Sarah Chorn's feature has helped inject
some much-needed diversity into SF/F. That said, the title and description
raise two concerns:
* use of the word "flaw"
risks portraying disabled people as inferior overall
* to the adult disability community,
"special needs" is code for "extraordinary" and
"other" in a way that performs a function opposite that of inclusivity. Think of it like this: how often are
the needs of disabled folks considered first
when it comes to Internet and tech accessibility? Something to consider.
During one of my frequent visits to SF
Signal, I noticed author Sharon Lynn Fisher's name pop up in one
of the SNiSW posts. I was like, "Oh, cool! A
sci-fi romance--wait a minute." I scratched my head. Something didn't seem
right.
Then I saw the book that was the focus
of the feature--THE OPHELIA PROPHECY. I had read that book. It's not a book
with disabled characters. Believe me, I'd have blogged about it by now if it
were. THE OPHELIA PROPHECY has biopunk and genetic engineering in a
post-apocalyptic setting, but the characters are as non-disabled as they come.
To Ms. Fisher's credit, she noted in
her post that "…none of the characters in my Tor book The
Ophelia Prophecy have a disability in the conventional
sense." And she reframes "special needs" as "physical
challenges" in order to more accurately represent the characters. But it
doesn't change the fact that her post lacks expected insights about disability.
With a feature like SNiSW, the author of the post can make a real difference.
For example, what kinds of insights might we have gained if a disabled reader had provided
commentary about how, in THE OPHELIA PROPHECY, the heroine's memory loss is a disability experience?
The post made me realize how easy it is
to inadvertently marginalize and erase books with disabled characters--even in
a feature designed to bring them to light.
The post is also a misfire considering there are about a
half-dozen SFRs that would have made a much better fit. Therefore, I
decided this is a good time to have a conversation about disabled characters in
SFR and what one actually looks like (or might look like). One, because readers
with disabilities deserve to see themselves reflected far more often in this
genre and two, SFR's relative youth means authors have a chance to chart a
course, almost from the start, to accurate, sensitive, and thoughtful
portrayals of disability.
How can SFR help meet the needs of readers with disabilities?
If you're a non-disabled reader, I'm
willing to bet you've probably seen people in your life with disabilities.
Maybe someone in your family has a disability. You might work or go to school
with someone who has one. Heck, if you haven't encountered anyone with a disability, you might want to think about moving out
from under the rock you've been living under. It's also highly likely you've
met a disabled person and didn’t even know it.
Over the course of my lifetime, I've
known as many disabled people as non-disabled ones. They have included
neighbors, friends, family members, and folks I've worked with. If they all
were to start reading SFR (hey, a gal can dream!), they might want to see
themselves represented in a story. People with disabilities date, fall
passionately in love, negotiate intimate relationships, and have hot sex. They'll
do all of that in the future as well.
SFR has loads of potential when it
comes to disabled characters. A few books feature them, which is great, and
those got me wondering how many more we'll have to look forward to. The question
is how can SFR best represent such characters? How will readers know an SFR
handles disability in an authentic, compelling way?
I'm going to tackle this topic and more
in this post, which I intend as a conversation starter and resource rather than
a comprehensive presentation.
On crafting disabled characters
First, it's important to question our
assumptions about health and the human body because, as stated in The
Uses of Negativity: Survival and Coping Strategies For Those of Us Who Are
Exasperated by the Empty Promise of "It" Getting Better:
*
"…society prescribes a model of healing that is linear and
short-term…"
*
"The society views victimhood as something that must be overcome."
*
"The idea that things would just get better with time is unrealistic,
invalidating, and alienating for those of us who have lived through a long
stream of multiple trauma and oppressions in our lives."
What's
the takeaway for authors? Create narratives that endorses the idea of a
character whose daily life is centered around managing a disability rather than trying to overcome it.
