Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Notes on “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory”

Notes on “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory
Disability Studies moved out of medicine, social work and rehab to become part of Identity
Studies n is a vibrant new field of inquiry
RGT thinks both DS and FS have much to gain from each other though they function at
present in ignorance of each other. As a result DS often reinvents the wheel n FS loses an
opportunity to expand it critical intelligence, vocabulary and ambit in useful ways. FS
understanding of intersectionality would be helped tremendously by engaging with
“ability/disability” system
Why the omissions?
No archive, no template for understanding disability as a category of analysis n knowledge,
as a cultural trope and an historical community
FS still resisted for some of the same reasons as DS: too narrow a focus; special interest
group/constituency; lil to do with mainstream knowledge and academic practices
Feminist Disability Studies need of the hour
Notes… cont… Feminist Disability Theory

Focus on “integration and transformation”

Integration--achieve parity by including that which has been excluded n subordinated
Transformation--reimagining established knowledge n the order of things
Integrating DS not against key FS understanding of the relation between intellectual work
n a commitment to creating a more just, equitable n integrated society…
Goal of FDS according to RGT augment terms and confront limits of the ways we
understand 1) human diversity, 2) the materiality of the body, 3) multiculturalism and 4) the
social formations that interpret bodily difference
Integrating DS as a category of analysis and system of representation challenges and
deepens the conceptual and ethical range of FS and transforms academic practice
FDS uses “ability/disability” system as a tool, axes or, heuristic as a category of analysis
Notes… Feminist Disability Theory… cont
FDS uses “ability/disability” system as a tool, axes or, heuristic as a category of analysis
FDS focusses on unity of category of woman; the status of the lived body, the politics of
appearance, the medicalisation of the body, privilege of normalcy, multiculturalism, sexuality, social
construction of identities and the commitment to integration
Disability is pervasive, permeates all aspects of cultural practice: structuring institutions, social
identities; cultural practices, political positions, historical communities n the shared human
experience of embodiment
Disabled figure a synecdoche of all forms that culture deems ab-normal
Feminist acuity can unmask n reimagine disability not just for people commonly supposed to have
disabilities but for everyone
Need a universalising rather than minoritizing view of disability. FDS looks to achieve this
Constituency of FDS is all of us; disability most human of experience touching all of us esp if we live
long enough
Notes… Ability/Disability System… cont

FDS radical critique rests in understanding disability as a “pervasive cultural system

that stigmatises certain kinds of bodily variations”
A/D system has capacity to incite a productive critical politics
Premise of FDS disability like femininity not natural but a culturally fabricated
narrative that marks bodies differentially and determines iniquitous access and
control of resources, status and power within a biased social and architectural
environment
A/D system has four aspects
1) System of interpreting n disciplining bodily variations
2) structures/mediates rsps between bodies and their environments
3) Set of practices that produce both the able-bodied as well as the disabled
4) Way of describing inherent instability of the embodied self
Notes… Ability/Disability System… cont

FDS denaturalises disability by mobilising the following premises of critical

theory

1) Representation structures reality

2) Margins define the centre
3) Gender and disability are a way of signifying relationships of power
4) Human identity is multiple & unstable
5) All analysis and evaluations have political implications

RGT discusses these premises through four fundamental and interpenetrating

domains of feminist theory

1) Representation; 2) the body; 3) identity; and 4) activism

Notes… cont… Representation
In the western world, female and disability have long been associated. Female as a lack or
excess, as sickness, distortion, defective etc…
Saarjte Baartmen’s case. How the Hottentot Venus was displayed, her body pathologised n
exoticised and then monetised by others or fed upon by others for their own material and
professional advancement
Concept of Disability framed her presentation to the western world. She was marked as a
racial and gendered Other
Disability analysis presses us to question why being different is immediately a “bad” thing
marked by inferiority or monstrosity
Gender, Race and Ability systems represent subjugated people as pure body lacking in
mind and spirit.
Differences of Disability cast as atrophy/hypertrophy; aplasia/hypoplasia/hyperplasia; all
of which reference and entrench a hidden norm
Notes… Representation… cont

Femininity and race are performances of disability

Monsters originally referenced congenital impairments that were category
violations n grotesque hybrids.
FS references hybrids like cyborgs the teratological imaginary for their
transgressive potential for feminist politics but RGT points out these invocations
seldom point to the actual bodies of people with disabilities that the terms
reference. Erasing real disabled bodies from the history of these terms compromises
the potency of the critique
Such representations of deviancy or deficiency condemns subjugated peoples and
bodies so described to being considered expendable and/or dangerous to be
eliminated: foeticide/eugenics/euthanasia/honor killing/genocide/forced
rehabilitation/racial profiling/ sequestration, etc. Vaccination protocols
Notes… cont… Body

