Disability Studies: Final Project

Julia McGrath

El 4080-WB1: Extraordinary Bodies Disability in Literature

Professor Torrell

15 December 2018

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Disability Studies is a course that analyzes works written by writers with disabilities and characters with physical defects. The course also shows the privilege that able-bodied people have and how they treat those that are deterrent. The purpose of Disability Studies is to look at the interdisciplinary field centering on the social justice of people that are disabled. Social justice works on removing barriers and encumbrance caused by privilege that able-bodied people experience. Disability Studies raises awareness on defects to educate people on those with a physical flaw, also pointing out that regular people should think of them the same as everyone else. This essay will suggest that identity crisis and sex appeal are part of the disabled community, but normal people think they are non-existent.

Disability is defined as being part of a cultural group that is considered as important as other cultural groups. It is a celebration of psychological, physical, cognitive and sensory diversity in order for those affected to thrive in society. Alas, it is to give the disabled regular privileges through political activism. The main aims of Disability Studies are to identify and transform the meanings and representations of disability. The study is to create unity between the privileged and those that are looked down upon because of a physical impediment.

Within the field of disability, there are theorists and writers who limelight the whole purpose of Disability Studies and their role in it. The first writer is Nancy Mairs who had written a book called "Waist-High in the World." The book is about her struggle with MS. She also speaks about her love life and how the world treated her. Her exemplifies that nonable-bodied people are normal and live like everyone else, they are just restricted. An example would be Mairs explaining that she needed help getting dressed in the morning, showering, going to the bathroom, and eating. This is not "normal" to others but it is for her. It was her routine and she was fine with it. She wanted to redefine how people look at disabled people and the stereotypes attached to them: asexual, suicidal, etc. She had a sex life, it was just different. And she was more than happy with her life. Her MS made her realize that life is too short.

The second writer is Simi Linton who had written "My Body Politic." Linton shares her life as a normal person living in the 1970s as a hippie. That all changed when she got into a motor vehicle accident, killing her best friend and husband while paralyzing her. It was hard for her to adjust because she went from walking and not having a worry in the world to not being able to move. She went through physical and emotional disability as she learned to adjust to physical restriction while trying to deal with the death of her best friend and husband. At first, she did not accept being in a wheelchair and did not want to be part of the disabled community out of fear. Her overall message is that she wrote a book, creating an organization for the disabled and sexual experience. She was an advocate for those who were disabled and fought for equality.

The last is a theorist named Rosemarie Garland-Thompson who writes about disability and the overall purpose of the study. In her article "Shape Structures Story: Fresh and Feisty Stories about Disability", she speaks not only about Mairs and Linton but about the human body in a disabled limelight. She speaks on the structure of the human body being "predictable and tractable" (2). Those that are able-bodied do not think external defects and permanent nuisance will happen to them. Because most people think the human body is predictable, if they do not have something wrong with them, they believe that they will go their whole life without an injury that can temporarily or permanently disable them. Her purpose is to explain that the human body is unpredictable and that anyone can reach physical disability, whether he or she gets into an accident, break a bone or become physically incapable with age.

A few main issues and concerns with disability are identity confusion and sex. Most people who are disabled are not individuals but products of society. The able-bodied people make them all out to be the same when in reality, all disabled people are different and are individualistic. Another trouble is with the disabled being considered asexual when in reality, they love sex as well. Society loves promoting lethargic restraint as a sympathetic life when it is not restrictive. Some people who are disabled might feel that way while others are prideful about having a defect. It depends on the person.

One work analyzed in the course is the short story "Cinderella." The short story foreshadows the hard times of Cinderella who has to deal with the pain of her mother's death and how her stepmother and stepsisters treat her. In the short story, her skills were limited by the stepmother, who had no faith in her abilities, "that she most certainly cannot do," (2) she said after ordering Cinderella to do a task. In the end, the wicked stepmother's real daughters end up as foot amputees by cutting off their heels and toes to fit into the slipper, just so that they could marry the prince. Later, their eyes are pecked out by white doves and pigeons; disabilities portraying metaphorical blindness. Their physical disabilities declare that the real daughters suffered from an identity crisis as they were blinded by riches and unhumble by nature. They were focused on what everyone else wanted, a handsome rich prince rather than being true to themselves.

The second work is a poem by Cheryl Marie Wade, titled "I Am Not One Of The…" This poem has a line that sums up sex, "I'm pink lace panties teasing a stub of milk white thigh" (line 12). This goes into stereotypes about disabled people being asexual. This sums up disability studies because the general public would not think that the disabled participate in sex because of their circumstances, but they find other and more creative ways to please arousal. Most people view sexual nature in the disabled as invisible. This poem asserts that sexuality and arousal should not be stereotyped for only normal people to participate in. Those who are physically disabled should not be discriminated against because their defect makes them less "desirable."

