Stephen Kuusisto\u2019s short story, \u201cPlato, Again,\u201d is about a woman who recently underwent cancer surgery. The story illustrates how many women get treated in the workplace. Like most of those women, we see Caroline Moore, experiencing ableism, sexism, and racism. In the beginning of the story, Caroline thinks about everything she went through, saying that it was \u201ceasy.\u201d The only thing she did not find easy about was the idea of getting to keep her job. She did not have much interest in her course management software before her illness; however, being back now, she was ready to work hard, wanting to get her mind off her illness. Unfortunately, nothing was the same when she returned to work. Caroline got demoted and was treated differently by all her coworkers. Simple mistakes were now seen as because of her illness and she was told that her hours would have to change to part time which can easily lead to her getting dismissed.
\nMitchell and Snyder\u2019s Introduction of \u201cThe Biopolitics of Disability,\u201d they quote that, \u201csought to counter-balance an over emphasis in the social and minority models of disability on environmental restrictions experienced by disabled people wherein the ability to fully participate as citizens in a democracy (for example) is impinged upon by real bodily limits\u201d (125 ) Going back to, \u201cPlato, Again,\u201d we can see that Caroline was quickly seen as unfit to do her previous job just because she \u201clost a breast.\u201d Sure she was ill, but she wasn\u2019t even given a chance to prove she\u2019s still capable of completing tasks, she was called in to the office and told she\u2019s been demoted on her first day back. Caroline\u2019s story can be relatable to many people. She is a character with so many things she can be discriminated against for in today\u2019s society. Caroline is a fifty-two-year-old, black woman with a disability. Just simply being a woman leaves her vulnerable for discrimination in the workforce. Whether they have been sexually harassed, racially discriminated against, or stigmatized because of a disability, anyone reading this story will find something to relate to.
\nMitchell and Snyder also talked about how people with disabilities come across \u201cinflexibilities of key social institutions that require them to \u201cfit in\u201d or try to get by without showing their disability too much. They speak of how society sees disability as an infringement on aesthetic ideals of national imagery. It\u2019s sad that Caroline\u2019s disability being just missing a breast, something that isn\u2019t as visible someone with a missing limb, can affect her life so much making her \u201cunfit\u201d to do the tasks she has previously done. Due to her cancer, Caroline is not seen as an abled-body person and her missing breast is to referred to as, \u201cit.\u201d We have seen this same situation in O\u2019Conner\u2019s \u201cGood Country People,\u201d where Hulga\u2019s prosthetic leg as \u201cit.\u201d Both characters, who were once \u201cnormal\u201d humans with friends and coworkers were suddenly treated as strangers by the people who they felt closest to.<\/p>\n
Word Count: 506
\nI pledge\u2026 Sara Mahgoub<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stephen Kuusisto\u2019s short story, \u201cPlato, Again,\u201d is about a woman who recently underwent cancer surgery. The story illustrates how many women get treated in the workplace. Like most of those women, we see Caroline Moore, experiencing ableism, sexism, and racism. In the beginning of the story, Caroline thinks about everything she went through, saying that … Continue reading “Sara Mahgoub’s Response to Stephen Kuusisto’s, “Plato, Again””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papJgd-iT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}