Showing posts with label fibromyalagia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fibromyalagia. Show all posts

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Another Fibromyalgic Queer Coloredgirl Morning


Since posting a link and thoughts on gender and fibromyalgia, I discovered that Lakshmi Piepzna Samarashina , a writer I am quickly falling in love with, actually has it, and even wrote about it, in conjuction with being a queer coloredgirl. Among other things, Lakshmi Piepzna Samarashina writes to Gloria Anzuldua (a magnificent writers as well, who I've discussed before) about living with chronic illness. She uses the term nepantla, which is the inbetween space of borders that Anzuldua and other Latina writers have used. Lakshmi Piepzna Samarashina discusses the struggle to make a life for yourself when you are disabled (and also, the interconnected struggles with being queer and a person of color, which compounds her circumstances.) She also discusses Anzuldua’s struggle to hide how sick she really was. I’ve done work on Anzuldua, and I was unaware that she had been so ill (I was aware of her relatively early death, which is tragic. We lost a wonderful writer and activist there.)
Lakshmi Piepzna Samarashina is a wonderful writer who is just starting to emerge as as someone to follow. (She's been respected in activist circles for years, but she is only just now getting a little mainstream fame, having been nominated for a Pushcart recently.)

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Fibromyalagia and Gender

Today I was reading an article on fibromyalagia, which women disproportionately suffer from. Basically, it states that gender politics plays a big role, and I can think of a lot of other modern examples of women's health being ignored.
Less research is done on women's illnesses than men's. Viagra, a men's product, is insured, but some medicines for women (or even sometimes predominately used by women)are uninsured. Fibromylagia is just another, more modern example of "hysteria" which was a woman's disease caused by not being obedient enough. Women's crazy moods? Caused by the way her womb was sitting in her body. Sadly, people still basically think this when they discount a woman because it's "that time of the month."
It's enough to make you sick.