Hmm. I discovered Tiptree in the mid-90's as an awkward teenager (so as far from clueful as possible; also this was before the internet) and I found out about this very early on; it was the second thing I knew about Alice Sheldon. It was common knowledge then if I knew it, is what I'm saying. And then of course it was a thing when the bio came out a while back. I guess I assumed everyone knew this -- it may fall into that uncanny valley where people who know it assume other people know it, but other people actually don't.
The wikipedia article, I agree, is AWFUL and ableist, UGH. The Phillips bio I agree with some of your assessment, but not all. [I will use Alli and Ting in the following because that's what Phillips does.] I came away from it thinking not "Alli was Totally Justified in killing her husband because he was Disabled" but rather "wow, Alli was really messed up mentally and that was what led to Alli thinking a double suicide pact was the way to go even though Ting was NOT OKAY with this" (and for what it's worth, I feel that the bio makes this very clear).
(tidbit from the bio: Alli called their lawyer night of, who immediately called the police. The police went and were like "eh, seems fine." GAH.)
Where I do agree with you on the bio is that it does end on Alli's side, and sort of ignoring the whole thing where Ting was, um, MURDERED, in a way that strikes me as icky. I'm not sure I'm convinced it's an ableist thing so much as it's that Tiptree was "one of us" ("us" being SF fandom) and Huntington Sheldon was not, and Phillips being kind of a Tiptree fangirl, and I suspect the book would have been fairly similarly written if Ting had not been disabled but the murder-suicide had happened anyway.
I wonder if people don't really want to have the hard conversations about how mental illness and physical disability and caretaking interact. Yes, Alice Sheldon clearly had problematic ableist viewpoints about when life was worth living that contributed largely to this. But her longstanding depression and bipolar (? I read the bio quite a while ago so don't remember whether a diagnosis of bipolar was given or whether this is Phillips' surmise) and other mental issues contributed at least as much, probably much more. (One only has to read some of Tiptree's last stories to know that there was something seriously off.) And I don't think anyone knows how much of the mental issues corresponded to the viewpoints about when life was worth living (though Phillips speculates it's a lot). It's a lot easier to think that life isn't worth living if one is depressed, in general, regardless of physical disability.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2019-08-27 07:32 pm (UTC)The wikipedia article, I agree, is AWFUL and ableist, UGH. The Phillips bio I agree with some of your assessment, but not all. [I will use Alli and Ting in the following because that's what Phillips does.] I came away from it thinking not "Alli was Totally Justified in killing her husband because he was Disabled" but rather "wow, Alli was really messed up mentally and that was what led to Alli thinking a double suicide pact was the way to go even though Ting was NOT OKAY with this" (and for what it's worth, I feel that the bio makes this very clear).
(tidbit from the bio: Alli called their lawyer night of, who immediately called the police. The police went and were like "eh, seems fine." GAH.)
Where I do agree with you on the bio is that it does end on Alli's side, and sort of ignoring the whole thing where Ting was, um, MURDERED, in a way that strikes me as icky. I'm not sure I'm convinced it's an ableist thing so much as it's that Tiptree was "one of us" ("us" being SF fandom) and Huntington Sheldon was not, and Phillips being kind of a Tiptree fangirl, and I suspect the book would have been fairly similarly written if Ting had not been disabled but the murder-suicide had happened anyway.
I wonder if people don't really want to have the hard conversations about how mental illness and physical disability and caretaking interact. Yes, Alice Sheldon clearly had problematic ableist viewpoints about when life was worth living that contributed largely to this. But her longstanding depression and bipolar (? I read the bio quite a while ago so don't remember whether a diagnosis of bipolar was given or whether this is Phillips' surmise) and other mental issues contributed at least as much, probably much more. (One only has to read some of Tiptree's last stories to know that there was something seriously off.) And I don't think anyone knows how much of the mental issues corresponded to the viewpoints about when life was worth living (though Phillips speculates it's a lot). It's a lot easier to think that life isn't worth living if one is depressed, in general, regardless of physical disability.