DREDF’s No More Stares Now Available on the Internet in Celebration of International Women’s Day 37 Years After its Historic Release
Originally published by Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) in 1982, No More Stares is now available on DREDF’s website for the first time in celebration of International Women’s Day!
Featuring the unique perspectives of girls and young women growing up disabled, No More Stares was developed through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Women’s Educational Equity Act Program in 1980.
Online publication of No More Stares poses inevitable questions for today’s readers: How is a book created, in part, to introduce disabled girls and young women to potential role models and possibilities—written 37 years ago—still relatable and relevant today? How does our protagonist Anna’s story of wondering about her place in the world, and her future, hold up decades later? Do today’s disabled girls and young women experience similar feelings of isolation, lack disabled adult women role models, and hate to be stared at because of assumptions about their disabilities?
While the internet has made it easier for some to find peers and role models in recent years — particularly those who do not live in communities where they can meet peers and disabled role models in person — the reality faced by disabled women, then and now, remains much the same.
“Disabled children have to be able to believe as much as any children in the world that they can continue to live and be happy and functional…that there is a future for them, This puts a lot of responsibilities on disabled adults to show them that.” — Linda Pedro (from the preface of No More Stares)
Under Corbett OToole’s excellent leadership, DREDF’s team of disabled women – then all in our 20s and early 30s – created No More Stares. All of us reflected on our youth when we each personally experienced a lack of adult women role models to help guide us. We recalled wondering and often worrying about what our futures would be. By publishing the book, we took the sense of responsibility embedded in Ms. Pedro’s quote seriously, and passionately went about doing our best to create a future where one’s lived experience could help inform someone else’s present.
No More Stares includes many photographs of disabled women taken by different photographers. Pictures of disabled women living independent lives, finding their own way, signaling encouragement to the women and girls reading the book today who face similar experiences and obstacles that its authors and participants encountered when the book was first published.
Accompanying the photos, disabled girls and women with diverse disabilities detail their first-hand experiences: Seething over being stared at; expressing thoughtful, often intimate insights about self-esteem; describing friendships and relationships, school, parenting, and work alongside occasional longer interviews and quotes. All of these disabled women generously shared stories that conveyed their day-to-day realities and the effects of broader issues on their senses of self.
For me, rereading No More Stares was an immediate return to the past. Not to when I was co-developing it, but when I was an anxious 13 year-old who had no idea about what kind of future I might have. I thought I’d just end up living with my family for the rest of my life. I helped my friends and colleagues at DREDF bring NMS online because I know there are disabled girls out there today who also worry about their futures. Then and now, we hope this book can spare them some of the difficulties we endured, and help them see that they are not alone, that they have options.
We hope you enjoy reading (or revisiting) No More Stares!
From DREDF to Ann —
DREDF happily and gratefully acknowledges the many hours of work our friend, Ann Cupolo Freeman, put into getting the photo permissions for this digital version of No More Stares (NMS), a book that she co-conceived and developed. Her work to share this 1982 publication with new generations of disabled girls and women was a painstaking, sometimes frustrating, endeavor and it benefited throughout from Ann’s tenacity and wide circle of friends. She gave this project the care, patience, and incredibly good humor that she has brought to DREDF’s Board of Directors, as a member and officer for over 6 years. Whether the task or matter of governance is simple or complex, we know it will be handled with skill and grace if Ann takes it on. From all of us at DREDF: Thank you, Ann!
I loved this book back in 1982, and I am so glad there are now digital copies available! Pam
Thank you so much re-publishing this powerful book!
Alana
This is really good from you guys that you have re-published this book. I will also share it with students at Novato so that they can read it and get inspiration from it. Thank you so much, Ann, for this post.
Its amazing book, I also loved it back in time when I read it. Good to hear that its digital version has been published. I would love to share it at GGUSD to inspire students. Thank you, Ann.
I read the book at the time when it was published and I loved the book, It’s a good movement to re-publish its digital version. I will read it again and I also share it with students of Amphitheater. Many thanks to you, Ann.
“Belief” leads to great efforts. Whether you are a normal child or the disabled one, you must trust your instinct and have faith in your work. All these children have the same right to live and pursue their dreams. Thank you, Ann, for republishing your book on the digital platform. It will certainly boost the confidence of disabled children.