Not a Woman but a “Mere” Disabled Person?

Living as a Young Woman in South Korea (14) Revealing the discrimination faced by disabled women

By Jin Eun-seon

Published Oct. 9, 2016

Translate by Marilyn Hook

※ Editor’s note: To begin a new feminist discourse in 2016, Ilda is running a series on “Living as a Young Woman in South Korea.” The series receives support from the Korea Foundation for Women’s “Funding for Gender-Equal Society.”

It happened thirteen years ago, when I was ten. On an average day, in an elevator, I fell over with a clunk. My right leg cracked as I fell, and I spent the next three months in a cast. I had known that my disability would eventually make it difficult for me to walk, but I didn’t know it would be right then. I started using an electronic wheelchair as soon as the cast came off, and now thirteen years have passed. Actually, it hadn’t been long at that point since electric wheelchairs had become available in Korea, so I think the timing was very lucky.

But every now and then, I think, “If I hadn’t fallen down then, would I have been able to walk for another year or so?” Walking was difficult for me; the best I could say about it was that it would earn me praise. So it’s not so much that I have a lingering attachment to walking as it is that this world is too hard for those who get around by wheelchair. That question comes to mind sometimes when I face stairs or a raised threshold.

My university friends and I (at our graduation party)  ⓒ Jin Eun-seon

Why did I hate hearing the phrase “disabled person” so much?

At first, the world that I saw while using an electric wheelchair felt very different. What changed the most was how others looked at me. The electric wheelchair made people see me as more disabled. Even now, I can’t say I’m 100% free of this feeling, but at that time I was especially sensitive to each and every stare, and even if I didn’t want to be, I was alert to the eyes that met mine and words that reached my ears. Though it was tiring living that way, it wasn’t something that I could control.

One of the things that I heard the most and disliked the most during that period was “disabled person.” I’m not sure why I hated hearing that so much. Perhaps because I hated that I had to be the target of people’s attention just because I had a disability? Perhaps because I myself hadn’t accepted my disability? Anyway, I had no way to deal with or express these complicated feelings.

When I think of the time when I hated the phrase “disabled person,” there’s one incident that I still remember. A little kid shouted, “A disabled person!” at me and then ran away. Ordinarily, I would have just scowled and went on my way, but this time my friends and I scoured the whole neighborhood to find him. We found his house after a few hours, and disappointingly, it was so close to my house that I could see it from my window.

I’m still not sure where that courage came from, but I knocked on the door and asked the kid, “Why did you do that?” He said, “Just because,” not even bothering to offer an excuse. I got the apology that I wanted so badly, but upon realizing that, like he said, the things that people said to me were uttered without thinking, I felt wronged and angry.

My body and identity as someone reduced to “just a disabled person”

When I look back on that time, when I thought that I wasn’t disabled, that I wasn’t much different from my friends, I think that it wasn’t that I wanted to deny my body, with its disability. It was more that, in a position where I was physically excluded and objectified as a disabled person at every moment, I wanted to deny the many situations that made me see myself as disabled.

So I constantly tried to include myself within the standards of so-called “normalcy” in order to prove to others, “I’m no different from you.”

But some people (including my parents, care workers, and a majority of strangers) said things like this me:

“Why grow your hair out, when you can’t take care of it.”

“Who did your makeup? It probably takes you much longer than others to get ready in the mornings, so just put on a little bit.”

“How can you try to do everything that others do?”

Though they didn’t come out and say that it was because I was disabled, they were worrying about me and judging me like this just because I have a disability. Even when I didn’t know this discrimination for what it was, my body and personality were reduced to just “disabled.”

One of Women with Disabilities Empathy’s small-group meetings of women 

in their 20s and 30s   ⓒ Source: wde.or.kr

 The daily struggle with subway rudeness

It was clear that explaining myself only through my disability was ridiculous. But I couldn’t find other words to do so, either. Then, a year ago, I found the organization “Women with Disabilities Empathy,” and began to see other possibilities. 

