“Show Your Softness”

Notes On A Vulnerability Economy

If authenticity is by curation, then vulnerability is the ultimate monetisation concept for the twenty first century, enough so it ought to have its own name - a vulnerability economy.

To be authentic, you need a camera. Candour is at every angle, with good lighting highlighting this newly acquired asset - tears by an influencer at her favourite shop not stocking the latest must-have, meltdowns filmed by mommy tiktokers to raise ‘awareness’. But, oh! Never mind that the UK’s covid inquiry has shown that vulnerability has become a meaningless measurement in governmental terms, or how this has become the accepted word for not acknowledging disability. There is no real means to an end as to how this can stretch. Is it worth it?

Last year it was suggested I ‘show your softness’, meaning to show more of my disabled self as a means of social connection. Show your softness, show a little bit more of yourself - tell us more about your world! C’mon, open up! Show yourself! Allow yourself to be vulnerable - live a little! We’re all besties here!

I’m still uncomfortable, even now, by such an exchange. I hate the rigmarole of being the constant in motion. You may as well poke the monkey in the cage!

Lately I’ve been looking at and writing on the topic of loneliness for my book, Criminally Misunderstood. I have a lot to say - especially on loneliness - and I’m so, so tired. It’s a theme cropping up in the justice system - particularly the ‘why’ of why disabled men commit an offence. At least three chapters have had to deal with this at length across ages and difference of condition. The language is gendered by experience, by expectation - and it’s been.. difficult.

My own experiences make confronting this awkward as much as this is cumbersome.

If feminism cared about, say, the male loneliness epidemic, as it should do, you would start caring on the grounds of disability. I interviewed journalist Frances Ryan for Disability Review Magazine - and she herself also made the point, that mainstream feminism lacks any kind of acknowledgment of disabled women. It’s my favourite editorial - we even snuck in words such as desexualisation!

We would not propagate a vulnerability economy as everyday fodder - it’s patriarchal.

It’s a performance of a disservice which surely harms us all in the end.