On being a good girl

Posted to the latest Disability Carnival at DisStudies, Temple U, Dave Hingsburger of Chewing the Fat writes about "The Good Girl" and the perils of being trained to be polite and follow the rules. He begins:

Several times a year I'm asked to do an abuse prevention workshop for people with disabilities. As part of that workshop we do a role play wherein Joe (who assists me in doing this workshop) plays a staff and in that role asks someone with a disability, "How was your day." The person with a disability responds, "I don't want to talk about it." Then the question is asked of the group, "What would a good staff do next?" The answer we are looking for is some version of, "The staff would say, 'That's OK you don't have to talk about it now. We can talk about it later if you want."

This role play is informative to me - it lets me know what kind of world that people with disabilities live in, how they see 'good' staff. I've had all sorts of responses to this question, "Put her in the side room," "Take supper away from him," "Lock him outside," "Don't let her use the phone," "Put her on the floor." Shocking, but a glimpse into how some staff use power in their relationship to those in care.

But the teenage woman with Down Syndrome that he gets to assist in the roleplay has clearly been taught that "politeness" and her need to be "a good girl" trumps any situation where she might be unhappy, dissatisfied or abused. She confides that she herself would never complain about someone treating her badly because that would be impolite. And she becomes afraid that she's been displeasing when Hingsburger points out she is working at cross-purposes with the basic message of the workshop and roleplay:

During the rest of the workshop she never again volunteered for a role play, to assist in any way. She just sat with her hands in her lap and she smiled at me. That pasted on Down Syndrome smile that I understood for the first time (really) had nothing to do with Down Syndrome it had to do with being down trodden. She was entirely 'nice' for the rest of the time we were together.

She left the workshop by coming up to me and apologizing again. "I'm a good girl," she said as she walked away from me.

This young woman had been taught the primary importance of not being troublesome, not needing, not complaining, being "happy" at all times, and not breaking the rules that cast her as the recipient of other people's good will. The pressure to please is relevant to feminist politics as well as the lessons of safety and autonomy that parents, teachers and guardians should consider for children, disabled or not. But this true example of the societal pressures brought to bear on developmentally disabled individuals -- and likely girls and women, in particular -- illustrates the complexities of the meaning of consent for those whom society implicitly denies the right to dissent.

When those of us without developmental, intellectual or cognitive disabilities take it upon ourselves to judge if others have the capacity to make decisions for themselves, what criteria are used? Do we foster their decision-making skills in the same way we might for nondisabled-but-developing minds of children that we plan to give full autonomy to eventually? Do we allow them to make mistakes and grow from them? Do we offer them a sense of self that is worthy of personal preferences, convictions and enough bodily autonomy to be safe from abuse they can recognize, or do we limit their available responses? Do we let the idea of their mental impairments limit our own sense of their personhood and the entitlements to all which that means?

How many people who have been trained, taught and brainwashed to believe that being considered "good" is more important than their own safety have subsequently been determined incapable of making their own decisions and incapable of consent?