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Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Susan Wendell
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Abstract

We need a feminist theory of disability, both because 16 percent of women are disabled, and because the oppression of disabled people is closely linked to the cultural oppression of the body. Disability is not a biological given; like gender, it is socially constructed from biological reality. Our culture idealizes the body and demands that we control it. Thus, although most people will be disabled at some time in their lives, the disabled are made “the other,” who symbolize failure of control and the threat of pain, limitation, dependency, and death. If disabled people and their knowledge were fully integrated into society, everyone's relation to her/his real body would be liberated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 4 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Feminist Ethics and Medicine , Summer 1989 , pp. 104 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Hypatia, Inc.

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