For
an example of this concept in action, read Jacqueline Koyanagi's ASCENSION (Click
here to read Sarah Chorn's interview with the author at SF
Signal).
To portray characters with disabilities
effectively, SFR can offer stories that avoid relying on an ableist
perspective. Love in the Margin's Ridley offers Some Thoughts on "Physically
Disabled Protagonists":
Ableism, then, is where the typical able body is assumed to be the default and the ideal. Anyone whose body differs from this in form or function is defective. Not “different.” Defective. This is a cornerstone of the medical model of disability, where disabled people are patients in need of therapies and cures and success is defined by returning someone’s body back to the typical ideal.
And…
Disabled people are just that: people. We’re no more defined by our bodies than anyone else. No one among us is omnipotent, so every one of us has learned to live with limitations. Where do you draw the line? What makes my wheelchair any different than someone else’s eyeglasses? Am I more disabled than an athletic man who can’t read? Why do able bodied people get personalities, but disabled ones get inadequacies?
Disability isn’t a a character trait and how a person reacts to an acquired disability isn’t a measure of character. Disability is just another one of the elements of human diversity. Like race and gender, disability often is a source of oppression and hardship, and that oppression is due to societal structures.
"Grow
isn’t remarkable because he’s disabled. He’s remarkable because he’s a good
athlete."
In
other words, Inspirationally
Disadvantaged characters are best avoided. So are disabilities as plot
points, as Laura K. Curtis outlines in Don't
Co-opt My Disorder For Your Plot Device: A Rant:
Regardless of what her experience of epilepsy is, every epileptic has a relationship to her disorder that is just as important as any other relationship in her life. (And, like any other relationship, it’s apt to change over time.)
And that’s true of any disorder, disease, or lasting injury, not just epilepsy. If you want to write an epileptic character, I’d be happy to talk to you about my experiences, my friends’ experiences. I can direct you to forums with people who will talk to you. If you want to write this stuff, for goodness’ sake, research the emotional impact, not just the physical symptoms and jargon.
SFR
and the social model of disability
Imagine an SFR that takes place in a
futuristic colony on another planet. In addition to the usual worldbuilding
elements, why not layer in details indicating the colony had been designed to
accommodate people with disabilities (maybe the hero or heroine would even benefit
from it)?
That idea draws from the social model of disability:
That idea draws from the social model of disability:
While physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological variations may cause individual functional limitation or impairments, these do not have to lead to disability unless society fails to take account of and include people regardless of their individual differences.
I would love to read about a society or
culture that routinely accommodates disabled characters. SFR is especially
suited for this type of exploration since many books in the genre include
concepts from various social sciences. It'd also be interesting to read stories
that explore the engineering of something other than starships and plasma
weapons. E.g., universal
home designs extrapolated to the future.
Or shuttles. Lots of SFR characters use
them to travel from a space ship to a planet's surface, or for traveling across
an alien landscape. Have you ever noticed how often shuttles are described as
having limited space? From the medical
model of disability perspective, a power
chair user can't navigate the confined spaces because his medical condition
prohibits him from navigating the narrow aisles and cramped cockpit.
On the other hand, the social model of
disability approaches the issue from another perspective: the power chair user
can't board (or pilot) the shuttle because the manufacturer designed it with too-narrow
spaces (i.e., lack of foresight in operation here).
So if an author wants to include a
disabled character in a power chair, she could explore alternate means of
boarding a shuttle. For example, a shuttle that uses transforming mecha to fold
and unfold around a power chair user. Or just bigger shuttles with
accommodations like wide aisles, etc. This is the future, after all, and an
author's imagination controls the budget. Check it out: futuristic engineers
have figured out how to accommodate the disabled without prohibitive cost. Yay!
Here's another example: when gravity
malfunctions on a space station, what accommodations are in place to protect
disabled inhabitants/employees? Are wheelchair users expected to adjust using
only their arms to navigate zero-g after their wheelchairs float away?