Productive to explore body in terms of its materiality, politics, lived experience,

relation to subjectivity n identity

Womens n disabled body subjected to “discipline” through cultural discourse of

medicine and politics of beauty/appearance

Female body pathologised/medicalised in modernity

Appearance norms achieved through medical intervention: standardised female

body: braces, corsets

FDS question distinction between reconstructive n cosmetic surgery--both

normalise by erasing difference

Conception of body as “cultural plastic”

Notes… Body… cont

Normal has inflected beautiful in modern times: fat, wrinkles, hair on the body,
cellulite, pores
Goal to look standard/unmarked by particularity
Politics of prosthetics--breast implants prostheses for breast cancer survivors;
scarred amputated breast to be concealed or replaced
Spectacle of the female breast: normative breast objectified n eroticised through
male gaze
Subversive poster replaced eroticised breast with scarred breast
FDS challenges unremarked pervasive will to normalise non standard bodies:
surgical separation of conjoint twins n surgical reassignment of sexuality to
intersexed bodies at birth
Notes… Body… cont

Focus on intervention to fix n cure aggressive as well destructive; need to focus on

accommodation

Eliminating “undesirables” is a eugenic exercise. Leads to forced sterilizations,

medically assisted killings, selective abortions, institutionalization, segregation
politics… (case of Britney Spears)

FDS questions reproductive technologies of genetic testing n selective abortion

Like “genocide against the disabled”

Bodily norms have lil to do with deciding happiness, success etc

Social n genetic engineering misguided/prejudiced n potentially eugenic practices.

Designer babies/species
Notes… Body… cont

Liberal feminism emphasises equality, sameness etc...took cultural feminisms to

argue for difference and the valorisation of the ethics of care
FDS complicates both liberal feminism n the ethics of care with regard to qs of
politics of care n dependency
Qs power relations bet givers n receivers of care; dependent receivers of care never
equal
On the other hand, it is possible to articulate a “dependency critique of equality”
that distorts the reality of human dependency , the need for mutual care and the
asymmetries of care relations
Disability demands that human interdependence and universal need for assistance
be part of conversations about identity, rights and subjectivity--critique of
individualism
Notes… cont… Identity
Disability an important vector that challenges the unity and primacy of woman and gender
as a monolithic class
Disabled women marked and excluded from relative privileges of normative femininity:
unsexed, unfit to reproduce, overly dependent, unattractive
Aging a form disablement
Depression, agoraphobia, anorexia psycho-physical as much as foot binding corsetting
high heels foist disability on women
Banishment from femininity both liability and a benefit.
Barbie pantheon queer disabled Becky but desexualised; Barbie performs hyper
femininity...need for a Sue Your Ass Becky
Asexual objectification of ppl with disabilities complicates the feminist critique of the
sexual objectification of women
Notes… Identity… cont

Ellen Stohl playboy photoshoot centrespread : both troubling and empowering

confirmation of normative hetersexuality
Stohl nude n masturbating, but no visual signs of disability (wheelchair) or stohl in a
wheelchair etc
Disability Studies helps us understand Identity always in transition: what is the
continuity of the self anchored in if the body is always changing. Disability can
happen any time. Highlights fundamental dynamism of identity
DS shows how the body/self materialises through an engagement with its
environment, both social and concrete. THat body out of sync with its
environment is disabled
What alternative epistemology might emerge, what “sitpoint” vs standpoint (Nancy
Mairs)
Notes… Identity… cont

RGT asserts DS challenges phalic fixity n invulnerability. Disability essential

characteristic of being human.
Productive challenges to FS
Compulsory ablebodiedness or normalcy studies instead of disability studies
FDS highlights overlaps with other minority groups Diability coming out stories
borrow from gay bringing to light what was hidden, privatised, stigmatised
“Passing” as non-disabled highlights how psychically estranging access to privilege
operates
Costs n disincentives to identifying as disabled--crippled, deformed, dumb. Civil
rights and black identity movements show how condescending and destructive
scripts need to be changed
Notes… cont… Activism

Many types of disability activism exist. RGT discusses two “quirky cultural
practices”: disabled fashion modeling & academic tolerance

Cultural resymbolisation necessary for real change

Chic model with service dog subversive

Disabled fashion models inadvertent activism--result of market forces n chase for

novelty n a politically correct “diversity” Disability market is a booming enterprise.
Nonetheless changes public perception so not to be dismissed entirely

Aimee mullins prosthetic legs fashion model

Mullins questions 1) the fixation on fixing/curing erasing disability instead of

incorporating it n 2) passing for non-disabled
Notes… Activism… cont

Consumer capitalism and its predatory and emancipatory role

2) academic activism through a culture of intellectual tolerance--being ok with

incoherence, provisional, partial answers n insights