Literacy and Deaf People: Cultural and Contextual Perspectives

Deaf, She Wrote: Mapping Deaf Women’s Autobiography

the contests for added reasons. Because many girls had vocational training in the art of beauty—cosmetology, hairdressing, and dressmaking— the competitions allowed them to demonstrate their own handiwork as well as their figures. Moreover, unable to gain entrance into mainstream film and theater because of communication issues, aspiring actresses and models found their greatest opportunities for fame at Deaf social events like the contests. Also, as the highlight of social interaction, conventions and club galas provided the most exciting and meaningful possibilities to meet eligible suitors. To this day, Deaf beauty contests remain a popular form of entertainment and profit for clubs across America. Broad social and legal changes encouraged the attempts of Deaf people to pass as normal. The rise of eugenics exacerbated the marginal place of all disabled people and many racial and ethnic groups in America. In its most extreme form, eugenics encouraged invasive measures like sterilization . Clearly, Deaf people and other populations hoped to avoid this or other demeaning acts. Leaders feared that affiliation with groups considered dangerous and inferior would harm the community’s image and status . Already marginalized by hearing educators and policy makers, Deaf people resisted the possibility of further emasculation by outsiders—or insiders—in their community. In the end, this meant that Deaf elites—mostly men, but also women—fought to uplift only their own people. But “own people” had different meanings in different contexts. In the process, they overlooked or dismissed the potential of solidarity with other struggling communities, including subcommunities of Deaf people. Most Deaf leaders equated citizenship with normalcy. Deaf activists protected aspects of their cultural identity that did not fully conform to the mainstream, but tried to minimize all other differences between them and mainstream society. Oralism continued to be defined by its pedagogical meaning, but its application had subtle and obvious gender connotations. While Deaf boys entered oral programs as well, girls especially were targeted by oral advocates and educators. Parents appear to have contributed strongly to this tendency, presumably because they believed that their daughters could attract hearing suitors if they spoke well. It seems that most educators and parents did not believe that Deaf boys could attract hearing women, and thus they focused more on boys’ abilities to support themselves financially, to be, simply, good—albeit handicapped—men. For Deaf women, however, this reality had several implications. Deaf men would marry, presumably and in reality, Deaf women. Yet mainstream 68 Susan Burch society strongly encouraged the same women to marry hearing men, to be “normalized” through these marriages. Explicitly and implicitly, it was believed that these “mixed” marriages were more likely to produce hearing offspring than those of deaf-deaf marriages. Once again, women, at once the embodiment of deafness and at the same time its displaced opponent, were expected—by both Deaf and hearing leaders—to produce hearing children. This latter aspect shows the confluence of oralism with broader trends like the rise of eugenics and the Deaf community’s general strategy for achieving equal status in society. However, the presence of oralism and the feminization of the teaching profession exacerbated the tensions between the sexes by emasculating Deaf men, weakening their education by focusing attention on lipreading skills rather than regular academic subjects and ultimately by physically replacing them in the classroom. Thus oralism posed multiple threats—to the positive cultural identity of Deaf men and to their sense of masculinity. While often fighting against hearing women as the symbol of oralist influence, Deaf men expected their female peers to embody oralist skills and ideas. This may have occurred, in part, as a gesture of their own masculine power to woo Deaf women who could have chosen hearing suitors, but it seems more complicated than this. That many Deaf women had the approval of oralists and appeared normal in ways that more Deaf men could not—meaning they could speak and replicate other hearing behavior—seems to have empowered Deaf spouses. That these same women tended to reflect society ’s other expectations—to be good mothers, wives, and helpmates— could not have hurt matters. As the population who stood behind Deaf culture more often than for it, Deaf women remain difficult to assess. Most did not join mainstream associations because of communication and other barriers, and Deaf clubs, schools, and the press often neglected their opinions and contributions . What is more apparent is that American Deaf women strove to be “normal” and that the Deaf community encouraged an interpretation of “normalcy...