Sunday, November 26, 2006

Victim of Who?

Recently I was trying to post a response to a parent of an autistic child who said that despite all the bad stuff about the Autism Every Day video, she liked it. She compared it to feminist consciousness raising. In trying to write my response (which was lost due to computer problems) I kept trying to get at what really bothered me about that comparison, without being able to figure out what it was.
After the computer error had happened making me loose my response, and I'd had a meltdown exarcerbated by the fact that my brother had been pestering me to give him a turn on the computer, I realized what the basis of the problem was. Both Autism Every Day and feminist consciousness raising are about speaking out about how the people feel victimized. The important distinction is who they think are victimizing them.
The parents in Autism Every Day seem to think that they are victims of their children. But in reality, both they and their children are victims of society. It's like an abused child blaming her mother for not pleasing her father sexually and 'causing' him to abuse her, taking for granted that he has sexual 'needs' that must be fulfilled and he can't help himself.
I think I've written before about the problems of taking society for granted. If you assume that society's view is correct, and are being victimized by society, you end up either ignoring your victimization or blaming the wrong people/things. My mother told me some feminists had the idea that women needed to be liberated from pregnancy and childrearing. Thay hadn't challenged society's view of those things.

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