Feminist Perspectives on Disability

Barbara Fawcett

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317878650
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médecine
• Subtopic: Prestation de soins de santé

Feminist Perspectives on Disability provides a unique introduction to the key debates in relation to both feminism and disability. The author considers contemporary similarities, differences and contentious areas and how concepts drawn from postmodern feminism can be usefully applied to the disability arena. The book explores many important aspects of the field, including: biological debates; issues of power, knowledge, equality, difference, subjectivity and the body; interface of public and private/care and community; medical and social barriers; politics, citizenship and identity.Feminist Perspectives on Disability will be compulsory reading for students of all levels in Women's Studies, Gender Relations, Social Policy, Social Work/Social Care and social Science.

Chapter 1

Setting the scene

Now we must recognise differences among [disabled people] who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each others’ difference to enrich our visions and our joint struggles.

(Audre Lorde 1984: 122; ‘disabled people’ has been substituted for ‘women’)

Chapter outline

An overview of key issues in terms of writing about disability:

• who should write about disability?
• feminism(s) as opposed to feminism
• ‘disabled people’ and ‘women’ as undifferentiated unitary groupings
• the place of experience
• issues about appropriation
• the structure of the book overall

Introduction

Disability and writing about disability are currently regarded as contentious areas. The formulation of the social model of disability has resulted in searing attacks on previously accepted ways of viewing disability and also upon non-disabled authors and writers ‘colonising’ the field and producing material of little benefit to disabled people (Oliver 1996). In turn, although there are notable exceptions, issues of gender are only just starting to feature strongly in writings which emphasise the social model of disability. In an introduction to a book focusing on feminist perspectives of disability, these are areas which require consideration.

In this chapter, as a means of setting the scene, various feminist perspectives associated with liberal feminism, radical feminism, socialist feminism, black feminism and ecofeminism, will be reviewed. The difficulties associated with viewing ‘disabled people’ and women as homogeneous, unified groupings rather than as very different and diverse associations will also be explored. Additionally, issues related to writing about ‘disability’ will be appraised and concerns such as those voiced by Oliver (1996) examined.

The language used in relation to ‘disability’ will be critically reviewed throughout this book. However, it is useful to point out at this early stage that with regard to general definitions of ‘disability’ and ‘impairment’, the formulations devised by the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) will be adhered to. These definitions are explored in more detail in Chapter 2, but it is pertinent to outline at this point, that ‘impairment’ is defined as ‘lacking part of or all of a limb or having a defective limb, organ or mechanism of the body’ and ‘disability’ is defined as ‘the disadvantage or restriction of activity caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have mainstream impairments and thus excludes them from participation in the mainstream of social activities’ (UPIAS 1976, cited in Oliver 1996: 22).

Feminist perspectives

Within feminist movements, there is now an acknowledgement that there are feminisms as opposed to feminism. Key distinctions can be made between ‘liberal’ feminism and ‘radical’ feminism. Additional feminisms can be identified as socialist feminism, black feminism and ecofeminism. Jary and Jary (1991), drawing from Palmer (1989), also list academic feminism, cultural feminism (which is also associated with radical feminism), lesbian feminism, psychoanalytic feminism and political lesbianism. A brief outline is given below of the first five feminisms cited and it has to be borne in mind that within these feminisms there are also many points of overlap and multiple variations.

Liberal feminism is wide-ranging, but generally there can be seen to be a focus on a critique of socialisation processes and the creation of sex role stereotypes. Attention is drawn particularly to the unequal ways in which women, as compared to men, have been treated in educational and employment spheres and the manner in which occupations regarded as ‘female’ have been devalued. Emphasis is placed on issues of equality, on changing socialisation processes, on re-education and upon legislative measures to overcome discrimination. Sexual difference and a focus on women’s particular needs and characteristics are not highlighted and equality is seen as obtainable. As Prince (1993) points out, there is an appeal to the inherent rationality of individuals and a belief that practices, such as positive discrimination, anti-sexist education and the identification of positive female role models, should alter perceptions and result in a genuine equality of opportunities and experiences. There can be seen to be many similarities here with exponents of the social model of disability with its insistence on autonomy, control and enforceable equal rights legislation.

Radical feminism is also wide-ranging. However, in contrast to liberal feminism, there is a strong critique of patriarchy. Women’s differences from men are revalued and positively highlighted and power imbalances are emphasised. Differential treatment for women and men is seen to result from the ways in which formal social structures (education, marriage, etc.) reinforce and reproduce women’s negative positioning. Rather than re-education being emphasised, there is a focus on challenging masculinist systems which are presented as being rational, objective and neutral. Feminist standpoint theory can be seen to have links with this perspective, as can orientations developed by writers such as Irigaray (1993) which celebrate difference and separatism by focusing on cultural and historical factors, rather than on biological factors.

Socialist feminism has sought to incorporate a class analysis within a liberatory perspective. Women’s class position within capitalism and the subordinate positioning of women within the family are seen as the basis for challenge. Economic exploitation and sexual oppression are regarded as key focal points, but there are tensions in that economic exploitation relates to class position and will not apply to all women, whilst sexual oppression arguably will. As Jackson (1993) points out, Marxism has been found by many to be an unwieldy and inappropriate tool for exploring gender divisions. This has resulted in many feminists focusing on the cultural construction of masculinity and femininity as a means of overcoming women’s oppression.

