August 11, 2022 • 33 mins
If there was ever someone to watch right now it’s Hannah Diviney.
Over the last month she has proved that words matter.
From sending out a Tweet to Lizzo and Beyonce both gently and respectfully pointing out that their lyrics cause damage…..change happened.
Both Artists changed their words.
This is a Woman of Influence.
If you haven’t yet, get yourself a copy of the Women’s Weekly and you will see our Hannah. We couldn’t be more proud of her and her work.
A note to Hannah.
We first met a month ago for our Woman Winning. Thankyou for being so generous with your time. I am so delighted to feature you on the WOI Podcast. We only just scratched the surface and I look forward to catching up with you again soon.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey, Hannah, about a month ago we said that you
were a woman winning and we loved that, and I
said to you at the time, we have to get
you and fits you fully on this Women of Influence podcast.
And you know what's happened in a month is what
you just decided to take over the world? Is there?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Not just a little bit? Just a little bit?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
So let's recap. It started with Lizzo, then we moved
to Beyonce. Tell us what the last month has looked
like for you and what it's meant for the world
in terms of using the word spaz.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, so the last month has been something of a whirlwind.
It was about six weeks ago now that I called
out Lizo for her use of the word spaz in
her song Girls. We spoke about at the time the
fact that I've tweeted thousands of times, but I've never
ever had a tweet do that. It went scary viral,
(01:14):
as I call it on the Internet, which kind of
means that it was getting so many likes and so
many retweets and all of that, but it was drawing
enough attention for some of the attention to be intensely negative.
Lots of people didn't like that I was calling out
Lizzo on the use of that slur. But that was
(01:42):
kind of all put to well, not put to rest,
but made worth it, I guess by the fact that
she then, obviously a few days later, re released the
song and gave probably the most gracious and informed celebrity
statement or apology that I have ever kind of seen.
(02:06):
And it's just that, Like, I think what struck me
about it was that she didn't try to double down
or defend anything, or deflect or invalidate the concerns of
the disabled community, because it wasn't just me who called
her out. There were multiple disability advocates who wanted her
(02:27):
to be held accountable, and instead she moved straight to
kind of learning from that and thanking us for being
willing to like want her to do better. I guess
which is the best outcome I could have hoped for.
And then, like last week or the week before, Beyonce
(02:55):
drops her new album, Renaissance, which is her like most like.
It's probably one of the most anticipated albums in music
at the moment because it had been what six years
since her last since her last album, and we know
(03:16):
that Beyonce occupies this based in pop culture where basically
she breathes and the world rights to think peace about it.
So yeah, her album was already making big waves. Someone
on Twitter tagged me and said, hey, Hannah, Beyonce has
used this word, like are you going to do to
(03:40):
her what you did to Lizo? They meant it in
a snarky way, but I went and listened to the
song and went, well, I can't really hold Lizo to
account for something and not Beyonce. And like the fact
that the Lizo news had made headlines around the world
made it even more confused and potentially complicated that Beyonce
(04:04):
had decided to use the slur, because I think the
main concern among the disabled community was how could she
not have seen this? How could someone in her team
not have seen this? Did she see it and decide
to use it anyway? Like does she not care? Does
(04:25):
she think that she's above that? Like the what's the
go here? Because obviously, like we said, she's a titan
in pop culture, so it and she also curates this
rather like enigmatic and mysterious persona. So I think it's
hard for people to get a read on where she
(04:48):
sits on certain things. Sometimes because it's all very much
on her terms. But I decided to call her out
as well, and took several deep breaths while doing this,
so because I know that the passion and commitment of
Beyonce's fans is second to none, and that basically, even
though this was a valid question and a valid critique,
(05:12):
there were going to be lots and lots of people
who didn't see it that way, and that was right.
Any trolling that I experienced while dealing with the Lizo
situation escalated significantly. Lots of people branded me racist because
(05:33):
as of course, as I guess, luck or non luck
would have it, it happened to be two black women
in a row who had used the slur, so people
were very much attacking me for that they I think
some people believed I was a poster child of white privilege,
(05:55):
which is a pretty interesting take for them to have.
And for those of you who obviously can't see us
recording this, Kate is looking at me and laughing because
it's just one of those things where are like, really
and obviously like I want to recognize and take this
(06:16):
moment to say that it's true that I do have
privilege because of the color of my skin, and that
privilege sits alongside the lack of privilege I have as
a disabled person. And technically, if we're like going through
the hierarchy of marginalization, I have more privilege than someone
(06:39):
who's black and disabled because they've kind of got too
intersecting marginal identities happening at the same time. But so, yeah,
that was that was an experience, and I definitely was like, Okay,
so we're not gonna hear from Beyonce all the reasons
(07:00):
I mentioned earlier, because I thought, you know, she is
very specific about the types of types of media she does.
She only ever puts things out on her own terms,
like I can try and get media involved. And there
was a lot of media involvement because everyone was asking
(07:21):
the same question as I was about how this had
happened so soon after Liza. And then Tuesday morning of
last week, I woke up at like seven am to
a billion texts and my phone rigging because all of
my friends were yelling at me in caps, she's changing yet.
