Dr Han

Yes, I am very rant-y about disability this week.

(Meaning that, because of the font size I need and the display customisation on my laptop, I can't see most of the page, most of the buttons aren't visible, etc).

The prevalence of proprietary eBook reading software is very irritating. You often can't download the eBook as a PDF or some other file to read with your preferred screen reader. The interfaces of these proprietary reading applications are always terrible, and do not scale properly at all.

2) Dragon has decided to keep interrupting my dictating with an indecipherable error message (something about 'SendKeys'?)

1) I need to read an eBook that I purchased on Google Play, but it seems on desktop you can only read it on the Google reader; can't download a PDF. My screen-reader cannot detect the words.

It's great when you face all these extra annoyances and work delays from trying to use accessibility software.

Rant over. I do think more should be made of the intersectional work that connects disability ethics and animal ethics; to be clear, it doesn't do this by drawing equivalence between animals and disabled people. The point is that an ableist notion of dependency applies to, and subordinates, both.

Yes, all these animals will still exist if we all stop eating them. The responsibility for that lies with us! That we have engineered vulnerability is reason enough that we have obligations to care for them. If we decide to stop eating them, this doesn't mean we simply abandon our responsibility.

As if caring for animals is burdensome to us if we are not *also* eating them. As if caring for animals is only worth the effort/resources if we are consuming them. As if our ONLY option, should we decide to close down the animal-industrial complex, is to simply offload them all into 'the wild'.

This is an 'argument' that I have always found irritating... The line of 'well, they couldn't survive on their own anyway [of domesticated farm animal breeds] so its' fairer to keep rearing them and eating them' / 'they'll be worse off 'in the wild''

Quotations from Sunaura Taylor (2014) 'Interdependent Animals: A Feminist Disability Ethic of Care', 134-135

"Fearnley-Whittingstall suggests that since we will still have a responsibility to these animals if we don’t slaughter them (because they are dependent on us), we should eat them, as their dependent lives will be less worthwhile than their wild and independent counterparts."

"...Consider for example that farmer and author Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall argues that we must kill animals because they are domesticated and thus will be dependent on us during their lives..."

"Dependency, it turns out, is a common argument for killing animals. The animals we consume are dependent on us for their very existence. By eating them we are doing them a favor [...]

...Because of this our contributions to our families, communities, and cultures are often negated."

- Sunaura Taylr (2014) 'Interdependent Animals: A Feminist Disability Ethic of Care', 133-134

"...disabled people become symbols of dependence. Where many able-bodied people can live in a delusion of independence (until of course they fall ill, hurt themselves, grow old, and so forth), disabled people are often stigmatized as dependent and burdensome...

I fiercely advocate for myself and fight for accommodations, assistance, etc, but it's draining. It's extra emotional labour and effort that I shouldn't have to do...and when it must be done with authority figures or people more senior than me, I feel quite vulnerable and unsafe.

Dear world. Please do better.

After yet another bad travelling experience yesterday, and some other events today, I feel more alienated and excluded as a disabled person than I ever have before. It's crushing.

Argh. That's no fair.😢

Fair enough. Sometimes it takes a few tries to find the right place.

Yeah they really should tell you. And if they don't, they should refund/re-credit!

That is annoying. Yogalates is not yoga. Argh. Is this a frequent thing?

What! They are absolutely not fungible! That sucks

Picture of a walking path with trees either side, on a sunny clear day.

📍Leuven, BE

Oh, wow, yes that is stranger! How bizarre

Solidarity with you all.

Never seen that before! Is it for a postdoc?

Accurate

Timely article, as I've been reading Durrant's (2018)'Invertebrate Justice' link.springer.com/book/10.1007...