Ecofeminism links campaigns to end oppression against women with campaigns to end the exploitation of the ecosystem, whilst black feminism(s) is concerned with addressing racism both within and beyond women’s movements and highlighting and countering the particular oppressions that face black women. Stanlie M. James asserts that black feminism(s) is about both theorising and taking ‘a proactive/reactive stance of pragmatic activism which addresses those issues deemed deleterious to the well-being of black women’ (James 1993: 2). Black feminism posed a key challenge to the assumed universality of the feminist movement in the 1970s and can be seen to have paved the way for explorations of difference and diversity. Similar challenges can be seen to be emerging in relation to the ‘universalism’ of disabled people’s movements, based on the social model of disability, by calls for the inclusion of issues related to gender, ‘race’, impairment, ethnicity and age.

The critique of knowledge frameworks, seen to be dominated by white male eurocentric perspectives, has been a key feature of all feminisms. The various feminisms have therefore sought alternative ways of generating knowledge. Harding (1986, 1990) maintains that three distinct strands can be identified. These are feminist empiricism which seeks to identify and remove sexist and androcentric bias by stricter adherence to existing methodological scientific enquiry; feminist standpoint, which by exploring women’s lives from feminist perspectives and by taking full account of experiences of oppression claims to produce a less distorted and more realistic form of knowledge than previously; and feminist postmodernism. Harding does not regard these strands as distinct and separate and there are many points of overlap. Although Harding uses arguments derived from postmodern feminist perspectives to critique feminist standpoint and feminist empiricism, she appears reluctant to embrace postmodern feminist perspectives because of the implications for the deconstruction of gender.¹ She also argues that in relation to political action, a standpoint approach has to have a place. In relation to how these approaches have been linked to feminism(s), some forms of feminist empiricism have been associated with liberal feminism and there are links between feminist standpoint and radical feminism, although reformulations of standpoint epistemology (e.g. Hartsock 1996), discussed further in Chapter 3, have points of comparison with postmodern feminism(s).

Within disability rights movements based on the social model of disability, emphasis is placed both on the challenging of able-bodied knowledge claims and on personal experiences of disablism. However, there is a clear focus on the full integration of disabled people into society on the basis of rights-based citizenship entitlements, rather than in relation to separatist claims. Criticism of the social model of disability has tended to result in calls for the further development of the model, for greater theorisation, and for issues of gender, impairment, difference and diversity to be taken into account, rather than for different models or conceptualisations to be formulated. Many writers have contributed (e.g. French 1993; Morris 1993a, 1996a; Crow 1996; Shakespeare 1996; Wendell 1996; Pinder 1996, 1997; Johnston 1997; Shakespeare and Watson 1997) and their suggestions will be reviewed in the context of the discussion relating to how feminism(s) can be used both as a point of comparison and as a critical tool with regard to the social model of disability and disability rights movements. These areas are discussed in Chapter 3.

Undifferentiated unitary groupings

This area is considered in greater detail in Chapter 3, but it is important to emphasise here the difficulties associated with viewing ‘women’ or ‘disabled people’ as comprising undifferentiated unitary groupings. Diverse organisations such as government agencies, social services departments, health trusts, exponents of disability rights campaigns and feminist organisations in the early 1970s, all use or have used such broad-brush categorisation processes. With regard to feminism in the 1970s, as Fawcett and Featherstone (1994a) outline, there was a strong commitment to resisting the ways in which women had been separated from each other by men. Sisterhood was emphasised as a way of establishing solidarity and unity and as a means of challenging common bonds of discrimination and oppression. However, within feminism, black women and white working class women found difficulty in espousing common cause with perspectives which were seen to reflect white women’s middle class concerns. Differences, in relation to forms of disadvantage, discrimination and oppression emerged, as did factors associated with different social, cultural, racial and economic circumstances.

Disability rights movements based on the social model of disability have also emphasised unity rather than diversity. As highlighted in Chapter 3, there are those such as Begum (1992), Morris (1993a) and Crow (1996) who from within the social model of disability want to explore differences related to gender, age, ‘race’, ethnicity and impairment. There are others such as Oliver (1996) and Finkelstein (1993a) who are wary of the consequences of exploring these areas, because of the implications for the unity of the movement and the coherence of the social model. This stance has political advantages in terms of pressing for rights-based citizenship entitlements for disabled people, but a disadvantage could be seen to be an assumed homogeneity. As with feminism(s), assumed and projected similarities can lead to challenge and fragmentation.

Chapter 3 explores how problems and developments within disability rights movements can be seen to be mirroring problems and developments within feminist movements. However, at this stage the difficulties associated with projected homogeneity have considerable relevance and lead on to the question: who qualifies as a disabled person?

With regard to the social model of disability, all those who are discriminated against by others on the basis of perceived impairments would be seen to qualify as disabled people. However, this is far from straightforward, as is demonstrated by the case of ME (or myalgic encephalomyelitis). ME is a condition that impairs, but this is an impairment that may not be recognised by others. Disabling processes in this instance can be seen to be twofold in that initially an individual has to fight to be accepted as disabled; once accepted they then have to contend with the difficulties associated with living in a disabling society. There are also universalising gender stereotypes to consider. Some disabling perspectives, for example, can regard disability as being more psychologically acceptable for a woman than for a man, in that a woman can be seen to be more conditioned to accept depe...