The social construction of disability

The one disappointment I had with Susan Wendell’s The Social Construction of Disability was her connections between disability and feminism. I understand how both women and the disabled deviate from the norm, and that this norm is solely created by society. Wendell makes it clear that like gender, disability is a social construct as it stems from societal pressures and divisions and also from actual problems in society such as health. I liked Wendell’s argument that the world was made for young, healthy men, and not for women or the disabled; however, I found her examples a little farfetched, especially as there are movements to rectify some of these. For example, she talks about how the lack of acknowledgment of menstruation or childcare in the workplace relates to that of certain disabilities and their limitations, but I feel that the workplace does acknowledge these hardships for women. I have not had that firsthand experience, but I do feel that there are other integral similarities between disabilities and gender which she could have drawn from instead. Firstly, the stigma that women simply cannot do certain things because of their physical inability or emotional instability seems much more relevant. This idea is something that is not limited to the workplace, but to attitudes towards women in general; it affects everything our daily life. Similarly, misunderstanding and stigmatizing mental and physical disabilities spreads the myth that the disabled cannot perform well, when we actually just create that false idea. I wish she had made the connection more clear as it has interesting ramification for our course.

That critique aside, I found her analysis of how we create disabilities to be really provocative, especially considering a new disability in the US: that of obesity. It is said that there is this “obesity epidemic,” and our society is bent on health, fitness, fad diets, and thin celebrities, so could it be that we’re only furthering this disability? We have had a history of cheap, bad fast food influencing this epidemic, but furthermore, we have also created a very narrow norm of what is fit. I understand obese people are not healthy or fit and that they face health risks, but we stigmatize them because of our norms of healthy and fit. We blame them for becoming this way, preventing our understanding of the truth behind their disabilities. As we discussed in class, we even think that maybe they do not deserve the accommodations we have made for the disabled as they may have caused their own disability, but it is this thinking that only furthers the myths of the causes of obesity. It is in part an obstacle that can arise from choice, but as the article points out, we also create obstacles. Wendell sites poverty as the number one factor in causing disability; maybe that applies here as fast food is typically what can be afforded. Additionally, we are only now changing our country’s attitudes towards fast food and fitness. We also must acknowledge how we stereotype these people because of our idea of a normal, ideal body. This example of obesity is just one of many, but it is one to consider when we paint a portrait of the disabled and what they deserve in our society.