We Are All Beautiful

How many times have we seen before and after pictures of various people?  The before pictures usually have poor lighting, no smiles, lack lustre makeup and so on, whereas the after picture is bright and cheery, big smiles, nice clothes, in other words very appealing to the eye.  So how do people with disabilities feel when they are almost always portrayed as the "before" picture.  It's a double edged sword.  Take an ad for example, if a disabled person appears to be happy and confident, where's the need for additional funding or for changes to be made?  It doesn't pull at your pity strings.  If the ad is promoted by using a sad and lonely looking person, particularly a child, sitting in a wheelchair looking like they just lost their best friend, chance are people are more willing to donate money or try and advocate for change.  For the disabled community, these constant images are hurtful and do nothing to restore their confidence.   

When it comes to women with disabilities, even more intensely than women in general, they have been cast in the collective cultural imagination as inferior, lacking, excessive, incapable, unfit, and useless.  In contrast to normatively feminine women, women with disabilities are often stereotypically considered undesirable, asexual, and unsuitable as parents (Garland-Thomson, 2005, p. 1567).  For example, in the movie Million Dollar Baby, Hillary Swank was portrayed as a beautiful, strong and confident woman.  After she suffered her boxing accident and became a quadriplegic, everything went dark.  She was now a sad, hopeless victim that was near death.  She had pale skin, her hair was unkempt, and her overall appearance was dishevelled.  Her life was now all about dying, after all why would she want to live.  The film evoked feelings of hopelessness and tearing down such attitudinal barriers is one of feminist disability studies’ aims.  Self-determination and empowerment have become key words among those committed to the cause of people with disabilities.

Feminist disability studies want to change the stereotypes about people with disabilities; it seeks to challenge our dominant assumptions about living with a disability.   Some of the same attitudes about the body which contribute to women’s oppression generally also contribute to the social and psychological disablement of people who have physical disabilities.  Disabled women struggle with both the oppressions of being women in male-dominated societies and the oppressions of being disabled in societies dominated by the able-bodied.  Idealizing the body prevents everyone, able-bodied and disabled, from identifying with and loving her or his real body and there is so much pressure put on women as it is. In addition, disabled women suffer more than disabled men from the demand that people have “ideal” bodies, because in patriarchal culture people judge women more by their bodies than they do men (Wendell, 1989, p. 105,112)

Feminists that study women and disability question our assumptions by using precise language that may seem convoluted when talking about disability.  This language calls attention to the hidden norm that lurks behind our understandings of disability, one that makes some bodies seem naturally deficient or excessive and others seem superior (Garland-Thompson, 2005, p.1559).  Words that were once used to describe a person with a disability are now thought to be derogatory and inappropriate.  Instead of using “handicapped” we now use “disabled”, or “wheelchair bound” is now “wheelchair user”.  The disabled community is trying to educate members of society on the positive aspects of being a person living with a disability, not “suffering” from one.  In the journal article written by Alexa Schriempf, she quotes a woman by the name of Liz Crow who states, “It wasn't my body that was responsible for all my difficulties. It was external factors and barriers constructed by the society in which I live. I was being disabled my capabilities and opportunities were being restricted by prejudice, discrimination, inaccessible environments and inadequate support” (2001, p. 59).

In general, it seems that people have a much more compassionate understanding of the struggles that the disabled encounter, society still has a long way to go in the acceptance and understanding of women and disabilities.  “Feminists have criticized the paradigms for not addressing women’s issues, thus rendering women invisible” (Mullaly, 2007, p. 160).  Self-advocacy groups provide support, working together to fight for the rights of these oppressed individuals, however we still need to show a stronger influence.  We need to give these women a voice.

References:

Garland-Thomson, R. (2005). Feminist Disability Studies. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society.  Volume: 30, Issue: 2: 1557-1587. Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Mullaly, B. (2007).  The New Structural Social Work (3^rd Ed.) Canada: Oxford University Press.

Schriempf, A. (2001), (Re)fusing the Amputated Body: An Interactionist Bridge for Feminism and Disability. Hypatia, 16: 53–79.

Wendell, S. (1989). Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability. Hypatia, 4: 104–124.

Shauna Richardson