The benefits of negative representations of disability in research are identity and sex. Julia Miele Rodas' article "Identity" goes into the individuality of the disabled and how they are all viewed the same. Rodas goes into this by saying "disability identity...is...being grounded in narratives of oppression" (2). This quote highlights the negative benefits of disability because it is saying that the able-bodied are not "oppressed" simply because they have nothing physically wrong with them; subjugation is not just physical. Above illustrates that the disabled are not allowed to be different from one another and because of apparent physical incapability, they are easily controlled. Furthermore, Robert McRuer's article on sexuality and how sex "categorizes...certain bodies and...desires as 'abnormal'" (1). The benefit of negative connotations toward sexuality is that sex is looked at pleasure and rebellious. The disabled are looked at as "innocent" and because of that, it is implausible to be debaucherous because they are not able-bodied.

The benefits of positive representations are that "normal" people are given a newer idea of the disabled. Rodas explains that identity "is the idea of the self-understood within and against the social context" (1). This quote shows positivity because it elaborates on the fact that all people should have their own identity. A physical disability does not create who someone is. Lastly, McRuer explains that sexuality is for everyone. He says "the form of disabled people's complex positioning in new systems of sexual and disabled identities" (3) allows for the disabled to have sexual experience, even if they have to be positioned differently. Furthermore, he comments on how sex components the means of being a "human being" (2). The benefit with this research is that all humans should enjoy sexual encounters, no matter if they are restricted for any type of reason.

The field of Disability Studies is important to show that the disabled look different but are the same as everyone else. They have jobs, families and like to have fun. They are perceived as asexual, weird and emotionless because they are different, but this is far from the truth. They want love and friendship. They may not have the same benefits as the able-bodied but that is because they are a minority, and no one cares for the minority. Most of the disabled hate when others sympathize for them or try to assist them with tasks. They want to be treated normally.

The most important insight taught was actually hidden behind physical disabilities. Most people look at physical flaws rather than emotional and mental problems. This is the most significant because in all the works discussed in the class anyone can experience disability: physical (broken bones, paralyzed), emotional (mental disorder, stress, trauma) and verbal (bullying). Most disability writers and characters suffer from some type of emotional and mental trauma---as most people do --- even if they have a physical problem.

Disability Studies is also crucial because all of the characters explained throughout this paper suffer from mental defects but experience physical disability. Charlotte Bronte's book "Jane Eyre" is a great paradigm. All the characters in "Jane Eyre" experience physical and psychological disability. Some are physically and verbally abused, or like Mr. Rochester, experience blindness after losing an eye because his wife, Bertha, sets fire to Thornfield after being locking in a room by him for ten years. Mr. Rochester's blindness is metaphorical because his wife displayed manly traits, something that he did not like. It made him feel less masculine. It is fair to say that everyone is disabled, even if it goes unnoticed. Most people assume that if someone acts "normal" or is not physically defected that he or she has no problem when in reality, people hide their problems because he or she are scared to admit that there is something wrong with them. Disability has a bad reputation and some people will shun those that have a mental problem.

Disability studies point out the positives and negatives of stereotypes within the disability community. The sole purpose of the study is to transform the way the majority look at those who have a physical defect, changing the way privilege is evened out. Works like "Waist-High in the World", "My Body Politic", "Cinderella" and "I Am Not One of the" focus on the identity and sexual disconnection within the disabled community. Alas, being disabled is also emotional and psychological, creating barriers with those that have a physical defect. Research within disability studies proves that the disabled can live normal lives and should stop being treated differently from society's deemed normality.

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Works Cited

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. "Shape Structures Story: Fresh and Feisty Stories about Disability." NARRATIVE, Vol. 15, No. 1 (January 2007). Copyright 2007 by The Ohio State University.

Grimm Jacob and Wilhelm. "Cinderella." Household Tales. Vol. XVII, Part 2. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909-14; Bartleby.com, 2001. 18 August 2005. www.bartleby.com/17/2/.

Linton, Simi. "My Body Politic." Copyright 2006 by The University of Michigan Press.

Mairs, Nancy. "Waist-High In The World." Beacon Press, 25 beacon street. Boston Massachusetts 02108-2892. Copyright 1992.lose

McRuer, Robert. "Sexuality." Keywords for Disability Studies. Eds. Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss and David Serlin. New York: New York University Press, 2015. https://keywords.nyupress.org/disability-studies/essay/sexuality/

Rodas, Julia Miele. "Identity." Keywords for Disability Studies. Eds. Rachel Adams, Benjamin Reiss and David Serlin. New York: New York University Press, 2015. https://keywords.nyupress.org/disability-studies/essay/identity/

Wade, Cheryl Marie. "I Am not One of the." Ms, Nov 1991; 2, 3; Research Library pg. 57. https://bboldwestbury.sln.suny.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-366975-dt-content-rid-1719007_1/courses/201809-OLD-EL-4080-WBL/I%20am%20not%20one%20of%20the.pdf.