I can’t tell you how you should have felt about this. You’re entitled to feel however you want. I could see, if this were happening on a regular basis, that it could be annoying. You have every right to be annoyed. Does that justify giving somebody a lecture? Maybe. Is this going to modify their behavior in any way? Probably not. I hold the door open for a lot of people. I don’t recall anyone getting huffy about it, but if someone did, I’d consider them an outlier, it probably wouldn’t stop me from holding doors from people. So, probably this accomplished nothing other than making him temporarily feel bad. And gave you whatever satisfaction you wanted.
But, if I were the other guy, knowing nothing more than he did, probably would have said “SOMEBODY’s got a chip on their shoulder, don’t they?” I probably would have waited until you were out of earshot though.
Complete with a dose of analogous “A woman groped me in a bar once, I had a girlfriend and I wasn’t interested but I was flattered! Maybe you girls should just take it as a compliment!”
It seems to me there should be a public education campaign about dealing with the disabled in a respectful, courteous manner. A lot of people seem not to get that disabled people should not be pitied or condescended to, and that disabled adults should be treated as adults and not as helpless children. A series of PSAs would probably help, although I’d expect any change to come slowly.
Shoulder rubs are not rape and let’s assume the rub in question is non-sexual. But if you prefer we could go with a woman offering a hug “to help cheer them up”, the man says no and the woman does it anyways.
Is that fundamentally different than Ambivalid’s situation. Instinctually I would say yes because of the physical contact but if we assume it is not a sexual act (like grabbing someone’s butt) then I would be hard pressed to explain WHY what happened to Ambivalid or the Cookie Monster at work or a friendly hug are different after the person says no.
Or how about this: is it different if a woman hugs a man if they say no than if a man does it to a woman? If a woman hugs me (nonsexually) after I say no and I say in no uncertain terms that I felt violated am I being rude? If the gender roles were reversed would it be the woman being rude?
I’m just trying to find out why some people feel the response Ambivalid gave was rude in his situation but appropriate in other similar circumstances.
As far as touching goes - if someone doesn’t want to be touched then touching them is wrong regardless of whether or not there is anything sexual going on.
Why are you comparing this to you holding the door open for someone and them not getting huffy? Unless the person specifically told you not to hold the door for them, your comparison is irrelevant.
This brings up an interesting parallel. It is my interpretation of my experiences that i am unable to function in society no matter what without being perceived as needing help. I get asked if i need help with something EVEN WHEN I’M SITTING THERE DOING NOTHING! Literally i can just be sitting (for whatever reason, like people do) there, minding my own business and people perceive me to be in need of help. Simply existing is enough to generate perceptions of helplessness. My physical body, muscular, capable, very fit, is totally invisible and irrelevant to these people.
When it is acknowledged, I get regularly asked if i “used to be” an athlete or even if “i used to work out” in my former life. Because everybody knows i cant do such things now. And as if my muscularity would just maintain itself forever without having to keep working at it. Reason and logic goes completely out the window.
I don’t think any of the analogies being discussed (cookies, shoulder rubs, rape) are very helpful, because the situations are all so very different… in particular, because of the fact that going out of your way to hold the door for someone is so clearly, in isolation, societally encouraged as being a helpful, selfless act. Heck, you sometimes hear people talking about how no one holds doors for anyone any more, while decrying the breakdown of society, yada yada yada. And on the flip side, holding a door for someone, unlike shoulder rubs, is not something which very clearly impinges into bodily autonomy, sexual harassment, and so forth.
Which doesn’t let someone off the hook for holding a door when they are asked not to, but which does, imho, mean that the context is fairly specifically different than any of the apparently comparable situations that have been discussed.
I’ve already answered this in detail. Other posters have also explained this. I’m not going to keep repeating this and every other point I’ve been trying to make throughout this thread.
Actually I think the cookie thing seems pretty close - people who bring cookies to work generally think they’re doing a good thing. (And they’re often right - easily as often as door holders, percentage-wise.)
