Positionality: A Common Thread

A Social Science Perspective

Hello, my name is Care, and there are many facets to my identity, from my skin color to my sexual orientation, gender expression, familial structure, disability status, career, and education. As a neurodivergent queer mother, I am an outlier in white patriarchal western society. The intersections of my identity do not fit neatly into one category. In my family of origin, it is nearly impossible to be authentic without experiencing retribution for not conforming to typical WASP ways.

I don’t know who I am in relation to these people outside of myself. My relationship with my family would be very different if I were neurotypical and male. If my sexual orientation were "typical," I would have a very different relationship with my biological mother. I am in a heteronormative marriage, and I wonder how my relationships would change if I were to be a single mother in a same-sex relationship. My mother has always wanted to “fix” and change me so that I fit into her traditional expectations of female identity. From her vantage point, a daughter must have long, flawless hair, never bounce in her chair, always say please and thank you, never through gritted teeth... to have a place in society.

If I were a boy, I could have avoided hours of sitting in chairs with hot curlers burning marks on my ears, and itchy dresses making my head spin. As a boy, no one in my family would question the recount of my lived experiences. I know this because I watch my older brother move through life freely in a way I can only aspire to. He had room to dress flamboyantly and keep unkempt hair and dirty short nails during childhood and adolescence.

Whereas I was expected to always look like a doll, hold perfect eye contact, never speak too loudly or softly, maintain perfect grades and also raise our youngest sister.

My brother could have a garage band, skip class, and run free in the community. The onus was on me, the sister and daughter, to care for a child only seven years younger than myself while our mother carefully nursed her wounds following our parents’ divorce. If I were a boy, a son, a father, or a brother, I would be permitted to put myself first without being called selfish, dramatic, or ungrateful. If I were a boy, I could date women, and even men, without my identity being questioned. I would not have to explain or prove myself worthy of affection, respect, and dignified treatment (Smith, 2022).

If I were a white cis-man, I would not be unreasonably questioned or doubted when I am an expert or authority in my field (Glen, 2022).

My family would call me to ask my opinion and then take my advice. If I were a cis-white non-disable man, I could request a divorce without worrying if I could still raise my children and keep my career or pay the bills. I love my husband, but that does not change the reality that my resources would be limited if I needed to get safely out of our marriage.

This positionality adventure is exciting and thought-provoking, especially since identities and oppressions are not isolated.

We cannot look at individuals under a microscope and see their whole selves.

How a person interacts with their social groups is one aspect of identity. The physiological differences that a person experiences are another aspect of identity. And even more so, how a person presents themselves or performs in different social interactions cannot be fully understood from up close (Sears and Cairns, 2015). No one exists in a vacuum (2015). It is necessary to view social interactions from a macro and micro level to get the whole picture (2015). We must not forget the forest for the trees, nor can we ignore the veins on the leaves of each tree. All the parts of the forest and the tree come together to form a niche ecosystem. Trees communicate through each other's roots. Oak trees give their resources to tired and sickly pine trees, and dogwoods trade minerals amongst themselves and other tree species. The tallest tree in the forest is sustained by new saplings and nourishes new growth. In a perfect world, humans would learn from the forest and the trees and live in harmony.

Systemic change has to occur on all levels, macro, and micro, for me to have the same luxuries and move as easily in the world as I would as a white non-disabled cis-male (Sears & Cairns, 2015).

I cannot snap my fingers or rub a genie bottle to wish that gender did not determine how I present myself to the world. I wish that choosing which race or ethnic group to identify with were not paramount to the content of my character and the love I have for all humans and sentient beings. My identity has many facets, including my skin color, sexual orientation, gender expression, familial structure, disability status, career, and education. As a neurodivergent queer mother, I am an outlier in white patriarchal western society. The intersections of my identity do not fit neatly into one category.

COMMON THREAD PART TWO

I am part of a service dog team and a typically presenting light-skinned woman. Unfortunately, some people do not like that I have a service dog, and I face oppression and exclusion for being a service dog handler. Up close, I look like everyone else my age with a few laugh lines around my mouth, a cute mom haircut, and prominent American teeth. Scoot further back, and you will see that I lean to one side when I walk, and I make awkward pauses in my speech while my brain plays catch-up with the motor skills of my mouth. In my right hand is a red leash wrapped up {just so} with my service dog Duke connected on the other end.

I struggle with my identity in a postmodernist world because the intersections of my “categories” are not easily recognized or accepted by many in my community, especially since I live with an invisible illness and disability(Gemelli, 2022). I am not giving up on making room for myself, though. I will use all of my energy and then some to be an advocate for change. To make the invisible visible and shine a light on those with invisible illnesses or disabilities so that all members of humanity can live and thrive together in harmony.

A common thread in my story is one of living with a disability in a society that does not know what to do with me. How do we define disabled? Is disabled a bad word? What is correct, person-first language or identity-first language?

Even when nobody else believes in our potential, members of the disability community fight for each other.

Every time we stand up for our right to take up space and be free to express our innermost thoughts, live our dreams, and fall in love (or not), we work to construct a new society where having medical equipment is not an inconvenience others have to navigate on our behalf; instead, it is just part of being human.

A COMMON THREAD PART THREE

Another common thread in the story of my life is that I am a biological mother. Some say that we are all a little bit broken the moment we are born and that birth occurs in that thin space between life and death. In western society, babies come into the world in a cold, fluorescent-lit room in a hospital with a team of nurses, an attending physician, and one partner. It is in these same types of rooms where most people go to die. How strange to look at the place that brings life from the lens of mortality. By abstraction, we can view the same gray room with cold laminate floors and heavy windowless doors as the beginning and the end. My birthing story was not much different from a typical American mother’s. My children were born in the same hospital that I was born in, with the same attending obstetrician at America’s number one hospital for birthing and newborn services, where over 25000 babies were born in 2020 alone (Maternity and Newborn Services, 2021). I was in a hospital full of medical equipment and brilliant doctors and nurses, all human with their own biases, vantage points, and ways of self-identifying in this world.

