Compulsory Youthfulness: Intersections of Ableism and Ageism in “Successful Aging” Discourses

This article forwards the theory of compulsory youthfulness as a way to explore how ableism, ageism, and other systems of oppression intersect to produce the societal mandate that people must remain youthful and non-disabled throughout the life course, particularly in a cultural context that holds successful aging as an ideal

The Dedication: Leaving Evidence of Life, Death, Care, and Confinement During COVID-19

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic exploded and nursing homes rapidly became overwhelmed with disease, death, and despair. During this time, I learned Sylvia, an old woman with dementia I had befriended, was one of the many old and disabled people confined in nursing homes who did not survive. In this reflective and part personal, part scholarly essay, I leave evidence of and for Sylvia and the nearly 200,000 old and disabled people and care workers who contracted COVID-19 and died within the confines of neoliberal, profit-driven long-term care institutions. Disability justice activist Mia Mingus writes, “We must leave evidence. Evidence that we were here, that we existed, that we survived and loved and ached.” Leaving evidence is a political act, a form of resistance in an ableist word. And yet leaving evidence is particularly challenging in the context of dementia, care, confinement, and death—making it even more important, more urgent. Building on Ellen Samuels’ assertion, “Crip time is grief time,” I consider how mourning Sylvia and countless other nursing home deaths, interwoven with my own experiences of distress, yet also solidified my need to survive, might leave evidence and keep working toward an abolitionist future—one in which old and disabled women like Sylvia, like my future self, might thrive

Siblings with disabilities: a duoethnography on the intersections between a sibling relationship and disability

A growing body of research examines the intersections between sibling relationships and disability. However, much of this research focuses on non-disabled siblings and how the disabled sibling affects them, thereby continuing to center able-bodiedness while further marginalizing disabled people. This research centers the voices of two siblings who are both disabled. Using duoethnography, the researchers engaged in a dialog interrogating how disability has played a role in our sibling relationship. Our dialog demonstrated the complexity of our experiences as siblings and as disabled people. We found that physical disability, a status we do not share, created role asymmetry and power differentials in our relationship. Conversely, we discussed how our shared experience of having psychiatric disabilities had a positive influence on our closeness, and enhanced our ability to provide mutual support and engage in reciprocity. This duoethnography has important implications for the inclusion of disabled siblings in future research