaking for all women, and not restricting themselves to an ableist point of view.
If you’re in Sydney, show your support for you sisters by participating in this week’s White Flower Memorial.
Credits
Text Wendy Syfret
Image via Wikipedia Commons