a catalog specifically for kids with disabilities<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dkids that they kindly, but awkwardly, call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153differently-abled.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Whoopi Goldberg and a child with Down syndrome are on the cover, and all the toys in the catalog feature kids with various disabilities playing with them.\u00c2\u00a0 The toys are described in terms of their educational and\/or therapeutic potential:\u00c2\u00a0 for instance, the Fisher Price \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Go Baby Go! Crawl-Along Drum Roll\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is marketed as providing gross motor, tactile, auditory, visual, and thinking stimulation.\u00c2\u00a0 I do appreciate that, since Biffle and I are eager for Maybelle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s playtime to be stimulating, and we are often on the lookout for toys that will help her in one or another of the areas we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re working on in therapy.<\/p>\nBut the fact that kids like Maybelle only appear in the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153differently-abled\u00e2\u20ac\u009d catalog is distressing.\u00c2\u00a0 These kids are all in their own catalog, even though all the toys are the same as the ones in the regular Toys R Us lineup.\u00c2\u00a0 As one of my colleagues pointed out, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you want to know who a society doesn’t value, look at who they segregate.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 So, while I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m very glad that Toys R Us is documenting the existence of disabled kids\u00e2\u20ac\u201dnot just kids with Down syndrome but those with autism and a range of physical disabilities, as well\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI do wish that these kids were fully included in all their marketing, so that their catalogs would help make these kids\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 full inclusion in society at large seem normal, desirable, even unremarkable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As a Women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and Gender Studies faculty member, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m hyper-attuned to representations\u00e2\u20ac\u201dof beauty, of consumption, of masculinity\u00e2\u20ac\u201din the world around me.\u00c2\u00a0 As the parent of a daughter with Down syndrome, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve become equally attuned to representations of people with disabilities.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re well into the holiday season, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been interested to see how children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1919,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21097],"tags":[345,21395],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-language","tag-disability","tag-girls"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1919"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/7\/7e\/Animal_(Muppet).png\")
The big problem is that kids like my daughter rarely show up at all in mainstream media.\u00c2\u00a0 Holiday specials pass by, one after the other, and my husband and I find that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re searching increasingly desperately for disabled characters.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said the other day while listening to the Muppet Christmas CD, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think Animal is a person with special needs!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak clearly, he obviously has some behavioral challenges, including difficult controlling his emotions, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a beloved and valuable member of the rock band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s occurred to me that we may be able to use Rudolph as a role model in the future, as well\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhis community initially interprets his difference as abnormal and undesirable, but they come to see it as a talent and a benefit.\u00c2\u00a0 But in terms of actual human beings, the representational terrain is fairly bleak.<\/p>\n