Now, Woolf calls her fictional bastion of male privilege Oxbridge, so I'll call mine Yarvard. Even though she cannot attend Yarvard because she is a woman, Judith cheerfully applies for admission at, let's call it, Smithcliff, a prestigious women's college. She is denied admission on the grounds thatthe dorms and classrooms can'taccommodate wheelchairs, that her speech pattern would interfere with her elocution lessons, and that her presence would upset the other students. There is also the suggestion that she is not good marriage material for the men at the elite college to which Smithcliff is a bride-supplying "sister school." The letter inquires as to why she hasn't been institutionalized. When she goes to the administration building to protest the decision, she can't get up the flight of marble steps on the Greek Revival building. This edifice was designed to evoke a connection to the Classical world, which practiced infanticide of disabled newborns. Rosemarie GarlandThomson
About This Quote

The obvious parallels between the treatment of Judith and the treatment of people with disabilities in our society today. The metaphor of Judith trying to get into Yarvard and having to use a wheelchair has been used in disability activism. The idea is that we should not be denied access to public spaces because we can't do something that is not required of us. The way we receive and react to people with disabilities is often based on stereotyping and discrimination, even though we are all capable of doing the same things as everyone else.

We all have the ability to go to college, work legally, get married, have children, own property, vote, all the things that people are expected to do. All of these are things that are easily accessible for all who are able bodied.

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