(07:43):
And then yeah, if I'd thought the world's media descended before,
they certainly did after that, Hannah.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I have to tell you, it was the end of
a long week for me. Last week challenging on many
many fronts, and I was exhausted. And I got to
the airport ready to fly home to see my family.
I hadn't seen them for two weeks. And I'm sitting
down and I've grabbed everything from the all you can
(08:15):
eat bar, basically, I've grabbed it all, and I've grabbed
a wine. And it's like twelve o'clock in the afternoon
and I look up and on the screen amongst the
you know, the currency rates and the headlines are on
the roll in the back and there you are. And
I think, Holy Molly, what has happened?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Now?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
This is this is huge? And I opened Twitter, I
opened the News, and I think, if we thought you
were a woman that was winning a month ago, it's.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Certainly gone up several levels. Now.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Can I look back for a moment, And I want
to clarify The reason why I used the slur was
because I want to make sure that I set the
scene of what.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
This is and so know what specific slurw we're talking about. Yeah,
so then that helps with the learning of how not
to use it and why not to use it.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Absolutely So I've noticed though in even your storytelling of
the last month, you will not use the word either
you will say that word or.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I generally use it once and then from there, like
I'll do it to set the scene, and then from
there I'm like, well you can figure it out, like
you get it?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, totally. So let's loop back one step further when
I got to meet you a month ago. Let's talk
about for those that have never heard of you or
are just hearing about this woman in a wheelchair that's
sent a tweet out that managed to change the two
biggest names in the easy industry song lyrics. Tell us
(10:00):
about that word and what that what it means to you,
and why it is so heavy, and why people do
need to understand why it is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Okay, so for context, the reason I'm in a wheelchair
very simply is because i have a physical disability called
cerebral palsy. Technically, the full name of my specific cerebral
palsy is spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, which is obviously spastic
is the kind of full form of the split of
(10:33):
the slur spaz, but in a cultural, kind of colloquial way,
it's often used to describe like someone having an emotional
meltdown or someone about to lose control, or maybe even
someone's like presumed lack of intelligence or whatever it might be.
(10:54):
Whereas for me and my cerebral palsy, spastik refers to spasticity,
which is basically like this ever present constant doesn't have
to be triggered by anything specific is happening right now
while I'm sitting here talking to you, tension in my
body and legs specifically, it never goes away. It tends
(11:18):
to flare up in the cold, and it's extremely exhausting
and does make my life difficult. For people who generally
would like to know a little bit more about cerebral palsy,
what I tend to say is it's a physical disability
that affects my fine and gross motor skills. In non
(11:41):
medical english, that means it affects everything from my ability
to stand, walk and balance, to use a knife and
fork properly, or play a musical instrument or do up
the buttons on a shirt, for instance. So obviously, because
(12:02):
I live with spasticity and that makes my life complicate,
complicated in ways that say, my sister's labs aren't complicated.
I don't tend to want the insinuations of a lack
of emotional control or a lack of intelligence connected to that,
(12:24):
because that's not true of my condition, it's not true
of my experience as at a sable person, and it
just feels like yet another way to I guess, alienate
us as a community. Now, there will probably be some
(12:46):
people with cerebral palsy who hear that word and aren't
bothered by it. But for me and for many of
my friends, that word was used against us in playground
settings or in other uh, in other situations, And to
be honest, it's certainly been used against me now, even
(13:09):
if it even if it wasn't before. And I think
it's really interesting that even though like kids I went
to school with, didn't know the meaning of the word
that we're using, they knew enough about it to weaponize
it and use it against me, or they knew enough
(13:30):
about it that if that if they said it, they
knew they'd make me feel bad. I guess.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You're at an age now where you can correct the
story and correct the story, not just for you and
your peers, as you say, yeah, but you're correcting the
story for children that aren't even born yet. This is
that's the plan, powerful and important work, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's kind of the whole ethos of everything I do
as a disability advocate. It's kind of trying to make
it better for all of the disabled kids of the
future than it was for me, because obviously I am
extremely privileged, and like medicine has come leaps and bounds,
(14:22):
So having my childhood in the two thousands and beyond
is is something I'm grateful for because obviously, like I think,
disability has slowly been beginning to be taken more seriously.
But as I was growing up, kind of the two
(14:46):
narratives that existed about disability were either Paralympic excellence, which
only happened every four years, these disabled people would pop
up and then magically disappear and then pop up again.
And the other at the other end of the spectrum,
And I mentioned this on Q and A the other night,
(15:10):
was the idea of disabled life as tragedy. Like there
was a particular period of time in advertising when if
people wanted to dissuade you from junk driving or from speeding,
(15:31):
or from being otherwise reckless while you were driving or
while you were out and about with friends. They would
end up showing you someone whose life had been transformed
because they'd ended up in a wheelchair. And in that context,
that person believed, and it was presented as such, that
(15:55):
their life was over because of the decision or like
circumstance that they found themselves in.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know, you tell that example to us, and I
think of I just reread it over summer. Actually, Dylan
Allcott's book, and.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's a great book, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I think I think it nearly should be mandatory reading
for parents, for teenagers in school, you know about year seven.
