Socialization for Blind Girls and Women

Socialization for Blind Girls and Women

Reflections on the Importance of

Socialization for

Blind Girls and Women

by Barbara Pierce

Editor's Note: Barbara Pierce, Editor of the

NFB publication, the Braille Monitor, is also a member of the Committee on the Status of

Blind Women, North America/Caribbean Region, World Blind Union. Mrs. Pierce developed the

following document as a framework for focus group discussions sponsored by this committee,

and conducted by Mrs. Pierce, at the 1997 NFB National Convention in July. You will

discover that this article complements, and is in turn enriched by, both the article that

precedes it ("A Chance to Belong") and the one that follows ("Never Laugh

at the Teacher's Jokes"). Here is what Mrs. Pierce has to say on the topic of

socializtion and women:

This paper has no pretensions to be a scholarly

work or even an academic exercise. It is a jumping-off point for constructive discussions

among blind women about the importance of healthy socialization, the pressures and

problems in this area faced by blind girls and women, and the barriers we face in

developing fulfilling relationships. Our hope is to increase our own understanding of the

social and interpersonal skills we lack and our ability to develop them. We also trust

that our insights will assist parents and teachers of blind girls and young women to help

them do this work better than many of us had an opportunity to do.

We begin by acknowledging that healthy

socialization is important to both men and women, and our exploration of this question

from the feminine perspective should not be seen as denigration of men's concerns and

problems. We are women, and we understand something of the manifestations of this complex

of problems in women's lives. We leave to the experts and to blind men the masculine

perspective and their own personal insights.

Gather together a group of women whose blindness

began at birth or in youth, and you will find the conversation eventually making its way

around to the complex of social problems: attractiveness to potential romantic partners,

fashion sense, social skills, physical awkwardness, putting people at ease—the list

is almost endless. The ramifications of our dissatisfaction with our resolution of these

questions extend into every aspect of social life: jobs, friendship, marriage, even

managing the details of daily life.

The Committee on the Status of Blind Women

invites blind women and, if these women choose, others with an interest in this subject to

gather for informal and unstructured discussion of the issues raised here. We ask that you

provide us with a rough summary in print or Braille of the concerns raised in your group's

conversation and that you pass along any conclusions or insights the group comes to. We

can't be sure what exact use we will make of these reports, but we will try to enhance

general understanding in the field and improve the efforts made to help women and girls

develop their own skills more effectively. We also hope that those who take part in these

discussions will find their own understanding and capacity to deal constructively with the

social aspect of their lives improved by this exercise.

Almost before adults are aware of the problem,

young blind children are already being left out of social interactions. If you can't skip,

you can't play skipping games. If you can't bounce a ball or skate or jump rope, you will

be left out of those activities. But how often do older siblings or parents help the blind

child master the skills at an appropriate age or figure out alternatives that will keep

her in the group, taking part in the activity in some way? Using a larger ball, hopping

rather than skipping, even (if necessary) being a permanent turner for jump rope: all

these keep the blind child a part of the group. Another strategy is to invite a group of

playmates to the blind child's yard to play and then offer refreshments whenever they

gather there. One family installed a trampoline in the backyard as a neighborhood

attraction. If the play equipment is fun, not only will other children want to play, but

the blind child will be encouraged to learn to move and take part.

PHOTO CAPTION: Barbara Pierce

As girls grow older, the importance of peer

interaction becomes more marked. Feedback from peers can have a powerful deterrent affect

on socially unacceptable behavior. Left to themselves, playmates will ask about unusual

eye movement or appearance, rocking, eye-pressing, failure to face the speaker, or poor

management of food. A child can be helped to develop good explanations of lazy eye muscles

or nystagmus. The social pressure of curiosity and implied criticism can serve as a

powerful curb to poor habits, assuming that the blind child has intelligent support in

training new and better ones.

