Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-21T21:48:36.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Susan Wendell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addelson, Kathryn P. 1983. The man of professional wisdom. In Discovering reality. Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill B. eds., Boston: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Alcoff, Linda. 1988. Cultural feminism versus poststructuralism: The identity crisis in feminist theory. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13 (3):405–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bullard, David G. and Knight, Susan E. eds., 1981. Sexuality and physical disa‐bility. St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.Google Scholar
Bury, M.R. 1979. Disablement in society: Towards an integrated perspective. International Journal of Rehabilitation Research 2 (1):33–40.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beauvoir, Simone de. 1952. The second sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Campling, Jo, ed. 1981. Images of ourselves ‐ women with disabilities talking. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Davis, Barbara Hillyer. 1984. Women, disability and feminism: Notes toward a new theory. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies VIII(1):1–5.Google Scholar
Davis, Melanie and Marshall, Catherine. 1987. Female and disabled: Challenged women in education. National Women's Studies Association Perspectives 5:39–41.Google Scholar
Dinnerstein, Dorothy. 1976. The mermaid and the minotaur: Sexual arrange' ments and human malaise. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Dierdre. 1979. For her own good: 150 years of the experts' advice to women. New York: Anchor.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, Michelle and Asch, Adrienne eds., 1988. Women with disabilities: Essays in psychology, culture and politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Finger, Anne. 1983. Disability and reproductive rights, off our backs.Google Scholar
Fisher, Bernice and Galler, Roberta. 1981. Conversation between two friends about feminism and disability, off our backs 11 (5):14–15.Google Scholar
Frank, Gelya. 1988. On embodiment: A case study of congenital limb deficiency in American culture. In Women with disabilities. Fine, Michelle and Asch, Adrienne eds., Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Griffin, Susan. 1981. Pornography and silence: Culture's revenge against nature. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Griffin, Susan. 1982. The way of all ideology. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 8 (3):641–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halpern, Sue M. 1988. Portrait of the artist. Review of Under the eye of the clock by Christopher Nolan. The New York Review of Books, June 30:3–4.Google Scholar
Hannaford, Susan. 1985. Living outside inside. A disabled woman's experience. Towards a social and political perspective. Berkeley: Canterbury Press.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, Toni. 1982. The mile‐high staircase. Sydney: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder and Meyers, Diana T. eds., 1987. Women and moral theory. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kleinman, Arthur. 1988. The illness narratives: Suffering, healing, and the human condition. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lessing, Jill. 1981. Denial and disability, off our backs 11 (5):21.Google Scholar
Madruga, Lenor. 1979. One step at a time. Toronto: McGraw‐Hill.Google Scholar
Matthews, Gwyneth Ferguson. 1983. Voices from the shadows: Women with disabilities speak out. Toronto: Women's Educational Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Maureen. 1985. Coping with pelvic inflammatory disease. In Women and Disability. Rooney, Frances and Israel, Pat eds., Resources for Feminist Research 14 (1).Google Scholar
Newsweek. 1988. Reading God's mind. June 13. 56–59.Google Scholar
Ramsay, A. Melvin. 1986. Postoiral fatigue syndrome, the saga of Royal Free disease London: Gower Medical Publishing.Google Scholar
Rawlinson, Mary C. 1983. The facticity of illness and the appropriation of health. In Phenomenology in a pluralistic context. McBride, William L. and Schrag, Calvin O. eds., Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Rich, Adrienne. 1976. Of woman bom: Motherhood as experience and institution. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Rooney, Frances and Israel, Pat eds., 1985. Women and disability. Resources for Feminist Research 14 (1).Google Scholar
Sacks, Oliver. 1988. The revolution of the deaf. The blew York Review of Books, June 2, 23–28.Google Scholar
Shaul, Susan L. and Bogle, Jane Elder. 1981. Body image and the woman with a disability. In Sexuality and physical disability. Bullard, David G. and Knight, Susan E. eds., St. Louis: C.V. Mosby.Google Scholar
Sherwin, Susan. 1984-85. A feminist approach to ethics. Dalhousie Review 64 (4):704–713.Google Scholar
Sherwin, Susan. 1987. Feminist ethics and in vitro fertilization. In Science, morality and feminist theory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai eds., Calgary: The University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Sontag, Susan. 1977. Illness as metaphor. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
U.N. Decade of Disabled Persons 1983–1992. 1983. World programme of action concerning disabled persons. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
Whitbeck, Caroline. Afterword to the maternal instinct. In Mothering: Essays in feminist theory. Trebilcot, Joyce ed., Totowa: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Zaner, Richard M. 1983. Flirtations or engagement? Prolegomenon to a philosophy of medicine. In Phenomenology in a pluralistic context. McBride, William L. and Schrag, Calvin O. eds., Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar