Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory

Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

(Summary)

Disability Studies aims to integrate the disabled into the mainstream of society. It reveals how
disability is not a normal state of bodily inferiority but a culturally accepted ideology which
stigmatizes those who are sick, feeble, maimed, handicapped, old, crazy, mad, ugly and privileges
those seen as beautiful, healthy, competent, intelligent and normal. This view of the disabled as non-
normative forgets that disability is universal, touching all of us.

The writer wishes to integrate disability studies into feminist theory with the aim of transforming
society and making it more just and equitable. She compares this to the Civil Rights Movement of
the 1960s in America which sought to integrate blacks into the mainstream.

Disability studies and feminist theory have much to offer each other. Disability is one of the
identities that intersect with gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and class. Feminist issues like bodily
differences and subject construction need to include disability within the frame of reference.
Disability studies would also benefit from the insights and perspectives developed in feminist
theory. Hence Feminist Disability Studies would build on the strengths of both fields. It would
explore diversity, the materiality of the body and the social construction of bodily differences. It
would use disability as a category of analysis and a system of representation.

Disability is presented in 4 aspects:

a. A system for interpreting and disciplining bodily variations.
b. A relationship between bodies and environments
c. A set of practices that produce both the disabled and able-bodied
d. A way of describing the instability of the self

Feminist disability theory shows that disability, like gender, race, class, sexuality and ethnicity, is
not a natural category, but rather is socially and culturally constructed. It assumes that
a. Representation shapes reality.
b. Margins define the centre (bell hooks makes the same point in “Feminist Theory: From
Margin to Center” where she talks of how the needs of marginalized women are different
from and as much or more important than the demands of white middle-class women who
have tended to dominate the feminist movement)
c. Gender, like disability, is defined through power relations.
d. Human identity is multiple and changing.
e. Analysis is always based on politics.

Disability impacts Feminist studies in 4 areas:

a. Representation
b. Body
c. Identity
d. Activism

A. REPRESENTATION
i. Being female, disabled or non-white/dark has traditionally been understood as
inferior to the normal.
ii. The female, disabled or dark person is seen as having only an imperfect physical
body (without mind or spirit). Thus femininity and race are performances of
disability.
iii. The example of Julia Pastrana, the Mexican bearded woman exhibited in the 19 th
century, as a monster or freak, shows how the cultural categories of race, gender,
sexuality and disability intersected to create a spectacle that embodied otherness.
iv. Similarly Saartje Bartmann, the African “Hottentot Venus”, was exhibited in 19 th
century Europe as a pathological specimen because her body did not conform to the
norms of European femininity in terms of proportion and colour. Her colour and
gendered attributes were described as her disabilities.
v. Bodies marked as inferior (by virtue of gender, race, sexuality, disability, etc) may
also be targeted for elimination through practices like female foeticide or
infanticide, selective abortion, genocide, hate crimes, normalising surgical
procedures, etc. Such exclusionary practices are based on the stories told by our
cultures.

B. THE BODY
i. Feminist Disability Theory shows how the female body is subject to the discipline of
medical science and the politics of appearance. Femaleness itself is regarded as a
sickness and therefore medicalised. The beauty and health systems often have the
same goal of standardising the female body. For example, body braces medically
used in the 1930s to treat scoliosis were similar to the corsets which fashionable
women wore in the 19th century.
Reconstructive surgery and cosmetic surgery both aim to normalise the body. The
body is commodified and surgical mutilations are accepted as enhancements which
bring the body closer to the norm.
The so-called normal appearance marketed by the beauty industry promotes
anonymity by removing all individual marks of difference. This fits in with the
impersonal nature of social relations in the contemporary world.
ii. Feminist Disability Theory also talks about the female breast – routinely represented
erotically as a commodity – and the impact of its amputation during breast cancer
surgery. Prosthetic implants can mimic natural breasts but there are women who
refuse such measures. Some even publicly expose their scars to present the
spectacle of the amputated breast.
iii. Feminist Disability Studies can also show the cruelty inherent in the practice of
surgically separating conjoined twins or surgically assigning sexual characteristics to
intersexed babies, often done soon after birth. Mutilation and reconstruction are
promoted in the name of normalisation. In the case of conjoined twins, one is often
sacrificed so that the other may have a whole body. The trauma of the individuals
concerned is ignored.
 iv. Life with disability is seen as intolerable in the wider culture. Instead of making
environments more accessible to the disabled or providing support services and
rehabilitation, the emphasis is on curing the disability, even if it is through painful
and costly medical technology. This leads to an elimination of the disabled – through
practices like forced sterilisation, institutional segregation, mercy killing, etc.
v. This medical emphasis on cure through a quick technological fix ignores two things:
a. That difference needs to be accepted.
b. That it is the social and economic environment that excludes the disabled from
full participation in society. Hence the real cure would be to fix society.
vi. Feminist Disability theory could also focus on reproductive issues like genetic testing
and selective abortion of foetuses suspected to be disabled. Activists argue that it is
difficult to justify such practices by simply saying that a life with disability is
unbearable. Human happiness or sorrow cannot be predicted so easily.
vii. Even the Human Genome project which aspires to carry out pre-natal genetic
engineering to improve the species would not be able to eliminate disability.
Because accidents, sickness and age would still cause disability.
viii. Activists also condemn euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide as it reflects
society’s oppressive intolerance of disability which forces the patient to take the
extreme step.
ix. Disability theorists also talk about the unequal power relations between patients
and their caregivers. This complicates “the ethic of care” (which cultural feminists
see as a positive feminine practice) as well as the right to equality that liberal
feminists insist on.

C. IDENTITY
1. Identity formation is a crucial part of feminist theory. Feminists tend to agree that
identity is unstable and each woman occupies multiple subject positions.
Disability theorists show how we all move through different identities – often becoming
disabled due to age, ill-health, depression or disorders like anorexia. Cultural practices like
foot binding and FGM and even fashionable practices like using girdles and stiletos can
restrict women’s bodies and thereby create disability. Individually and collectively, therefore
we need to accommodate disability.

2. Disabled women are often asexually objectified. Their sexuality and right to bear
children are not easily accepted.
Some disabled women turn to alternative sexualities like lesbianism. Others may try to prove
their sexuality and desirability. RGT gives the example of a paraplegic actress who posed in
the nude for Playboy magazine but also tried to showcase herself in a wheelchair in the
same issue.
On the other hand, disability can also offer freedom from the oppressive narratives of
femininity. RGT gives the example of the doll Becky who is Barbie’s friend. While Barbie’s
hyper-femininity is emphasised through her figure and accessories, Becky who is disabled
wears comfortable, asexual outfits including flat shoes. Thus Becky escapes the sexual
commodification of Barbie but tends to lose her identity as a feminine sexual being.
 3. Disability theory can also provide knowledge about how the body responds to its
particularities.
4. RGT talks about how the ‘stare’ produces the disability identity.
5. ‘Passing’ as non-disabled provides access to the privileges of normalcy but it is
psychically damaging. Disability coming-out stories, like gay and lesbian narratives,
reveal to the public eye what was once private and medicalised. They also raise
questions about how the markers of disability like crutches and wheelchairs could have
remained invisible.

D. ACTIVISM
RGT says that there is a lot of activism around disability but she wishes to focus on disabled
fashion modeling and academic tolerance.

1. Modeling
Images of disabled fashion models can shake people’s view of disability.
a. A chic high-fashion model may be identified as disabled only by her service dog. The
image disrupts the popular identification of disability with beggars. It routinizes
disability imagery by bringing it into the public gaze.
This is unintentional activism because advertisers are simply trying to increase market-
share by providing something new and showing that they are inclusive.

b. Aimee Mullins, a double amputee, champion runner and fashion model is also an
activist who highlights her disability in all her fashion shoots. She displays her
artificial legs, almost as fashion accessories, and refuses to pass as non-disabled. She
embodies the paradox of being both legless and beautiful.

Consumer capitalism has been criticised for sexually appropriating women for the male
gaze. Yet, as the above examples show, the same kind of consumer capitalism can also
provide counter-images to oppressive cultural beliefs.

2. Academic Activism
a. Scholars of interdisciplinary identity studies (including women’s studies) show the
workings of oppression and subject formation. They provide counter-narratives for
marginalised groups. They retrieve history, find texts, reform the curriculum, create
new courses and programmes of study. This provides the intellectual basis for
activism.
b. The methodology of internal tolerance accepts that knowledge is partial and
provisional and that questions must continue to be asked.
Feminist theory works in this spirit and hence will benefit greatly by integrating the
perspective of disability in itself.