Getting handsy with random people is obviously never a good thing and thus isn’t comparable.
Italians are that way about food - there was no way to prevent food from being shoved in my face if my Grandmother was present. You were gonna eat three times as much as the amount that made you full whether you wanted to or not. If you tried to refuse they would pull out a funnel and force feed you as if you were suffering from anorexia - at least I’m guessing that’s what would happen; it never got that far. In fact they treated any symptoms of not eating excessive amounts of food as a growing boy as medically suspicious.
To be fair, most Americans don’t have a freakin clue about fitness or muscularity. They don’t know how to get it, how to maintain it, and certainly don’t understand why it might disappear.
Not that it’s on the same level, but… before my parents let me get my driver’s license I had to demonstrate to my dad I could change a tie. So yeah, I know how to do that start to finish. But on the few occasions in my life when I had one, pulled over, got out the jack and the tire iron and the spare, INVARIABLY one or more men show up and INSIST on doing it for me. Which is… nice? I suppose? Except random strange men can be more frightening than changing my own tire. The assumption is that because I am a woman it is impossible for me to have any clue about tire changing. Or, apparently auto maintenance because I sometimes get that when doing routine maintenance in my driveway, or changing a wiper blade, or whatever.
Sure, it’s great to have help… except when the help stems from an assumption of inherent and permanent incompetence.
But if you’re an able-bodied white male this is not an experience you have often, if ever, because THAT category is seen as inherently competent by a lot of people. “Step aside and let a MAN do that!” It’s not until that sort get old that they start getting that sort of treatment (because now they’re old, and old people are frail and demented, amiright? :rolleyes: )
you with the face got it right by calling it “able-body privilege”. That’s exactly what it is.
Yes, and they insisted upon opening doors for me because some men, deep down, have a need to believe that women are weak and must be helped. It’s the same thing.
You actually do have a choice to assume that people are well-meaning. You can take this as an opportunity to connect or a chance to humiliate and punish. If you are continually frustrated and embittered, vs uplifted and heartened by people’s attempts to be helpful (however inept) then you are absolutely making a choice to feel that way.
So maybe just admit that you like being pissed off?
I’m not trying to deny that they are being complete arses when they ignore your “no.” Every ignored “no” is a sacrilege against the autonomy of another human being. Some are more damaging than others, but they are all frustrating.
But all these arses you describe are well-meaning arses making arses of themselves in the attempt to be kind to you. What you choose to focus on is what you will see.
I simul-posted this story on a closed-group I am a member of on Facebook. It is a group for wheelchair users. I really wish I could share the responses here, I think it would be enlightening. I was almost instantly flooded with similar stories from many different members, all expressing strong emotions and empathy. I don’t think this is surprising to anyone but actually seeing the words from disabled people other than Ambivalid might have more of an impact. Or not, who knows.
I think Ambi did good by not punching the jerk in the nuts as he rolled past.
When I get such unwanted, already declined, “help” it irks me. And no, I cannot get me plus my walker through the door with a “helper” blocking half the doorway. And yet I still think it would be rude to run over the helper’s foot with my walker… at least intentionally so.
So I have occasionally taken to giving an impromptu lesson. Along the lines of, “If you are going to open the door even after I asked you not to would you at least please stand out of the door frame when you do it? Like standing over there <points> would be better.”
Opening doors to places of business where I was applying for a job. Carrying a tray of food to a table at a fast food place. Getting my own drink refill at said fast food place. Pumping gas. And that was just today.
NO, i’m sorry but being a woman is NOT the same experience. Someone here aptly used the phrase “able-bodied privilege”. I think that is it exactly. If you experienced what I experience “several times a day” from age 12 to 35 (and why did it stop suddenly at age 35, one would think the older you get the more helpless you would be perceived to be) then there was more going on than simply gender discrimination. And if you weren’t so (willfully?) ignorant of my experiences, I might be offended by your words here. Thankfully you are, so I’m not.