It could be turned into a children's book. Maybe there's
maybe some things get pretty left out, but and he's
very much an advocate for that, Like whoa, whoa, whoa.
(16:39):
You know, I'm in a wheelchair. That doesn't make my
life less, It doesn't make my life sad. It also
doesn't make me inspirational because I'm in a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, but doesn't mean I need a gold medal for
getting out of bed in the morning. But if you
want to give me a gold medal because I've won
every tennis tournament known to made, then you can do
that too.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Absolutely do that too. Yeah, I just it's and those
are the stories that are important. All those are the examples.
And I think what you're saying is right. The wheel
is turning. It's hard. It's hard because sometimes it feels
like the wheel is turning too slow, or maybe move
(17:22):
a few gears. And then and then we go back
and and I think I said to you, didn't I
I My son has autism, and I'm yeah, I'm always
conscious of I still have to advocate for him. But
he's old enough now, you know, like he's about to
(17:45):
turn thirteen. His voice in the room really matters. So
your voices are what makes the wheel turn and makes
those people that we talk about Lizo and you know
beyond they we don't not like them, but they've just
set the most beautiful example to the entire world, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And I want to clarify too, because lots
of people accused me of trying to cancel Beyonce and
Lizzo or trying to like take them down a peg
or whatever. And I want to clarify that, like the
point of me calling them out was never, ever, ever,
ever to cancel them, because aside from the fact that
(18:30):
they both make great music. They occupy incredibly important spaces
in terms of marginalized communities in their own right, and
all I was seeking to do was gently but firmly
kind of educate them and hope that moving forward, as
(18:50):
it turns out, the world would learn that using that
slur is not okay. And eventually it won't be up
to the labor of making sure that doesn't happen again,
won't be on disability advocates, it will just be the
norm in the music industry. There'll be there'll be plenty
(19:13):
of able body people who can go, hey, that word
isn't okay, Like, let's not do.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
That, Hannah. This it really has been a lifetime of
work for you. And now the.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Spotlight absolutely on you.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Big time in this month.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
My band's bright.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
It does I think the other you know, item of
work at the moment that is so worth mentioning. And
you should tell us what the petition is, an older saying,
So it's the it's Thursday of the eleventh of August.
We're going to release this episode to Maurrow the twelfth
of August. How many people have signed a petition to
(19:58):
ask Disney to perhaps introduce a doll that has a
person on a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, so the idea is to create create a disabled
Disney princess.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
And sorry, I said a doll. I kept thinking, you know,
of course there should be a Barbie doll, or of
course there should Like, why isn't there.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I've got it. There are actually Barbie dolls these days.
There weren't when I was looking for them. No, there
are now. But yes, as of this moment, there are
over sixty sixty thousand people from around the world who
believe that that should be a thing that happens. It's
(20:44):
gotten all sorts of celebrity support, either with signatures or
sharing or just acknowledgment through social media. So I've had
support from people like Magda Zabanski and who else like
Reese Witherspoon, Blake Live Lead, Jamila Jamil or Mark Hamill,
(21:06):
who of course plays Luke Skywalker and has quite a
significant influence in the Disney space. Just all of these
incredible people who have jumped on board. And as of today,
thanks to a feature I got to do in the
(21:27):
Australian Woman's Weekly September issue, I can now kind of
let you know that Disney knows about the campaign. They
have acknowledged it and they recognize that they should probably
be doing something about it. Whether that means a princess
(21:48):
will show up in film one day in a couple
of years from now, we could all just be sitting
at the cinema and she could just appear, I don't know,
but I will take that as a really really positive step.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh Hannah, it is absolutely massive. And I know, I
know you mentioned those big names and they're the ones
that helped spread the word and the support.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, we wouldn't be able to do it without
every single person.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's hard to find the words.
How you know, incredible this is? And I mean, what
would it have meant to you? You just mentioned, you know,
there was no Barbie Doll in a wheelchair growing up,
like they didn't exist. What would it have meant to
(22:42):
you to have been able to sit down and watch
you know, Beauty in the bast or you know, a
version of a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
They would have met the world. And I think lots
of people will probably roll their eyes and wonder why
I put so much stock in a cartoon character. But
I think for me, as a kid, I, like you said,
never saw anyone who looked like me in the books
(23:13):
I read, in the toys I played with, in the
TV shows, or the movies I watched. And I don't
think I realized how much we rely on media as
children to show us what's possible. Yeah, whether like consciously
(23:33):
or unconsciously. Aside from the fact that I only ever
saw disabled adults in therapy settings, on top of that,
it basically meant that I grew up not knowing what
a future could look like for someone like me, Like
those two narratives we talked about earlier were basically it.