When I first learned of WDE, it was like a new world had opened up. Since they know how important it is for women with disabilities to share their experiences in their own words, they hold many gatherings where we can talk about our lives. I have been able to talk freely about problems that I still haven’t resolved. Just knowing that the things I’ve been through are not unique experiences, just the existence of a space to talk about the exclusion and discrimination I’ve faced in society centered on non-disabled, straight men from the point of view of a woman with disabilities – these things are valuable and special.

When we gather, a “hot topic” that often begins and closes our discussion is subway rudeness. The incidents of verbal violence that we face on the subway, a place very closely connected with the everyday, are innumerable.

“Your face is pretty, but your body...”

“You’re alone? Where is your caregiver?”

“It’s dangerous to be out late. If someone carried you off, you wouldn’t even be able to fight back.”

The common points here are informal speech [banmal] and tongue-clucking. It’s surprising how similar everyone’s reactions are. Because these aren’t situations that I cause with my behavior but things that happen unexpectedly, it’s actually no easy feat to deal with them. It would be nice to deal with each one, but... What if the other person reacts unexpectedly to my rebuttal? And if the situation becomes dangerous? I don’t know how I would handle that.

“I end up swearing at least once a day.”

“I’m going to become a bad-tempered person if I keep riding the subway.”

As we share the things we’ve felt and sympathize with each other, the rage that bubbles up sometimes explodes. “Some of them just glance at you self-consciously, which is not too bad,” is a remark that shows the extent to which women with disabilities, me included, are in the middle of an endless battle in everyday life.

The rudeness is so uniform that it makes you wonder if everyone went to the same cram school to learn it.  ⓒ Image translated from the second issue of “Independent Policy Delivery,” a publication of the WDE-affilitiate Women with Disabilities Independent Living Center “Soom”

The strength to expose discrimination

These days, going around with my partner is exposing me to different looks and situations than the ones I get when I’m alone. I don’t know how to describe the complicated, nuanced feelings that this brings up. Even if I ignore the verbal reactions of surprise to a woman with a disability even having a partner, there are many times when I’m at a loss as to how to deal with views expressed more subtly, such as through expressions.

In the subway, the thoughtless remarks of people who are secure in the knowledge that they will never see me again are very upsetting.

“Are you (really) her boyfriend?”

“How (in the hell) did you two meet?”

“(Your boyfriend is) great, really nice.”

“(Things must be difficult but) I wish the two of you well.”

And so on.

Of course, they don’t actually say the words in parentheses, but their tone and expression convey all of them.

I’ve come very close to saying, “This country is full of couples, so why are you focusing your attention on me?!” but I end up just swallowing that anger. These situations clearly reveal disabled women’s position in society as “targets of protection” and “unattractive bodies,” and I haven’t learned the trick to dealing with them.

But my biggest concern was how many people I had to listen to my stories, how many people I knew that sympathized. I felt that being able to receive sympathy was such a basic thing, and yet, so difficult. Isn’t it the most important condition for giving us the strength to reveal the discrimination we each face?

Living a confident disabled woman in Korea

The Korean edition of Don’t Call Me Inspirational 
(published by Chaeksesang in 2015)

In her book Don’t Call Me Inspirational, Harilyn Rousso, a disabled woman, disability rights activist, and feminist, writes that being labeled “inspirational” is better than being ignored. But she adds that, after people have conquered their superficial and prejudiced initial reaction to her, she would rather that they decide whether or not they like her after actually getting to know her. At least that judgment would be real.

To be honest, the process of writing this article was not at all easy. I’m not used to delving straight into my experiences of discrimination, and it was difficult. But there was something else that was just as difficult. I am very worried that these experiences will be written off as “only” those of disabled women, judged by non-disabled women as “different experiences from mine.”

Even people with whom I’m friendly are careful talking about the topic of disability in front of me, or avoid it. I think that may be a normal reaction. Like Harilyn Rousso said, however, they may never be able to get free of prejudices that cause them to take a cautious attitude when dealing with disabled women, like when others say things like, “Being like this when you’re disabled – you’re so inspirational!”

I always wonder: what would it mean to be able to live confidently as a disabled woman in Korea?

When disabled women’s experiences are not seen as “only” theirs but the shared problems of women who live in Korean society, yet when we can also share about the experiences that we have because of our differences from each other – I think that’s when I will finally be able to live confidently as a disabled woman.

*Original article: http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=7617