Introduction and the Politics of Staring

The other day, I visited a friend who was recently in a very serious hit-and-run accident. As a result of the accident--in which she was thrown and landed on her head--she is now missing a portion of her skull (which they are waiting to replace once the swelling in her brain reduces) and is required to wear a helmet and use a cane. Thankfully, she has no known long-term damage, which is remarkable considering the severity of her injury. Since it was a beautiful day, we decided to go for a walk around Sonoma and grab some lunch. Sonoma--for those of you who aren't familiar with it--is an old farming town that is now smack in the middle of the wine country and is, as a result, teeming with tourists and filled with overpriced boutiques and wonderful restaurants. Given this relatively tame atmosphere, I hadn't considered that her helmet and cane, and my disability would be an issue.

I have mild cerebral palsy, and though I usually walk without aid, my balance is terrible (hence the name of this blog) and I have a very distinctive gait. I don't remember when I first noticed people staring, but it has knit itself into my awareness...there, but not always on the surface. As a result, the stares, the comments, and the whispers have always affected me less than my parents. They would get angry, and I would try desperately to prove to them that I was okay, that it didn't "bother me". Not that I don't get angry--I do--but I just don't have the energy (or the strength, really) to react or "respond" (in the sense that one can) to every single stare. And honestly, some--like little kids--I don't mind. They're little kids and they're curious...and they're usually uninhibited enough to come up to me and ask what's wrong with my legs. But amidst my parents' and friends' anger and outrage, I usually remain silent. I pretend I don't mind, because in recognizing that anger and hurt in myself, I also have to come to grips with my own shame and discomfort about my body...about what it means to be the "object of the stare."

My friend had mentioned "joking" comments she had received--usually from men, and usually about the helmet she's required to wear when standing--and I was shocked. Perhaps I'm lucky in that I can only recount a dozen or so times that a stranger has made audible comments to me about the way that I walk. Those dozen or so times were certainly memorable, but usually I can walk down the street without incident. That was, until we walked to the Sonoma square. Maybe it was because my friend had brought attention to it, or maybe it was because I was hyper-aware and protective, but eyes followed us everywhere. The woman at the table next to us at lunch went so far as to turn around and stare at us for a good ten minutes while her dining companions used the restroom. I'm not usually brazen, and most of my witty comebacks are only thought up after the fact, but I was stifling rage. I kept coming back to a quote I remember from Rosemarie Garland Thompson's Extraordinary Bodies, my first real introduction to disability studies:

“If the male gaze makes the normative female a sexual spectacle, then the stare sculpts the disabled subject into a grotesque spectacle. The stare is the gaze intensified, framing her body as an icon of deviance…And as every person with a visible disability knows intimately, managing, deflecting, resisting, or renouncing that stare is part of the daily business of life” (2001, 6).

At 24, I am only gradually coming to terms with my disability, with accepting my body as it is and not continually and stubbornly fighting against it. This experience was most certainly part of that journey. I realized, in being the object of those stares, a little bit of what my parents must feel. At the same time that I was angry and hurt, I wanted to protect my friend...this was not a spectacle...this was a woman who had fought for her life only a few months earlier. The fact that she only had a helmet and a cane to show for it, was, frankly, a miracle. I was used to this, I could handle it, or so I thought. Those stares, the whispers, and the discomfort pierced my armor more than any other experience in recent memory, and I'm still not quite sure how to respond.

I struggle to understand how an otherwise seemingly well-adjusted adult can stare so openly at someone. How anyone can think joking (or downright insulting) comments about another individual's body are okay. I pretend that I don't notice or that I'm not listening. I am. I wish I had the courage to stare back or respond. I'm getting there.


A Disclaimer: this is my first blog and I am, to put it mildly, relatively unskilled when it comes to the internet. Case in point: I just discovered RSS Feeds a few weeks ago, and am now subscribed to dozens of blogs that I'm trying desperately to follow. According to Google Reader, I have 74 unread posts. Whoops. Bare with me as I try to navigate the maze.