(23:54):
And for me, as much as I was flattered by
this question, the question of like, hey, what's your Paralympic
sport going to be? Over and over again when I
was a kid was so frustrating because I always tended
to look at it from the point of view of, well,
(24:15):
hold on, you're not asking my able bodied sisters, who
are standing right here, like what their Olympic sport is
going to be, because number one, you understand that, hey,
not every kid wants to go to the Olympics. Number two,
not every kid can go to the Olympics. And like
number three, it's only the best of the best like
(24:37):
the most elite sports people. Then I think there seems
to be this weird conception about the Paralympics that the
athlete to compete there aren't as elite as their able
bodied counterparts. And I just want to say, like, for
(24:58):
most of you, this is common sense, but for the
portion of the population that doesn't know this, there are
many disabled people who could come up against Dilan Orcott
in a match and even like hit the ball like
in a way that would make them a worthy competitor.
(25:19):
Like those guys are elite athletes. They train for hours,
they put in the work, and it takes skill. So
I'm very much about expanding the possibilities for people with
disabilities beyond either tragedy or sport and kind of creating
this the middle lane that is as open as it
(25:42):
can possibly be. And I think that comes from having
people with disabilities visibly represented in as many different arenas
of life as we can, from the big to the small.
So it could be like things like a disabled Disney
princess or in the Australian Women's Weekly, or it could
(26:06):
be something as simple as your child having a disabled teacher,
or you getting your flowers from a disabled florist or
whatever it should be. Basically, wherever decisions are made and
wherever kind of community comes together, disabled people should be
(26:28):
there too. And also like, it's important for me to
recognize that not every disabled person has the luxury of
having a visible disability. There are many, many, many people
who deal with invisible disabilities. There are many more people
who will unfortunately come to understand disabled life as a
(26:48):
result of COVID, as a result of long COVID and
the pandemic. And I think it's really important that we're
at this moment right now where disabled people are finally
starting to be seen and heard.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Hannah, what does it feel like when you pick up
one of Australia's most iconic magazines and they were looking,
by the way, absolutely stunning?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh thank you?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Tell me that you did feel like a princess?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Oh no, I definitely did. That was that was very
much the the brief for the shoot that we that
we planned out together, and I wanted it to be
as dreamy and as whimsical as possible. And then the
wonderful team at the Weekly brought in these amazing dresses
(27:42):
from this Australian designer by the name of volk v
O E l K for anyone who wants to look
them up. And they I mean, the dresses speak for themselves.
They're beautiful. Ah. So yeah, I really enjoyed that experience.
But I have to say, as someone who spent a
(28:03):
lifetime looking for someone who look like her, for that
face of representation to suddenly be my own face is
an incredibly surreal bed out of body experience and not
really something that I think i'll i'll have words for.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
In ways, what is that saying? It's in my mind?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
You know, it can't be what you can't see.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yes, And but there's another one, and it's something around
if if you can't be them, be the be the
person that you need to be. Yeah, you know, be
the person that be theer. If you can't something like that,
it's it's killing me. Now I'm not sure what it is.
(28:53):
It's something along those lines. If you can't find your
example of the person that you need in your life,
then be you be the example. You know. It's something
along those lines. But yeah, absolutely, Oh Hannah, do you know,
as I said, we met a month ago that was incredible.
Next in it, I'm at the airport and you're everywhere
(29:14):
around the world. What is what would you like to see?
Because I feel like I would love to continue to
check him with you at different times, because you are
going to become or you're well on the way to become,
one of Australia's most important advocates for disability. What would
you like to see happen? Let's do just twelve months, Like,
(29:37):
let's that's kind of long term, but I kind of
go it's quite a short term in the scheme of things.
What would what would you like to see in this
next twelve months?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, hopefully the book I'm working on might be closer
to being out, might be to being read by people
that would that would be nice. But yeah, I just
think more representation as much as possible for people in
front of the camera, behind the camera, and in all
(30:08):
walks of life. I want bigger, bigger conversations about the
political participation of disabled people, the valuing of lived experience
for disabled people. So basically, the idea that like the
(30:28):
people who are who have control of the NDIS and
whatever other systems should probably be disabled makes the most
sense to me that if you're going to be making
decisions on behalf of a marginalized community. The people making
those decisions should be a part of said marginalized community.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I want to write a letter to our ministers. Yeah,
I actually hang on.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Look, I think it's hard because at this stage we
obviously only have Jordan Steel John in the Parliament and
he's a member of the Greens, and he's the only
visibly disabled politician that we have at the moment, and
he unfortunately can't do every job. So I definitely think
(31:17):
we need our we need ourllies as much as we can,
but we also need to know that there are processes
in place where disabled people are getting to be heard
and not just like I guess, not just in an
advisory capacity, but in a way that is authentic and
(31:41):
meaningful and where they have real power. Because I think
there's a lot of stuff that needs to change for
disabled people in Australia in the next twelve months.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
That's a pretty great twelve months to look forward to. Hannah. Yeah, absolutely,
when you release this book, we're going to have to
have another check up because I feel like we've really
only touched on one aspect of your life. There's so
much there is so much more to you. But really
this episode is about highlighting your work, helping you spread
(32:15):
that work, signing the petition if we can, thank you
so much, and learning about I think I spoke to
you about this that words really matter, and they do.
We need to keep remembering and if we make a mistake,
call ourselves out. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Just apologize, own the mistake, and then move forward.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm just a huge fan, absolutely huge fan.
