Disturbing bodies – reimagining comforting narratives of embodiment through feminist disability studies

ABSTRACT

The world responds to us because of our embodied selves, and we respond to the world through our embodiedness. Some bodies are admired, some are rejected. Some are perceived as normal, some as abnormal. Hence, bodily differences are not neutral facts. In society there are normative standards of embodiment that people ought to live up to, and anyone who does not is stared at, ignored, feared, or in various ways marginalized through oppressive practices. These practices are legitimated by dominant systems of representation and by cultural narratives that shape the material world, inform human relations, and shape our sense of who we are. This article discusses and challenges the dominant cultural narrative – the normalcy narrative – that makes the able-bodied, rational, male subject the normative standard in society. From a feminist disability perspective, narratives of embodiment are rethought, reimagined, and re-conceptualized.

KEYWORDS:

• Body
• normalcy narrative
• life stories
• feminist disability studies
• ethics

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Mikael Lindfelt and my research colleagues for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for helping me clarify some crucial points in my argumentation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The story is a personal story of mine.

2. The genealogy of body ideals and the emergence of the standard/ideal body are well described by, for example, Lennard J. Davis who is focusing on the linguistic birth of normalcy in the article “Constructing Normalcy” (2010) and by Margrit Shildrick in Dangerous Discourses of Disability, Subjectivity and Sexuality (2009).

3. For one of the most comprehensive overviews over feminist disability theory, see: Feminist Disability Studies (2011) edited by Kim Q. Hall, especially the introduction chapter “Reimagining Disability and Gender through Feminist Disability Studies” by Kim Q. Hall, and chap.1 “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory” by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson.

4. In the article “Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation” (2001), Licia Carlson analyses the dynamics of oppression and power relations in five groups of women who were instrumental in the emergence of the category of ‘feeblemindedness’ in the USA. The article serves as a good background to increasing complex dynamics of oppression. Especially interesting is Carlson's description of how the boundaries of womanhood and motherhood are indicative of the belief that women with cognitive disabilities are the ultimate others.