One way the station could provide
accommodations could be automatic or voice-activated safety equipment that
appears when the gravity fails. A "smart safety net" system as it
were. And maybe wheelchairs of the future could come equipped with mini rockets
and emergency harnesses so the user can avoid crashing into a bulkhead.
See G.B. Hajim's STRANGE
FRAME for an example of an advanced power
chair that enables a (secondary) character to function in zero-g.
Are space station floors
seamless/smooth so characters with mobility/coordination/strength challenges
can walk across them safely, or are the characters expected to navigate irregularities
and other obstacles inch by perilous inch while onlookers praise their
gumption? What about characters with visual impairments? I could go on, but I
think you get the idea.
Things
to look for or question in an SFR book featuring a disabled character:
*What kind of support system does a
disabled character have?
*Does the character have an acquired
disability or was he born with it?
* In the case of space opera settings
featuring interstellar travel, how would a disabled character access health
care?
*
A disabled character, like anyone else, has a variety of coping skills. What is
a character's coping skills? How does a hero respond to a physically disabled
heroine who's expressing negativity about a space station's lack of
accommodations? (Hint: an empathic response is preferable to an attempt to
cheer her up.)
*What
kind of technology might help decrease the isolation of disabled characters? We
have the Google
driverless car even now. And a robotic suit enabled a paraplegic man to
perform the kickoff in the 2014 World Cup:
What's
the equivalent technology of the future that'd help disabled characters
increase their mobility? Seems to me the robotic suit angle would provide
especially intriguing ideas for near-future SFRs.
*
What does the story's subtext say about the concepts of "disabled"
and "non-disabled"? Does it attempt to "…refuse
the notion of able(ness)"? Does it reject the idea of
"able-bodied" as the default?
What other considerations would you suggest? What kinds of details
would contribute to an authentic portrayal of a disabled character?
Pros
and Cons of Advanced Technology
Incorporating advanced adaptive technology in stories with disabled characters seems like an automatic choice. SFR stories could certainly feature disabled characters whose functionality is optimized by futuristic tech and medical advancements. That'd be one way to increase diversity and would enable the inclusion of disabled characters in, say, action-adventure sci-fi romances.
Incorporating advanced adaptive technology in stories with disabled characters seems like an automatic choice. SFR stories could certainly feature disabled characters whose functionality is optimized by futuristic tech and medical advancements. That'd be one way to increase diversity and would enable the inclusion of disabled characters in, say, action-adventure sci-fi romances.
But is technology the one and only answer? Relying on super advanced science risks implying that just because a disabled character can function with adaptive technology then she is somehow no longer impaired. Technology risks erasing a character's disability just as much as the magical cure one might encounter in contemporary stories.
Still, there are other ways to integrate adaptive technology without diminishing a character's disability. Here are a few:
* Stories focusing on the development of advanced adaptive medical interventions (e.g., heroine is a prosthetics engineer in a near-future setting.)
* Stories that include high tech interventions used by characters, yet acknowledge the disability isn't cured by it. For example, perhaps a heroine's leg prostheses require regular maintenance and repair. How long will the repair take? If the prosthesis is damaged, is her mobility affected during this time? Will she need alternate means of transportation or other kinds of assistance in the meantime?
Zoe Archer's steampunk romance SKIES OF GOLD features a disabled heroine with a prosthesis and the story touches upon the vulnerability she experiences as a result.
* Character takes medication to manage
symptoms of epilepsy or any other number of conditions. Perhaps the medication
works wonders or science has found a way to eliminate side effects, but the
character must take her medication
regularly. How might this regimen impact a heroine who's on a quest type of
adventure aboard a starship? How much medication is she allowed to have before
needing a refill? Or if the medication is administered via a shot or implant,
how long will it last?
* Integrate scenes of a character needing an adjustment to his prosthetic. Where would he go, and how accessible is the company who'd handle the job? What will be the futuristic equivalent of a company like Hanger?