No such implication at all. The point is that others also have to deal with (ridiculous) perceptions of others. Everybody has “something”. Ambi has the perceptions as to his physical abilities, but those with other (obvious) disabilities also get treated like they are mentally handicapped when they aren’t. There are no “disabled people” as a group, because different people will have to be putting up with different attitudes and perceptions depending on what is (perceived to be) “wrong” with them. There’s no “one size fits all”. Suggesting that there is is reducing ALL handicapped people as having the same experiences. They’re PEOPLE, and other PEOPLE in other groups and other subsets of the same group will have different experiences, but experiences that involve this sort of annoying preconception and heavy-handed pushiness and rudeness.
Ambi is complaining about feeling different and you’re saying “nobody say anything!” He’s different! You must understand that he’s different! Others don’t have to put up with what he does! He’s different!" Whether you are talking about pushy strangers, or having people disagree with you or have a discussion with you where other opinions and questions are raised, there is no exemption for “handicapped people” having to deal with shit. The type and quantity of shit might be different for everyone, but it’s there, in one form or another. It’s part of being in a society, you have to deal with dickheads. Saying that the handicapped should be somehow exempt is saying that they are different…
For a start, if you re-read my posts, I’ve acknowledged how annoying it must be for Ambi, I haven’t “judged” his reaction at all.
If you rush to the “defence” of a handicapped person accusing people of “judging” and “taking them to task” and demanding “empathy” you are in effect saying that they are “different”, everyone should acknowledge that and treat them differently, that what THEY have to put up with is worse, that the reaction they get from others should always be a certain way (why is “empathy” any better than “sympathy” which motivates unneeded and unwanted offers of “help”? It’s not.)
Someone on the internet telling them just to “suck it up, princess” (not that that is what has happened here) is treating them the same as everyone else. Everyone has an opinion. Suggesting that there is some “dismissive” motivation by raising opinions and asking questions is saying that what happens on the internet shouldn’t apply to “handicapped people”. I’m not going to go all “empathetic” (even though I already have been, if you’d read what I actually wrote) at the expense of a discussion, because I don’t think that Ambi is some special flower that has to be protected and agreed with just because he’s in a wheelchair. Consider whether rushing to “protect” him and accusing people of “taking him to task” is infantilizing and condescending to Ambi. Your need to “support and protect” is understandable, but is it necessary? Why do we “have” to be empathetic to him and we can be dismissive to “regular people”?
Here’s a question: does each and every other person in a wheelchair find unsolicited and pushy inflictions of “help” as annoying and upsetting as Ambi does? Are all wheelchair-bound exactly the same in their reactions, or are they individuals with their own minds? Could there be a range of reactions to having to put up with this type of thing?
The ONLY thing we have under our control is our reactions. If we can reduce how much certain other people annoy us, it makes it easier on us. Getting a heap of “empathy” from strangers isn’t going to make it easier. Trying other ways of dealing with people or trying to adjust our own reactions might. You aren’t going to stop annoying people with annoying behaviour. That applies to EVERYONE regardless of what, how often, or how much you are having to put up with.
I’m not going to “apologise” for treating a competent adult the same as any other user on the internet.
Agreed, cookies was the closest. That said, when cookies were originally brought up in this thread, it was a single person who brought cookies over and over, and had the same interaction every time, and refused to get the message after multiple interactions.
If Joe and Bob have never before discussed cookies and the following happened:
Joe: Hey, Bob, I brought cookies for everyone, here’s one
Bob: Oh, no thanks Joe, I don’t want a cookie
Joe: Oh, don’t worry about it (puts cookie on Bob’s desk)
Bob: (Verbally goes off on Joe and explains how putting the cookie on his desk is really an act of bigotry)
Well, that would be fairly comparable to the situation in the OP, and, like in the OP, I wouldn’t say that either of them acted in a totally ideal fashion. Of course, if Bob has to deal with precisely this same type of situation all the time, it’s perfectly understandable for him to be short-tempered about it… but that doesn’t mean that Joe will come out of the interaction really having learned anything useful.