Overview

 For psychotherapist, painter, feminist, filmmaker, writer, and disability activist Harilyn Rousso, hearing well-intentioned people tell her, ""You're so inspirational!"" is patronizing, not complimentary. In her empowering and at times confrontational memoir, Don't Call Me Inspirational, Rousso, who has cerebral palsy, describes overcoming the prejudice against disability--not overcoming disability. She addresses the often absurd and ignorant attitudes of strangers, friends, and family.  Rousso also examines her own prejudice toward her disabled body, and portrays the healing effects of intimacy and creativity, as well as her involvement with the disability rights community. She intimately reveals herself with honesty and humor and measures her personal growth as she goes from ""passing"" to embracing and claiming her disability as a source of pride, positive identity, and rebellion.  A collage of images about her life, rather than a formal portrait, Don't Call Me Inspirational celebrates Rousso's wise, witty, productive, outrageous life, disability and all.

Full Product Details

Author:   Harilyn Rousso
Publisher:   Temple University Press,U.S.
Imprint:   Temple University Press,U.S.
Dimensions:   Width: 13.30cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.272kg
ISBN:  

9781439909379

ISBN 10:   1439909377
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   18 January 2013
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contents Preface Acknowledgments I  Close Encounters with the Clueless 1 Who’s Harilyn? 2 Birth, Mine 3 Close Encounters with the Clueless 4 The Beggar and the Cripple 5 The Stare 6 Always the Other 7 Why I am Not Inspirational 8 Home II On Leaving Home 9 Wedding Day, 1933 10 Dancing 11 Exploding Beans 12 My Sister 13 Adolescent Conversation 14 On Leaving Home 15 Hideous Shoes 16 Driving High 17 Eli 18 My Father, Myself 19 Driving away from Home III On Not Looking in the Mirror 20 Walk Straight! 21 On Not Looking in the Mirror 22 Facing My Face 23 Meditations on Speech and Silence 24 Daring Digits 25 Right-Hand Painting 26 Being Only One: Some Meditations on Solitude IV What's a Woman? 27 What’s a Woman? 28 He Was the One 29 Blank Page 30 Buying the Wedding Dress 31 First Date 32 First Night 33 Mixed Couple 34 Sylvester 35 Faces of Eve 36 Tough Bird 37 Hand in Hand V Why Claim Disability? 38 Finding My Way 39 Keeping the Distance 40 That “Inspirational” Label 41 Token of Approval 42 Disabled Women’s Community 43 The Story of Betty, Revisited 44 Listening to Myself 45 Activist Sisters 46 Toilet Troubles 47 My Mentoring Project 48 Why Claim Disability? 49 Broken Silences 50 Eulogy for My Nondisabled Self 51 Eulogy for My Freakish Self 52 Ode to My Disabled Self

Reviews

I've known Harilyn Rousso as a powerful activist and gifted artist, but with this revelatory book, she becomes something even more rare: a storyteller who conveys her uniqueness, and so helps us to discover our own. This book is irresistible to read, honest, insightful and universal. -Gloria Steinem<br>

Author Information

Harilyn Rousso is a disability activist, feminist, psychotherapist, writer, and painter. She is the President of Disabilities Unlimited Consulting Services, founder of the Networking Project for Disabled Women and Girls, coeditor of Double Jeopardy: Addressing Gender Equity in Special Education and author of Disabled, Female and Proud!

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