The Chatty Cathy Approach to Intersex Activism
http://intersexpride.blogspot.com/2008/04/chatty-cathy-approach-to-intersex.html4/22/2008
"When I was a child, my sister had a doll that was rather popular for a
while. It was called "Chatty Cathy
http://www.tvacres.com/dolls_chatty.htm ." This particular doll
interested me because it could talk. However, you had to pull a string
on her back to start the conversation. Pulling strings to get someone
to talk who otherwise was just a dummy who really had nothing to say
made a lot of sense to me. It meant that people who had almost nothing
to say except a limited repertoire of stupid and often illogical ideas
would speak about those ideas at the moment and in the context which
was most beneficial to the person pulling the string. Their freedom of
speech was not really taken from them because you could rationalize
that really what you were doing was spurring debate, initiating dialog
and encouraging them to express themselves."