If you need anything from us at the Women of Influence,
you know that we're going to come, you know, with
the troops, will come marching for you anyway, So thank
you so much, congratulations and thank you for joining
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Us, no worries, thank you for having me
Hey, Hannah, about a month ago we said that you
were a woman winning and we loved that, and I
said to you at the time, we have to get
you and fits you fully on this Women of Influence podcast.
And you know what's happened in a month is what
you just decided to take over the world? Is there?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Not just a little bit? Just a little bit?
Speaker 3 (00:32):
So let's recap. It started with Lizzo, then we moved
to Beyonce. Tell us what the last month has looked
like for you and what it's meant for the world
in terms of using the word spaz.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, so the last month has been something of a whirlwind.
It was about six weeks ago now that I called
out Lizo for her use of the word spaz in
her song Girls. We spoke about at the time the
fact that I've tweeted thousands of times, but I've never
ever had a tweet do that. It went scary viral,
(01:14):
as I call it on the Internet, which kind of
means that it was getting so many likes and so
many retweets and all of that, but it was drawing
enough attention for some of the attention to be intensely negative.
Lots of people didn't like that I was calling out
Lizzo on the use of that slur. But that was
(01:42):
kind of all put to well, not put to rest,
but made worth it, I guess by the fact that
she then, obviously a few days later, re released the
song and gave probably the most gracious and informed celebrity
statement or apology that I have ever kind of seen.
(02:06):
And it's just that, Like, I think what struck me
about it was that she didn't try to double down
or defend anything, or deflect or invalidate the concerns of
the disabled community, because it wasn't just me who called
her out. There were multiple disability advocates who wanted her
(02:27):
to be held accountable, and instead she moved straight to
kind of learning from that and thanking us for being
willing to like want her to do better. I guess
which is the best outcome I could have hoped for.
And then, like last week or the week before, Beyonce
(02:55):
drops her new album, Renaissance, which is her like most like.
It's probably one of the most anticipated albums in music
at the moment because it had been what six years
since her last since her last album, and we know
(03:16):
that Beyonce occupies this based in pop culture where basically
she breathes and the world rights to think peace about it.
So yeah, her album was already making big waves. Someone
on Twitter tagged me and said, hey, Hannah, Beyonce has
used this word, like are you going to do to
(03:40):
her what you did to Lizo? They meant it in
a snarky way, but I went and listened to the
song and went, well, I can't really hold Lizo to
account for something and not Beyonce. And like the fact
that the Lizo news had made headlines around the world
made it even more confused and potentially complicated that Beyonce
(04:04):
had decided to use the slur, because I think the
main concern among the disabled community was how could she
not have seen this? How could someone in her team
not have seen this? Did she see it and decide
to use it anyway? Like does she not care? Does
(04:25):
she think that she's above that? Like the what's the
go here? Because obviously, like we said, she's a titan
in pop culture, so it and she also curates this
rather like enigmatic and mysterious persona. So I think it's
hard for people to get a read on where she
(04:48):
sits on certain things. Sometimes because it's all very much
on her terms. But I decided to call her out
as well, and took several deep breaths while doing this,
so because I know that the passion and commitment of
Beyonce's fans is second to none, and that basically, even
though this was a valid question and a valid critique,
(05:12):
there were going to be lots and lots of people
who didn't see it that way, and that was right.
Any trolling that I experienced while dealing with the Lizo
situation escalated significantly. Lots of people branded me racist because
(05:33):
as of course, as I guess, luck or non luck
would have it, it happened to be two black women
in a row who had used the slur, so people
were very much attacking me for that they I think
some people believed I was a poster child of white privilege,
(05:55):
which is a pretty interesting take for them to have.
And for those of you who obviously can't see us
recording this, Kate is looking at me and laughing because
it's just one of those things where are like, really
and obviously like I want to recognize and take this
(06:16):
moment to say that it's true that I do have
privilege because of the color of my skin, and that
privilege sits alongside the lack of privilege I have as
a disabled person. And technically, if we're like going through
the hierarchy of marginalization, I have more privilege than someone
(06:39):
who's black and disabled because they've kind of got too
intersecting marginal identities happening at the same time. But so, yeah,
that was that was an experience, and I definitely was like, Okay,
so we're not gonna hear from Beyonce all the reasons
(07:00):
I mentioned earlier, because I thought, you know, she is
very specific about the types of types of media she does.
She only ever puts things out on her own terms,
like I can try and get media involved. And there
was a lot of media involvement because everyone was asking
(07:21):
the same question as I was about how this had
happened so soon after Liza. And then Tuesday morning of
last week, I woke up at like seven am to
a billion texts and my phone rigging because all of
my friends were yelling at me in caps, she's changing yet.
(07:43):
And then yeah, if I'd thought the world's media descended before,
they certainly did after that, Hannah.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
I have to tell you, it was the end of
a long week for me. Last week challenging on many
many fronts, and I was exhausted. And I got to
the airport ready to fly home to see my family.