But all this assumes that the blind child has

peer interactions with sighted children or, even better, sighted friends. Sometimes

parents don't notice that their mainstreamed blind children have no friends at school and

are staying to themselves in class and on the playground. A father who was deeply worried

about his eight-year-old daughter's compulsive and increasing eye-pressing complained to

one of us that he and his wife and their daughter's friends fussed at her continually

about this habit, but she was unwilling to exert herself to stop the behavior. Intrigued

by the report that friends were part of this effort to modify the behavior, the blind

woman questioned him closely about who the friends were and what they were saying. The

friends turned out to be an older neighbor couple concerned about the child. When asked

about friends at school, the father discovered, when he thought about it, that to his

surprise his daughter had no friends of her own age. He had never noticed that she went to

no birthday parties and no one ever came to her house to play. She didn't even speak about

other kids and their activities at recess.

Such anecdotes suggest the importance of

concentrated efforts to help young children form real friendships at an early age. It may

well be even more important for blind children than for sighted to learn early the first

rules of successful social intercourse: don't bite; share your toys; engage in appropriate

conversation, do not echo or use imitative speech patterns; give other people a chance to

talk; don't rock; look at the speaker; etc. Working on these and similar points of

acceptable conduct will improve the chances that the child will make friends. And friends

will reinforce the lessons teachers and parents are trying to teach.

As blind girls approach adolescence, the social

problems they face multiply and become more complex, and a solid foundation of social

skills established in childhood becomes ever more important. The girl who cannot flip

through Seventeen or clothing catalogues, observe what girls her age are wearing, or take

note of clothing in the stores is at a disadvantage in dressing so as to fit in with her

peers. At this age the wrong socks or shoes, the shirt tucked or untucked inappropriately,

the jeans too new or too full of holes can and do often lead to social ostracism.

Flattering and up-to-date hair styles, appropriate and skillfully applied make-up when the

time comes, and recognition of attractive body contours can be equally mysterious to a

young blind girl who has no one to help her fill these important gaps in her knowledge. If

they are part of the picture, friends can be more useful here than adults. If there are

none, the gaps in the girl's information will only widen, and the schism between her and

the girls she would like to make friends with will broaden.

In this case, immediate first aid is called for.

In small-group or individual discussions with a knowledgeable and understanding adult,

blind girls must learn the importance of the information they are lacking, and then the

deficit must be made up. They must then learn to assume the responsibility for gathering

such information for themselves in the future. A mother might take her blind daughter and

a couple of other girls her age on a shopping expedition and to a movie they all want to

see. Both mother and daughter can learn from the other girls what is in and out this year.

Clerks in teen departments can sometimes point out what is popular. Young girls can be

encouraged to investigate the clothes on store mannequins. This will teach them, not only

what this year's fashions look like, but what the ideal teen body looks like as well.

Early on, someone must sit down with a blind teen

and honestly discuss the grooming and cleanliness facts of life. Other students will

notice very soon if an adolescent who should be bathing and washing her hair daily is not

doing so. It will also spare her inevitable mortification if someone shows her proper and

effective ways to prepare for and handle menstruation.

Most of us who attended regular high schools

noticed early in our teens that boys were unlikely to be interested in anyone who was as

different from their ideal as a blind girl necessarily is. The more physically attractive

and socially skilled a blind young woman is, the more likely she is to gather experience

with boys, though most blind women of our acquaintance say that they have always found

difficulty in getting sighted men of any age to take them seriously as potential partners.

Eager for normal relationships, blind women with little experience are frequently

vulnerable to unscrupulous men. Afraid to say no and risk rejection, young blind women

have often allowed themselves to be drawn into greater physical intimacy than they wanted.

We know of no fool-proof way of protecting blind women from this danger. But discussing

fears, uncertainties, and areas of ignorance provides a place to begin. Knowing blind

women who have successfully dated and married should also be of some reassurance to teens

who are feeling like the village outcast.

