Disability Nancy Mairs

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Response to “Disability” by Nancy Mairs Author of “Disability”, Nancy Mairs, who is a feminist and a cripple, has accomplished a lot in writing and teaching. Her personality shows in her essay “Disability”. In this essay, Nancy Mairs shows how disabled people are constantly excluded, especially from the media. By giving out facts and including her personal experiences, Nancy Mairs aims for making some changes regarding the relationship between the media and people with disabilities. Mairs thesis is shown in the first and last paragraphs. Her main goal is to show everyone that people with disabilities are just like everybody else and they should be included and accepted in all daily activities. By using intensity, humor and self-revelations, Nancy Mairs clearly gets her message through. Nancy Mairs starts her essay by describing herself as a crippled woman with multiple sclerosis. She talks about her condition and how she’s never seen a crippled woman like her in the media or on television. Then she mentions some television shows about disabled people that focus almost entirely on that person’s disability and neglects to show the person’s character, and how they can still remain somewhat independent. (pg.13) Mairs states that although disability changes a lot in one’s life, it doesn’t kill him/her. For example, she goes on to say that she can do what every other woman her age can do and in most ways she is just like any other woman of her age, nationality, and socioeconomic background. She menstruates, so she has to buy tampons, she worries about smoker’s breath so she buys mouthwash. She says she drives a car, talks on the phone, eats pizza, and gets runs in her pantyhose. And although she’s a great consumer, advertisers never choose someone like her to represent their products publicly; and the reason for that, according to Mairs, is that people cannot

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