I hadn't seen them for two weeks. And I'm sitting
down and I've grabbed everything from the all you can
(08:15):
eat bar, basically, I've grabbed it all, and I've grabbed
a wine. And it's like twelve o'clock in the afternoon
and I look up and on the screen amongst the
you know, the currency rates and the headlines are on
the roll in the back and there you are. And
I think, Holy Molly, what has happened?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Now?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
This is this is huge? And I opened Twitter, I
opened the News, and I think, if we thought you
were a woman that was winning a month ago, it's.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Certainly gone up several levels. Now.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Can I look back for a moment, And I want
to clarify The reason why I used the slur was
because I want to make sure that I set the
scene of what.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
This is and so know what specific slurw we're talking about. Yeah,
so then that helps with the learning of how not
to use it and why not to use it.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Absolutely So I've noticed though in even your storytelling of
the last month, you will not use the word either
you will say that word or.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I generally use it once and then from there, like
I'll do it to set the scene, and then from
there I'm like, well you can figure it out, like
you get it?
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Yeah, totally. So let's loop back one step further when
I got to meet you a month ago. Let's talk
about for those that have never heard of you or
are just hearing about this woman in a wheelchair that's
sent a tweet out that managed to change the two
biggest names in the easy industry song lyrics. Tell us
(10:00):
about that word and what that what it means to you,
and why it is so heavy, and why people do
need to understand why it is a big deal.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Okay, so for context, the reason I'm in a wheelchair
very simply is because i have a physical disability called
cerebral palsy. Technically, the full name of my specific cerebral
palsy is spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, which is obviously spastic
is the kind of full form of the split of
(10:33):
the slur spaz, but in a cultural, kind of colloquial way,
it's often used to describe like someone having an emotional
meltdown or someone about to lose control, or maybe even
someone's like presumed lack of intelligence or whatever it might be.
(10:54):
Whereas for me and my cerebral palsy, spastik refers to spasticity,
which is basically like this ever present constant doesn't have
to be triggered by anything specific is happening right now
while I'm sitting here talking to you, tension in my
body and legs specifically, it never goes away. It tends
(11:18):
to flare up in the cold, and it's extremely exhausting
and does make my life difficult. For people who generally
would like to know a little bit more about cerebral palsy,
what I tend to say is it's a physical disability
that affects my fine and gross motor skills. In non
(11:41):
medical english, that means it affects everything from my ability
to stand, walk and balance, to use a knife and
fork properly, or play a musical instrument or do up
the buttons on a shirt, for instance. So obviously, because
(12:02):
I live with spasticity and that makes my life complicate,
complicated in ways that say, my sister's labs aren't complicated.
I don't tend to want the insinuations of a lack
of emotional control or a lack of intelligence connected to that,
(12:24):
because that's not true of my condition, it's not true
of my experience as at a sable person, and it
just feels like yet another way to I guess, alienate
us as a community. Now, there will probably be some
(12:46):
people with cerebral palsy who hear that word and aren't
bothered by it. But for me and for many of
my friends, that word was used against us in playground
settings or in other uh, in other situations, And to
be honest, it's certainly been used against me now, even
(13:09):
if it even if it wasn't before. And I think
it's really interesting that even though like kids I went
to school with, didn't know the meaning of the word
that we're using, they knew enough about it to weaponize
it and use it against me, or they knew enough
(13:30):
about it that if that if they said it, they
knew they'd make me feel bad. I guess.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
You're at an age now where you can correct the
story and correct the story, not just for you and
your peers, as you say, yeah, but you're correcting the
story for children that aren't even born yet. This is
that's the plan, powerful and important work, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
That's kind of the whole ethos of everything I do
as a disability advocate. It's kind of trying to make
it better for all of the disabled kids of the
future than it was for me, because obviously I am
extremely privileged, and like medicine has come leaps and bounds,
(14:22):
So having my childhood in the two thousands and beyond
is is something I'm grateful for because obviously, like I think,
disability has slowly been beginning to be taken more seriously.
But as I was growing up, kind of the two
(14:46):
narratives that existed about disability were either Paralympic excellence, which
only happened every four years, these disabled people would pop
up and then magically disappear and then pop up again.
And the other at the other end of the spectrum,
And I mentioned this on Q and A the other night,
(15:10):
was the idea of disabled life as tragedy. Like there
was a particular period of time in advertising when if
people wanted to dissuade you from junk driving or from speeding,
(15:31):
or from being otherwise reckless while you were driving or
while you were out and about with friends. They would
end up showing you someone whose life had been transformed
because they'd ended up in a wheelchair. And in that context,
that person believed, and it was presented as such, that
(15:55):
their life was over because of the decision or like
circumstance that they found themselves in.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
You know, you tell that example to us, and I
think of I just reread it over summer. Actually, Dylan
Allcott's book, and.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It's a great book, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
I think I think it nearly should be mandatory reading
for parents, for teenagers in school, you know about year seven.
It could be turned into a children's book. Maybe there's
maybe some things get pretty left out, but and he's
very much an advocate for that, Like whoa, whoa, whoa.