Sexy times--disabled people have them
* Integrate scenes of a character needing an adjustment to his prosthetic. Where would he go, and how accessible is the company who'd handle the job? What will be the futuristic equivalent of a company like Hanger?
Sexy times--disabled people have them
People with disabilities have sex. I
shouldn't have to state the obvious, but unfortunately that's not the world we
live in. Whenever I encounter disabled characters in SFR making love, I cheer.
Frankly, I want to cheer about it more often.
There’s a common social attitude that disabled people are not sexual — that something about disability strips people of their sex drive, and that, moreover, disability makes people inherently sexually unappealing, so it’s not like they could find partners even if they wanted them. This is accepted as common knowledge, despite the fact that it creates some extremely harmful social attitudes and social structures.
Here's
what I'd love to read about more often in SFR when it comes to lovemaking
scenes:
…disabilities are the mother of invention, creativity, clever adaptation, and brilliant accommodation, and when it comes to sex, we put our creative thinking skills to work in a variety of ways.
Meljean
Brook's RIVETED is a steampunk romance that addresses disability and sex in a
thoughtful manner. And when it comes to the use of clever technological adaptation
and creativity in a disabled character's sex life, in my reading experience
P.J. Schnyder's A GIFT FOR BOGGLE reigns supreme (read
it for free!).
***
For more information about disability
issues, here's a list
of articles courtesy of S.E. Smith's site This
Ain't Livin.
In addition to the titles mentioned in this post, there are a few other SFR stories that feature disabled heroes and heroines. The books vary widely, however, in terms of how the disabilities are handled--some are simply cosmetic; some are more integral to the plot and characterization than others. Still, it's a place to start.
In addition to the titles mentioned in this post, there are a few other SFR stories that feature disabled heroes and heroines. The books vary widely, however, in terms of how the disabilities are handled--some are simply cosmetic; some are more integral to the plot and characterization than others. Still, it's a place to start.
TIN CAT - Misa Buckley
ISOLATION - A.B. Gayle
ISOLATION - A.B. Gayle
HIS
CLOCKWORK CANARY - Beth Ciotta
NIGHTS
OF STEEL - Nico Rosso
WILD
CARDS AND IRON HORSES - Sheryl Nantus
The Iron Seas
steampunk romance series by Meljean Brook
ISLAND
OF ICARUS - Christine Danse
ALIEN BLOOD - Melisse Aires
IN ENEMY HANDS and BALANCE OF TERROR- K.S. Augustin
ALIEN BLOOD - Melisse Aires
IN ENEMY HANDS and BALANCE OF TERROR- K.S. Augustin
BLADE
DANCER - S.L. Viehl
SOMATESTHESIA
- Ann Somerville
MILES
IN LOVE - Lois McMaster Bujold
Related
TGE posts:
****
Acknowledgement
Here's the LITM mission statement:
We (mainly) review romance and erotica featuring characters from every corner. Of special interest to us is how the romance genre tells (or avoids telling) the stories of those whose lives don’t fit into the neat and tidy box labeled “default.” Characters of varying sexual orientations or gender representations? We review it. Couples of color? We review it. Heroes with disabilities or heroines managing chronic illness? We review it. Blue-collar Cowboy Dom with ex-con brothers falling for a transgender ballet teacher recovering from combat-related PTSD? Not sure this book exists, but if we find it, we’ll review it. We’ll talk openly and honestly about what we loved and what we hated, as romance readers and people who deal with this stuff in everyday life.
Love in the Margins is for all of us, the readers. All fiction carries an underlying message about how the world works; and we’re going to try to hit on the love stories that represent us all. This is a blog that welcomes discussion and criticism. Hate speech is prohibited but open speech is not.
You can also follow Ridley on Twitter.
If there are more SFRs featuring disabled characters, I'd love to hear about them.
Joyfully yours,
Heather