Doing my blog rounds this morning has been rather frustrating, to say the least. I mean I guess it's my fault that I subscribe to so many angry feminist type blogs, but today has been more demoralizing than most.
First, there's Amanda Palmer's Godwin-fail (NB: the link at the bottom of that post has very graphic images of KKK lynchings, do excercise care if you decide to click over) [Edit: I just realised that Godwin has to do with Nazis and not the Klan. Whatevs, it's Friday...], which breaks my heart not because I have been any fan of hers at all but because of the chorus of people in comment threads everywhere (pretty much since the Evelyn/Evelyn debacle) talking about how she was such a feminist role model for them. And feminist role models are far and few between. And when one of them fails this hard and this consistently it's heartbreaking.
Next, there's the studies done on campus rapists about how, contrary to the dominant narrative of the decent, upstanding boy that just made a mistake, a small percentage of repeat predators are responsible for a staggeringly large proportion of rape cases. The follow-on from that, of course, is how rape culture works to preserve this myth and allow these serial predators (who are well aware of the machinations of rape culture and how it will protect them, even if they don't explicitly know what it's called) to keep raping women. All the while college-aged women are constantly given daft "rape prevention tips" which completely obscures any and all perpetrator responsibility.
Finally, there's the post that hits close to home (and what I intended to spend the meat of this post discussing, apologies for the lengthy preamble) about the dismissal of needs.
I'll wait while you go read it. The comments on the post are worth your time as well.
The reason this issue bothers me so much is that I do hearing tests on children who are having academic issues at school, or behavioural issues at home, or both. The idea is that before any of the other developmental services can swoop in and do their thing, sensory deficits have to be ruled out in case the "fix" (which is a problem I'll leave for another post, another day) is as simple as hearing aids or properly fitted glasses (not that hearing aids are analogous to spectacles because in many cases they don't restore normal hearing, but again, another post, another day, probably another blog too).
But what many parents in my clinics fail to understand is the difference between hearing and listening. You can have perfect hearing but if your brain can't parse and process the sounds your ears are so perfectly delivering to it, then there's no way you can make sense of the soundscape.
The world is a noisy place. Where there are computers, there's the tapping of keyboards and the whirr of processor fans. Where there are people, there are the shuffling-fidgeting noises, multiple conversations, footsteps. Then you have the sounds people don't even notice: hums of fridge motors or air conditioners, the low babble of conversations in the next room, that ubiquitous piped music in retail stores that are supposed to sublimnally enjoinder us to slow down, look at the displays and buy buy buy. That's all sounds that a neurotypical brain can filter out. Those are the same sounds that mix and mumble and tumble through things these children with processing issues actually WANT to listen to, but cannot.
I have met so many parents that cannot wrap their heads around this. When I explain that while the hearing is fine, that the problem the child likely has is a listening one, they smirk and nod and say to the child, "See! I knew you were just not listening to me!". And the hurt I see on kids faces really breaks my heart. I want to be their ally. I want to explain to their carers, the people on which their world depends that they do WANT to listen, but they cannot. I want to explain that there are many things they can do to make it easier for their child to listen, to parse that confusing, jumbly, noise their brain is presenting to them - without making it sound like concessions you have to make for a willful and "broken" child. To let them know that needing captions on TV is a valid and sound strategy and that they should encourage their children to assert themselves and ask for what they need from this noisy world of ours in order to make sense of it. Like asking for repeats. Like asking for repeats even if they get teased about being deaf, or get chastised for not paying attention the first time, or any of the other terrible things that happen when you ask for something already once given.
I suppose it's a little like trying to explain to a fish what water is, exactly. Most people don't have to think about listening. It's easy. Their brains filter all "irrelevant" sounds out before they've even noticed them. They can tune into speech and know exactly what words that stream of uninterrupted phonemes translates into. Not everyone can do that. Don't dismiss the needs of others just because you don't have those same needs.
MARUAH letter on recent changes to electoral procedures
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Maruah has submitted the following feedback to Elections Department of
Singapore (“ELD”) in view of the General Election due by next year, and
ELD’s announ...
6 months ago