At first glance, we had typical labor and delivery. I was 30 years old, married, and 39 weeks pregnant with my second child. My water broke while hiking with my dog on the trails behind our house. However, my labor and delivery look very different from typical when framed by my disability status and sexuality (Sears & Cairns, 2015, p.101). In the cold gray hospital room with the blinking machines and support staff, I wore my great aunt’s white dress gown and held onto my red leash. I wailed and groaned and rocked on my hands and knees with the cold, wet nose of my tri-color English setter reassuring me that we could get through this together. It was a precipitous labor, meaning from the moment my water broke, my contractions began, and we were in active labor. My son was born less than 4 hours after the start of labor.

If I had been in another hospital with an OB who did not care about my story or lived experiences, my service animal would have been denied access, as he has been in many places many times. I can only fret and feel threatened imagining being in the same situation as a non-verbal communicator or dark-skinned. It was already so hard, and adding to my marginalization felt suffocating.

I wish it were not true, but if I were black, the likelihood of gatekeepers preventing my service animal from attending is too high. Gatekeepers have a hard time allowing multiple identity categories for one person. I can be female, disabled, or black. But if I am all three, society will try to snuff me out and likely succeed.

Women of color, specifically those who identify as black, are three times more likely to die in the labor and delivery room (Marian F. MacDorman, 2021).

There is no equity for mothers. According to the feminist standpoint theory, mothers are at the mercy of predominately white-male doctors (Sears & Cairns, 2015). Men decide if we live or die and if our babies live or die. Right in that thin space between life and death with stomachs sliced open, spinal columns filled with anesthetics so we cannot feel women are at the mercy of a system rigged against our survival.

Black and white disparities are horrifying and statistically more significant than previously assumed.

Black and white disparities are horrifying and statistically more significant than previously assumed. I feel nauseated imagining the hatred of someone in my situation with a deep-brown-skinned face. I am disabled, with a sentient being as my medical equipment. Being a woman is hard. Having a documented disability is complicated. Being a black disabled woman with mixed sexual identity meets at the theoretical intersection of oppression, abuse, and confusion, one block removed from empowerment. These micro-level parts of genuine identity are interconnected and cannot be separated (Sears and Cairns, 2015). Having an unmedicated birth while ten alert nurses waited by my side with bags of blood ready to begin transfusions if I start hemorrhaging is as lucky and privileged as it gets. Out of 25000 births at Northside hospital in 2020, one-third of those women were black and three times as likely to die from hemorrhaging as I was. Why is that? The nurses surrounded me with bags of blood, ready to help long before I was in need. How can this possibly be handled differently with another mother because of her skin color?

Historically, disabled people were sterilized and prevented from reproducing with white supremacist efforts to create a pure society. I shudder to imagine what life is like for those who are still living with the consequences of American eugenics practices.

Essentially, someone wishes I was never born because my disability means I am a blemish on society.

Moreover, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, disabled women, who are more likely to be impregnated against their will, will be forced into labor, delivery, and motherhood. Can you spot the inconsistency? The problem is not whether or not disabled women have children or have abortions. The real struggle is male power dominating women and other marginalized groups.

Having a service dog in my labor and delivery was an obstacle I had to overcome. Duke is a rescue, and we saved each other. He is well-trained and knows my needs before I do. Even in the doctor’s office, Duke picks up on nuances of my body the machines and nurses miss. Thanks to the American Disabilities Act signed into law by the late President G.H. Bush; Duke has legal rights to accompany me anywhere able-bodied non-service dog teams are permitted. And yet, we are denied access or harassed for existing on more accounts than I am comfortable disclosing. Thankfully, for every gatekeeper, changemakers are waiting in the wings to stand up for injustice. I know that standing my ground in the face of oppression acts as a catalyst for change on a macro level. There is room for others with disabilities and service dogs to take up space and hold their ground.

Skin color, gender choice, and disability status should not determine whether or not someone lives or dies in a hospital room while giving birth.

Yet dying in the labor and delivery room is a common fate for women, an even more common outcome for (BIPOC) Black and indigenous women of color (Marian F. MacDorman, 2021). The likelihood of a BIPOC-disabled woman losing her life in the labor and delivery room is more than three times higher than that of a white non-disabled woman in a heteronormative marriage (Marian F. MacDorman, 2021).

If I could do one thing with my life, it would be to change the narrative for women of all gender identities, skin colors, and abilities. I will write stories of hope, empowerment, strength, and opportunity. Women will thrive and survive, not fade away into the background of the white hetero-normative patriarchy that wants to use us as cattle for breeding and feeding and nothing more. Women-- cis-gendered and trans, are the future and the present.

I look forward to having a black female president in my children’s lifetime. For now, I know I do not need to decide if I am disabled or female or a person or a friend or a student or a parent or a teacher because I am all of these labels and none of them all at once.

References:

Maternity and Newborn Services. (2021, July 19). Families with babies in NICU to benefit from new partnership between Northside and March of Dimes. Northside Hospital:

Exceptional Healthcare in Georgia. Retrieved October 1, 2022, from https://www.northside.com/

Marian F. MacDorman, (2021) “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Maternal Mortality in the United States Using Enhanced Vital Records, 2016‒2017,” American Journal of Public

Health 111, no. 9 (2021): 1673-81.

Sears, A., & Cairns, J. I. (2015). A good book, in theory: Making sense through inquiry. University of Toronto Press.

SOC 585 Sociological Theory Reader (Fall, 2022). Cognella.