(16:39):
You know, I'm in a wheelchair. That doesn't make my
life less, It doesn't make my life sad. It also
doesn't make me inspirational because I'm in a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, but doesn't mean I need a gold medal for
getting out of bed in the morning. But if you
want to give me a gold medal because I've won
every tennis tournament known to made, then you can do
that too.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Absolutely do that too. Yeah, I just it's and those
are the stories that are important. All those are the examples.
And I think what you're saying is right. The wheel
is turning. It's hard. It's hard because sometimes it feels
like the wheel is turning too slow, or maybe move
(17:22):
a few gears. And then and then we go back
and and I think I said to you, didn't I
I My son has autism, and I'm yeah, I'm always
conscious of I still have to advocate for him. But
he's old enough now, you know, like he's about to
(17:45):
turn thirteen. His voice in the room really matters. So
your voices are what makes the wheel turn and makes
those people that we talk about Lizo and you know
beyond they we don't not like them, but they've just
set the most beautiful example to the entire world, you know.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And I want to clarify too, because lots
of people accused me of trying to cancel Beyonce and
Lizzo or trying to like take them down a peg
or whatever. And I want to clarify that, like the
point of me calling them out was never, ever, ever,
ever to cancel them, because aside from the fact that
(18:30):
they both make great music. They occupy incredibly important spaces
in terms of marginalized communities in their own right, and
all I was seeking to do was gently but firmly
kind of educate them and hope that moving forward, as
(18:50):
it turns out, the world would learn that using that
slur is not okay. And eventually it won't be up
to the labor of making sure that doesn't happen again,
won't be on disability advocates, it will just be the
norm in the music industry. There'll be there'll be plenty
(19:13):
of able body people who can go, hey, that word
isn't okay, Like, let's not do.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
That, Hannah. This it really has been a lifetime of
work for you. And now the.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Spotlight absolutely on you.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Big time in this month.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
My band's bright.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
It does I think the other you know, item of
work at the moment that is so worth mentioning. And
you should tell us what the petition is, an older saying,
So it's the it's Thursday of the eleventh of August.
We're going to release this episode to Maurrow the twelfth
of August. How many people have signed a petition to
(19:58):
ask Disney to perhaps introduce a doll that has a
person on a wheelchair.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Yeah, so the idea is to create create a disabled
Disney princess.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
And sorry, I said a doll. I kept thinking, you know,
of course there should be a Barbie doll, or of
course there should Like, why isn't there.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
I've got it. There are actually Barbie dolls these days.
There weren't when I was looking for them. No, there
are now. But yes, as of this moment, there are
over sixty sixty thousand people from around the world who
believe that that should be a thing that happens. It's
(20:44):
gotten all sorts of celebrity support, either with signatures or
sharing or just acknowledgment through social media. So I've had
support from people like Magda Zabanski and who else like
Reese Witherspoon, Blake Live Lead, Jamila Jamil or Mark Hamill,
(21:06):
who of course plays Luke Skywalker and has quite a
significant influence in the Disney space. Just all of these
incredible people who have jumped on board. And as of today,
thanks to a feature I got to do in the
(21:27):
Australian Woman's Weekly September issue, I can now kind of
let you know that Disney knows about the campaign. They
have acknowledged it and they recognize that they should probably
be doing something about it. Whether that means a princess
(21:48):
will show up in film one day in a couple
of years from now, we could all just be sitting
at the cinema and she could just appear, I don't know,
but I will take that as a really really positive step.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Oh Hannah, it is absolutely massive. And I know, I
know you mentioned those big names and they're the ones
that helped spread the word and the support.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, we wouldn't be able to do it without
every single person.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's hard to find the words.
How you know, incredible this is? And I mean, what
would it have meant to you? You just mentioned, you know,
there was no Barbie Doll in a wheelchair growing up,
like they didn't exist. What would it have meant to
(22:42):
you to have been able to sit down and watch
you know, Beauty in the bast or you know, a
version of a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
They would have met the world. And I think lots
of people will probably roll their eyes and wonder why
I put so much stock in a cartoon character. But
I think for me, as a kid, I, like you said,
never saw anyone who looked like me in the books
(23:13):
I read, in the toys I played with, in the
TV shows, or the movies I watched. And I don't
think I realized how much we rely on media as
children to show us what's possible. Yeah, whether like consciously
(23:33):
or unconsciously. Aside from the fact that I only ever
saw disabled adults in therapy settings, on top of that,
it basically meant that I grew up not knowing what
a future could look like for someone like me, Like
those two narratives we talked about earlier were basically it.
(23:54):
And for me, as much as I was flattered by
this question, the question of like, hey, what's your Paralympic
sport going to be? Over and over again when I
was a kid was so frustrating because I always tended
to look at it from the point of view of, well,
(24:15):
hold on, you're not asking my able bodied sisters, who
are standing right here, like what their Olympic sport is
going to be, because number one, you understand that, hey,
not every kid wants to go to the Olympics. Number two,
not every kid can go to the Olympics. And like
number three, it's only the best of the best like
(24:37):
the most elite sports people. Then I think there seems
to be this weird conception about the Paralympics that the
athlete to compete there aren't as elite as their able
bodied counterparts. And I just want to say, like, for
(24:58):
most of you, this is common sense, but for the
portion of the population that doesn't know this, there are
many disabled people who could come up against Dilan Orcott
in a match and even like hit the ball like
in a way that would make them a worthy competitor.
