By Hayley Dillon
This project focuses on Feminist Disability Studies – a theoretical framework that helps us understand how gender and disability, along with other identities, intersect and create unique experiences. My artwork and interest in this topic is highly influenced by Rosemarie Garland Thomson’s work, specifically her piece “Feminist Disability Studies.” There are several different aims of feminist disability studies, including destigmatizing the idea of living with a disability, fighting against the belief that disability is an inherent deficiency that makes a person worth less than nondisabled people, and understanding disability as simply a variance of humanity – not something to fight to eliminate. (Garland Thomson, “Feminist Disability Studies, 2005)
I chose this topic because as a disabled woman the overwhelming stigma of disability and the systemic barriers that punish disability are things that I interact with on a daily basis. There is no escaping our identities, and combatting the stigma and stereotypes that come with being a disabled woman not only provides me strength but can help bolster that strength for others. I chose to do this project in visual art form, not only because I am an artist and enjoy making art, but because I rarely see depictions of disabled folks in art. Nondisabled folks can be seen everywhere, they are the “norm” and the expectation when we view photography, art, animation, and media.
Disabled people are not often what society thinks of when talking about “beauty,” and I have personally seen how disabled people are mocked by others based on appearance, mobility, and other visible markers of disability. There are so many people telling disabled folks that we can’t be beautiful as we are, and that we don’t belong in art. However, that’s not the case at all. With my art, I want to create a space for disabled bodies to exist outside of medical journals and research papers. I also would like to use my art to call attention to the different issues facing disabled Americans.
Synopsis of the first piece:
For my first piece, I wanted to focus on the idea of femininity and disability as perceived inherent deficits. Although these two identities are viewed as separate, they are both attacked from the same idea of a flaw or wrongness compared to the dominant group of male and nondisabled. In order to represent this connection, I combined disability and female symbolism in the piece. This piece depicts a woman with a brain surgery scar, and from that scar I painted pink flowers. The pink flowers (which are a stereotypical feminine symbol) stem from the scar at the base of the woman’s skull (visible marker of chronic condition and surgery). I also added the sign for female in the painting, with the circle of the symbol around her head, the stem being her body, and the pink line across to finish the symbol. This showcases the idea that femaleness and disability are perceived as and attacked from the same basis of an apparent “deficit.”
I wanted this piece to draw this connection between disability and femininity, but I also wanted to make this piece look very pretty. I wanted this first piece, the entrance into this project, to create beauty out of disability. So often disabled bodies are seen as pictured of tragedy and wrongness, and I wanted to combat this idea by purposefully making this piece a very visually appealing peace. The fact that this woman in the picture has beautiful pink flowers emanating from her scar (something that would often be regarded as ‘ugly’ or regarded with sorrow) shows how we can be confident and beautiful in the bodies that we have.
Synopsis for the second piece:
My second piece is focusing on how disability specifically affects women and, as this piece illustrates, how young women specifically deal with ableism from a young age. I wanted to emphasize how gender roles and expectations for disabled folks are intersecting and creating a unique experience for disabled women. In the piece, a young girl who struggles with a learning disability is attempting to complete an English assignment, but she is having a hard time understanding the material. The words on her arms are the words of her teachers who she overhears saying “Don’t help her,” “Defiant,” “Not paying attention,” “Something is wrong with her,” “she can still be a housewife.” The words not only express the situation that she is in, but also show how she is internalizing her teacher’s words and showing that they stick with her.
Education, even now, is not viewed as of the same importance between girls and boys. If a girl is “pretty enough” or “good wife material,” she doesn’t have to excel in academics. Intelligence in women is often valued less than intelligence in men, hence why women tend to have lower self confidence in their studies. This lack of value of girls education can even be seen in special education. More boys are enrolled in special education than girls and, since diagnostic procedures are catered towards boys, research and diagnosis of learning disabilities and neurodivergence in girls is way lower than the actual number of young girls struggling with these things. Recently, there have been an influx of young adult women getting diagnosed with ADHD, Dyslexia, and a host of other neurodivergences who had to struggle in school their whole lives because of the discrepancy of diagnostic principles in special education and psychology. Instead of their academic struggles being investigated like their male counterparts, young girls are labeled as “defiant students,” “lazy,” simply not “naturally gifted,” and “troublemakers.” The expectations of girls in academics and the high gendered diagnostic procedures for neurodivergence and learning disabilities has had a vastly negative impact on women’s success in school, and has impacted not only their grades, but their confidence in themselves.
Synopsis for the third piece:
For the third piece for my project on Feminist Disability Studies, I am focusing on disability and motherhood. Disabled parents are highly stigmatized, and often have a hard time receiving care and support when thinking about having kids. There is a lot of exploitation that goes on in the legal system when it comes to disabled parents. For example, in divorce proceedings, nondisabled partners will often leverage a parent’s disability in order to gain custody of a child. Furthermore, disabled parents are often seen as incapable for caring for their children, and it is incredibly common for children to be forcefully removed from their homes because of this belief.
