overthinkereading's review against another edition
5.0
Oooh, this book. I don’t even have the words. The author sure does, though. No punches were pulled in this critique of everything from education, accessibility, portrayals of disability in media, medicine, even language itself. And she makes you laugh while tearing it all down. Being Seen absolutely deserved the 2022 Washington State Book Award, and is A MUST READ.
theshenners's review
4.0
Abled people with little to no knowledge of Disability activism and studies are the assumed audience for this book, so as someone who is disabled, has done some reading and coursework in disability studies, and follows the work of disabled people on social media, I didn't get as much out of some of the stuff in this book as others might. I saw a lot of familiar people and works cited and referenced in the book, which was a nice reinforcement, if nothing else.
That said, unlike the author, I am mostly able-bodied (I say "mostly" because my primary disability is mental/psychological, but I wear glasses and have other chronic physical conditions, so it's complicated) and I am not D/deaf, Blind, or Deafblind, so her accounts and insights on living with those specific disabilities were informative for me. In particular, I found her analysis of film and television portrayals of disability enlightening since I'm not really familiar with most of Western/American film and TV and therefore don't have deeper knowledge of all the historical precedents and tropes specific to that medium.
Overall, I think this book is a great starting point for abled people and people outside of academia to learn about the systems that create and sustain the oppression of disabled people. The author provides plenty of concrete examples from her life, the lives of other disabled people, as well as fictional narratives, and uses plain language to explain her points, making her work more accessible to laypeople.
That said, unlike the author, I am mostly able-bodied (I say "mostly" because my primary disability is mental/psychological, but I wear glasses and have other chronic physical conditions, so it's complicated) and I am not D/deaf, Blind, or Deafblind, so her accounts and insights on living with those specific disabilities were informative for me. In particular, I found her analysis of film and television portrayals of disability enlightening since I'm not really familiar with most of Western/American film and TV and therefore don't have deeper knowledge of all the historical precedents and tropes specific to that medium.
Overall, I think this book is a great starting point for abled people and people outside of academia to learn about the systems that create and sustain the oppression of disabled people. The author provides plenty of concrete examples from her life, the lives of other disabled people, as well as fictional narratives, and uses plain language to explain her points, making her work more accessible to laypeople.
greengaybles's review
4.0
My actual rating for this is closer to a 3.5 I think, but since Goodreads doesn't do half stars, 4 felt more fair.
I can't really articulate my thoughts yet. I'll come back to this. I did like the book, and think it's a valuable contribution to disabled literature by disabled writers, I just had some mixed feelings about the way personal opinions were sometimes attributed to an entire group. I'm only blind, not deafblind, so I can't speak to how well that was portrayed, but as a disabled queer woman in the world, I saw myself in parts of the book and didn't in others, and that's fine. Our stories are all individual.
I can't really articulate my thoughts yet. I'll come back to this. I did like the book, and think it's a valuable contribution to disabled literature by disabled writers, I just had some mixed feelings about the way personal opinions were sometimes attributed to an entire group. I'm only blind, not deafblind, so I can't speak to how well that was portrayed, but as a disabled queer woman in the world, I saw myself in parts of the book and didn't in others, and that's fine. Our stories are all individual.
sarahmatthews's review
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism by Elsa Sjunneson
Read on audio, narrated by the author
Pub. 2021
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This is a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages and it was the perfect choice for April’s #DisabilityReadathon event. Elsa is a media studies professor from the US and she expertly critiques the harmful tropes that are repeated over and over in books, movies and TV. Her style is snarky and engaging.
I was particularly interested in the section on the portrayal of disabled characters in literature. When talking about studying The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver she says “most of all I remember that physical disability was used as a metaphor, a way to show inperfection, a way to emphasise difference. I remember raising this issue in the classroom and being told it wasn’t important. Message received: you are not as good or beautiful as your non-disabled peers.”
It was also great to read how Elsa became an activist including her journey to understanding internalised ablism which is something I’ve been working on myself too. At one point she comments: “As with everything else in this book, blind people are caught up in a terrible trap. If we dress well people will think we’re not really blind or that someone is helping us to keep up appearances. If we don’t, we’re dismissed , considered confirmation that blind people are useless and slovenly.there is no winning.”
I was very much nodding along in agreement for most of this book. These are arguments that are elegantly expressed and thought through so clearly I’ll be coming back again and again to read sections when I need some help to order my own thoughts around these topics. And My word, the chapter on disabled mothers is heartbreaking! Elsa absolutely points out that this memoir could be a hard read (and rightly doesn’t apologise for it) and it was this chapter that hit home for me.