Feminist disability studies ed. by Kim Q. Hall (review)
- Feminist disability studies ed. by Kim Q. Hall
The last few years have seen feminist bioethics experiencing a growing interest in the theme of disability: how bioethics as a whole can or should approach disability, and how the different perspectives brought by feminist bioethics can contribute to bioethical thinking about it. This interest was apparent in the pioneer work of disabled feminists such as Adrienne Asch, continued through the engagement of feminist theorists like Eva Feder Kittay, and appears more generally in feminist bioethics, for example in Jackie Leach Scully's "Disability Bioethics," in the section on disability in Feminist Bioethics: At the Center, on the Margins (Scully, Baldwin-Ragaven, and Fitzpatrick 2010), and in IJFAB's special issue of Fall 2010. Feminist bioethical work on disability necessarily draws on the related body of work from feminist disability studies. This collection, edited by Kim Q. Hall, is a welcome addition to that literature.
In the second part of this review I will consider the usefulness of (feminist) disability studies to (feminist) bioethical thinking. First, however, I will outline the book's contents; without discussing all the contributions in detail, it is important to give a taste of the breadth and scope, not merely of this collection, but of feminist disability studies as a whole. [End Page 166]
Hall's introduction draws attention to the basic argument of feminist disability scholars, which states that what links disability studies and feminist theory is rather more fundamental than just the fact of being two marginalized perspectives on a particular kind of experience. She notes that "feminist disability studies reimagines disability . . . [and] it also reimagines gender. As such, feminist disability studies does not just add disabled women's experiences to scholarship in disability studies and feminist theory. Instead . . . it transforms both fields" (1). This point was made authoritatively in Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's landmark paper "Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory," which appeared in 2002 and is reprinted here, with a new afterword, as the first chapter of Part One. Garland-Thomson puts the case succinctly:
Both feminism and disability studies are comparative and concurrent academic enterprises. Just as feminism has expanded the lexicon of what we imagine as womanly, has sought to understand and destigmatize what we call the subject position of woman, so has disability studies examined the identity disabled . . . both are insurgencies that are becoming institutionalized, underpinning inquiries outside and inside the academy. A feminist disability theory builds on the strengths of both.
(14)
But Garland-Thomson also notes that mutual benefit between the disciplines is slow to accrue. While feminist theories are only just beginning to include disability as a category of identity and experience that affects women, current disability studies also "does a great deal of wheel reinventing" because disability studies scholars are often unfamiliar with feminist theory and its political and intellectual history (13). The tricky balance to keep here is to hold an awareness of the analogies between gender and disability, and between feminism and disability activism, without losing sight of their differences. This means each will have its own intellectual and practical trajectory.
Garland-Thomson's chapter is one of two contributions to Part One, which focuses on the theoretical framework for feminist disability studies. Following Garland-Thomson's more general overview, Ellen Samuels uses the work of Judith Butler as an example of how feminist theory may illuminate disability—but also to show that the new light can be rather limited. As Samuels notes, a growing number of feminist disability scholars are now turning to Butler as a theoretical resource for understanding how bodies are culturally made. While valuing Butler's writing on the performativity of gender, sexuality, and race, Samuels highlights the nonappearance of the disabled body, concluding that "when we utilize Butler's [End Page 167] [or any other theorist's] work without addressing [their] limitations, we incorporate the limitations into our own critique" (55).
Subsequent sections move on from theoretical background to disciplinary applications. In Part Two, Susannah B. Mintz explores Georgina Kline's collection of autobiographical essays Sight Unseen. A characteristic feature of...