Disabled women have been forcibly sterilized (more so in the early 1900s, but it is something that still occurs to this day) and are chastised for even thinking about having children. The general public and healthcare professionals are largely negative about disabled women bearing children – fearful that either the mother will be unable to care for the child properly, but even more afraid that the child will be disabled. Disabled parents are encouraged to not have children in fear that they will produce more disabled individuals. This is in part because of capitalism running off of healthy babies being produced by healthy parents so that when their children are old enough to work, they can contribute to the economy and keep capitalism running. Society sees disabled folks as a threat to capitalism because disability itself questions the ideals of capitalism. Thus, disability is shunned, parents are blamed for having disabled children, and disabled parents are berated for having children.
Disabled women specifically have a very unique relationship with motherhood. Most nondisabled women are constantly told that they should be having children and are chastised if they choose not to have children. They are told that it is a woman’s duty to have children and only true women have kids. On the other hand, we have disabled women who are told not to have children and are punished if they decide to. As disabled women, they are already perceived as less feminine, and their relationship with motherhood changes in comparison to their nondisabled counterparts. For this piece, I wanted to focus on how disabled mothers are so often robbed of their motherhood by an external party – whether a spouse, caretaker, the legal system, etc.
In this piece, a young woman is holding her baby protectively while a stranger’s hand tries to take her baby. Two other hands in the piece work in conjunction as one tries to keep her still and the other eerily comforts her. The woman has a tear falling down her cheek. I wanted to convey the desperation of a parent trying to hold tight to her child while dealing with the resigned fate of having little to no control of what these people are going to do. These strangers’ hands are meant to represent the government and CPS. In the background of the piece the question, “who is allowed to be” is written out alongside braille. I added braille into this piece because the woman in the piece is blind. Since blindness does not have a singular look, I wanted to use braille to convey her disability through the piece. The question of “who is allowed to be” refers to “who is allowed to be a mother?” I purposefully dropped the word ‘mother’ to allow the woman’s picture to represent the word itself. However, the question can create two different meanings depending on who is seeing this piece. One could also say that the question “who is allowed to be?” would apply to the idea of “who is allowed to exist in society.” Both of these questions are essential to social justice and disability studies and so I opted to keep the question more open ended.
Synopsis for the fourth piece:
This is the fourth and final artwork in my Feminist Disability Studies project, and I wanted to end on happier note by focusing on disability pride. Disability Pride is an important part of disability studies and disability justice because disabled people have been taught to regard their disability with shame and resentment. Disabled people are encouraged to forgo mobility aids and medical devices in the pursuit of looking “normal.” This negativity about disability causes disabled folks to feel broken and burdensome, and many feel the need to hide and try to conform to an “able-bodied” ideal that not even nondisabled folks can live up to. Despite Disability simply being a natural difference in humanity, just like skin color, hair color, eye color, height, weight, etc., disability is treated as a criminal offense. Disabled people are constantly encouraged to be the least disabled they can be, to hide everything that makes them disabled and try to act as if they weren’t.
In this piece, I wanted to showcase how disabled people fight against those harmful lessons and exist in a way that makes them feel confident and comfortable. In the piece, a woman is depicted walking down a path, her prosthetic leg unhidden by any clothing or fabric. The disability pride flag colors are spray painted on the pavement and the words “We refuse to be invisible” are written in the paint. I painted this woman’s legs as the centerpiece of the picture because I wanted to focus on how this woman shows her confidence with her disability, not feeling the need to try and hide her prosthetic to make nondisabled people feel more comfortable or to try to blend in. I think that centering her prosthetic limb highlights her own comfortability and pride in her prosthesis.
In addition to using this piece to highlight disability pride, I wanted to use this piece as a way to symbolize the future of disability justice. I wanted to focus on the forward momentum of disability activism and honor the long stretching history of it. The reason I stretch out the disability pride flag in this piece is to symbolize how disability justice stretches back to past movements (to the people who came before us who fought for our rights) and forward towards the future. The woman in the picture is also moving towards the future, and I wanted to symbolize this through her taking steps forward. This alludes to her own role as a potential disability activist or simply a proud disabled woman carving a path for future generations. This piece serves as a promise to non-disabled folks that disabled people refuse to give up and step aside in the face of discrimination, but also as a call to other disabled folks to not be afraid to be unapologetically yourself.
The Art of Feminist Disability Studies is a project I have really enjoyed creating during this semester, and it has helped me work through my own perceptions of disability. It has also helped me further pinpoint my goals for disability justice and helps me see my own disabled self in a different light. Not only do I want this work to help educate nondisabled folks about disability, but I also want disabled folks to be able to see themselves represented in pieces of art that won’t paint them as a tragic victim of their own existence. We often spend so much time criticizing our bodies because of a perceived “flaw” or “deficit” that it can be hard to see the beauty in ourselves. I want this project to help remind us that we aren’t broken, we aren’t alone, and we are beautiful.
Works Cited
Garland‐Thomson, R. (2005). Feminist Disability Studies. Signs, 30(2), 1557–1587. https://doi.org/10.1086/423352