Examined Life + Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor - Movie Review Example

Reflection Journal After watching the video "Examined Life + Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor", write a reflection journal about "How impairment structures disability in our social society?" The video "Examined Life + Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor" presented two women walking on the sidewalk of a busy street. Judith Butler initiated the conversation with Sunaura Taylor, born with arthrogryposis and uses a wheelchair. Butler wanted to solicit some response from Taylor regarding her perception of the rationale why she takes a ‘walk’ or a ‘stroll’, as the term signifies technically using the feet to do that.

Butler eventually evoked the subject of using the social space, contrasting an ‘able-bodied’ person as opposed to people who are physically impaired. Taylor begun to proffer a discussion of her personal impression of impairment as her being afflicted with arthrogryposis, affecting her life and they way she functions. Disability, she defined as a social repression of disabled people; the disabling effects of society. I find the video very enlightening but at the same time disturbing because although contemporary society has become more embracing to people with disabilities or impairments, in the real sense, or from the perspectives of these disabled people, society is still the culprit that restrains them and confines them to a stereotyped image that as disables, there are vast opportunities, activities and endeavors that are not simple available and accessible to them.

For instance, at some point, Taylor indicated that society is somehow callous on people who needs some help or assistance and are tended to be looked down upon. She cited that sometimes, she is apprehensive to seek some assistance in ordering coffee and demanding assistance and she had to sit in the park for hours just to gather the strength to do that. It is so sad to realize how society has been so selfish and have been totally indifferent to people who should have been accorded assistance without being told.

The study of Neath clearly indicate that “impairments are often acquired as a result of social practices (e.g., war, interpersonal violence). There is a strong likelihood in a “disabling society” that disability will follow impairment” (Neath, p. 195). I believe that society imposes predefined mindsets and practices that exhibit attitudes of repression, a prejudiced predisposition in interacting with people who are physically challenged. The most disturbing input brought out by Butler was that a young man’s gait, due to its distinct peculiarity, paved a group of guys to kill him.

It makes me think that this is society’s response to the theory of survival of the fittest. That people who are marginalized or are physically, mentally, emotionally impaired are immediately typecast as people who are weak, with limited functions and should therefore be bypassed and disregarded. I honestly believe that we have created a society that taught our children to work on enhancing their strengths, aesthetic traits to manifest power over those who have limited skills, talents, and abilities.

In so doing, the focus on oneself have neglected the need to provide equitable assistance and the access of equal opportunities and rights to others: women, the aged, cultural minorities, and the disabled, among others. Therefore, impairment, either physical, emotional or mental, immediately sends signals to society to react discriminately on them through restriction of access to diverse opportunities (like employment) and rights that they should have been equally accorded. Thus, impairment, more than a physical dilemma, is more of a social conundrum that has continued to exist until contemporary times.

Work Cited Neath, Jeanne. “Social Causes of Impairment, Disability, and Abuse: A Feminist Perspective.” Journal of Disability Policy Studies. Spring-Summer 1997 vol. 8 no. 1-2 195-230. Print. YouTube. Examined Life - Judith Butler & Sunaura Taylor 720p.avi. 6 October 2010. Web. 22 May 2011.