Important in their own right as the foregoing

issues and problems are, the solutions individual women settle on for themselves also

combine to form the matrix of their personal, social, and work lives as adults. The

capacity easily and appropriately to make conversation, business contacts, friends, and

intimate relationships is at the heart of existence as a member of a social community. For

blind women as for everyone else, mastering these individual skills in youth makes using

them easier in adulthood, but the skills can often be mastered in adulthood if the

individual is serious about doing so and willing to work hard. The purpose of this paper

is not to guide such an exploration but to point to important areas of social interaction

with which our experience suggests that blind women sometimes have problems. Resolving

individual difficulties in them must be a personal or small-group activity demanding

honesty, compassion, and patience.

Listening attentively to others and drawing them

out on subjects that they find interesting are skills that some blind women have had

little practice in developing. Throughout their lives people have talked to them about

blindness and how they do and perceive things. Unfortunately this usually happens because

people assume that blind people have little else to contribute in any conversation, so

they restrict talk to things they are sure the blind person knows something about. There

is an art to making others believe that one finds their views and interests fascinating,

and those who have mastered it are usually known as good conversationalists.

The problem of finding and keeping a good job is

many-faceted, but there is a social component to it. One must have an accurate and

unromanticized notion of what is required by an employer of any employee holding the job,

and one must meet or preferably exceed those requirements. This is difficult when all

one's life parents, teachers, and fellow students have been making allowances because of

one's visual impairment. But employers need results, and charity will not and should not

be part of the equation. We are not all geniuses, but we can exert ourselves and

demonstrate willingness to work as hard as necessary to master the job and work

competitively. If we can't achieve these goals, we should not be surprised or disappointed

when we find it hard to get paid for our work.

Social interaction with work colleagues is

another important

area of work life in which blind women sometimes

have problems. Co-

workers almost always begin by assuming that they

will have to look

out for the blind worker and make allowances for

her. The best

defense against such assumptions is an aggressive

offense: hard

work, clarity about where and when blindness is a

factor, and

spirited and independent participation in the

social component of

the job. Remembering birthdays, bringing

coffee-break treats,

asking about sick relatives, doing favors for

colleagues—these and

a thousand other marks of thoughtfulness and

social sensitivity can draw one into the group.

In order to develop a corps of friends beyond the

workplace, blind women must find ways of meeting people in situations where there is a

social component to the interactions: religious organizations, volunteer projects, adult

classes, musical groups, etc. Doing so is not always easy because of physical or

logistical barriers to getting there, but the simple fact is that one can't make friends

without meeting people in circumstances in which friendship can grow.

To build healthy, mutually satisfying personal

relationships of all kinds, one must invest time and genuine interest in the other person

and in shared activities, and the other party must be willing to do the same. Because too

often blind women have had little opportunity to form and grow in healthy friendships and

physical relationships, they can be easy victims. If one devalues one's self and places

disproportionate value on the affection and attention of a friend or lover, one is already

a good way toward victim-hood. The best defense is a strong sense of self-worth and the

conviction that the overly demanding person is not the only fish in the sea.

Unfortunately, both of these attitudes are developed over a long period of making and

keeping good friends. One can't graft such a personal history into one's adult

personality, but one can begin nurturing such relationships. Sexual exploitation is not

the only basis for intimate relationships. Real friendships cannot be made or kept by

letting others walk all over one physically, psychologically, or spiritually. But learning

to stand up for oneself after years of passivity is difficult without the support of

friends, family, or therapist.

The intent of this paper has not been to solve

problems but to enable blind women to explore them and move toward their own solutions.

Understanding the terrain better may make it easier to plot a course through it. We can

also hope that deeper understanding of the special social problems facing blind women will

enable us all to assist blind girls and young women to form healthy and socially

acceptable habits of body and mind so that they will be better equipped than many of us

have been to meet the demands of adult life and to be nurtured and fulfilled in their

social relationships at every level.