I, like many women, buy into patriarchal standards of beauty every day. I very rarely leave the house without make-up. I dye my hair. I wear clothes that I choose carefully for how they make me look to the outside world.
Stella YoungRead
Most disability charity hinges on that notion - that you need to send your money in quick before all these poor, pitiful people die. Peddling pity brings in the bucks, yo.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques how disability charities often exploit pity to encourage donations.
Stella Young's quote highlights a troubling aspect of fundraising for disability charities, suggesting that many organizations create narratives that evoke pity in order to compel people to donate money. By framing the disabled as 'poor, pitiful people' who need immediate assistance, these charities may distract from the complex realities of disability and the potential for empowerment and dignity among disabled individuals.
Themes
DisabilityCharityPityFundraisingEmpowerment
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about fundraising ethics.
More from Stella Young
All quotes βWe often hear that people mean well: that so many just don't how to interact with people with disabilities. They're unsure of the 'right' reaction, so they default to condescension that makes them feel better in the face of their discomfort.
Stella YoungRead
In my own home, where I've been able to create an environment that works for me, I'm hardly disabled at all. I still have an impairment, and there are obviously some very restrictive things about that, but the impact of disability is less.
Stella YoungRead
We fill our lives with all sorts of things that make it easier for us to get along in the world: wheelchairs, crutches, grabber sticks, hearing aids, canes, guide dogs, modified vehicles, ramps, as well as other kinds of services and supports. Disability does not necessarily mean dependence on other people.
Stella YoungRead
For me, disability is a physical experience, but it's also a cultural experience and a social experience, and for me, the word 'crip' is the one that best encapsulated all of that.
Stella YoungRead
We are a society that treats people with disabilities with condescension and pity, not dignity and respect.
Stella YoungRead
Similar quotes
A person is neither a thing nor a process but an opening through which the Absolute can manifest.
Martin HeideggerRead
Demands for solidarity can quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express nuance.
Roxane GayRead
The reason can give nothing at all Like the response to desire.
Wallace StevensRead
War never takes a wicked man by chance, the good man always.
SophoclesRead
The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother - which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.
Sydney J. HarrisRead
People will then often say, 'But surely it's better to remain an Agnostic just in case?' This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I've been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would choose not to worship him anyway.)
Douglas AdamsRead