(25:19):
Like those guys are elite athletes. They train for hours,
they put in the work, and it takes skill. So
I'm very much about expanding the possibilities for people with
disabilities beyond either tragedy or sport and kind of creating
this the middle lane that is as open as it
(25:42):
can possibly be. And I think that comes from having
people with disabilities visibly represented in as many different arenas
of life as we can, from the big to the small.
So it could be like things like a disabled Disney
princess or in the Australian Women's Weekly, or it could
(26:06):
be something as simple as your child having a disabled teacher,
or you getting your flowers from a disabled florist or
whatever it should be. Basically, wherever decisions are made and
wherever kind of community comes together, disabled people should be
(26:28):
there too. And also like, it's important for me to
recognize that not every disabled person has the luxury of
having a visible disability. There are many, many, many people
who deal with invisible disabilities. There are many more people
who will unfortunately come to understand disabled life as a
(26:48):
result of COVID, as a result of long COVID and
the pandemic. And I think it's really important that we're
at this moment right now where disabled people are finally
starting to be seen and heard.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Hannah, what does it feel like when you pick up
one of Australia's most iconic magazines and they were looking,
by the way, absolutely stunning?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Oh thank you?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Tell me that you did feel like a princess?
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Oh no, I definitely did. That was that was very
much the the brief for the shoot that we that
we planned out together, and I wanted it to be
as dreamy and as whimsical as possible. And then the
wonderful team at the Weekly brought in these amazing dresses
(27:42):
from this Australian designer by the name of volk v
O E l K for anyone who wants to look
them up. And they I mean, the dresses speak for themselves.
They're beautiful. Ah. So yeah, I really enjoyed that experience.
But I have to say, as someone who spent a
(28:03):
lifetime looking for someone who look like her, for that
face of representation to suddenly be my own face is
an incredibly surreal bed out of body experience and not
really something that I think i'll i'll have words for.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
In ways, what is that saying? It's in my mind?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
You know, it can't be what you can't see.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yes, And but there's another one, and it's something around
if if you can't be them, be the be the
person that you need to be. Yeah, you know, be
the person that be theer. If you can't something like that,
it's it's killing me. Now I'm not sure what it is.
(28:53):
It's something along those lines. If you can't find your
example of the person that you need in your life,
then be you be the example. You know. It's something
along those lines. But yeah, absolutely, Oh Hannah, do you know,
as I said, we met a month ago that was incredible.
Next in it, I'm at the airport and you're everywhere
(29:14):
around the world. What is what would you like to see?
Because I feel like I would love to continue to
check him with you at different times, because you are
going to become or you're well on the way to become,
one of Australia's most important advocates for disability. What would
you like to see happen? Let's do just twelve months, Like,
(29:37):
let's that's kind of long term, but I kind of
go it's quite a short term in the scheme of things.
What would what would you like to see in this
next twelve months?
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Well, hopefully the book I'm working on might be closer
to being out, might be to being read by people
that would that would be nice. But yeah, I just
think more representation as much as possible for people in
front of the camera, behind the camera, and in all
(30:08):
walks of life. I want bigger, bigger conversations about the
political participation of disabled people, the valuing of lived experience
for disabled people. So basically, the idea that like the
(30:28):
people who are who have control of the NDIS and
whatever other systems should probably be disabled makes the most
sense to me that if you're going to be making
decisions on behalf of a marginalized community. The people making
those decisions should be a part of said marginalized community.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
I want to write a letter to our ministers. Yeah,
I actually hang on.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Look, I think it's hard because at this stage we
obviously only have Jordan Steel John in the Parliament and
he's a member of the Greens, and he's the only
visibly disabled politician that we have at the moment, and
he unfortunately can't do every job. So I definitely think
(31:17):
we need our we need ourllies as much as we can,
but we also need to know that there are processes
in place where disabled people are getting to be heard
and not just like I guess, not just in an
advisory capacity, but in a way that is authentic and
(31:41):
meaningful and where they have real power. Because I think
there's a lot of stuff that needs to change for
disabled people in Australia in the next twelve months.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
That's a pretty great twelve months to look forward to. Hannah. Yeah, absolutely,
when you release this book, we're going to have to
have another check up because I feel like we've really
only touched on one aspect of your life. There's so
much there is so much more to you. But really
this episode is about highlighting your work, helping you spread
(32:15):
that work, signing the petition if we can, thank you
so much, and learning about I think I spoke to
you about this that words really matter, and they do.
We need to keep remembering and if we make a mistake,
call ourselves out. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Just apologize, own the mistake, and then move forward.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm just a huge fan, absolutely huge fan.
If you need anything from us at the Women of Influence,
you know that we're going to come, you know, with
the troops, will come marching for you anyway, So thank
you so much, congratulations and thank you for joining
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Us, no worries, thank you for having me
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