Disability Rhetoric

A) Defining Meaning in Terms of Disability Studies

I don’t think the phrase Disability Studies has just one meaning. Similarly, I’m not sure if it’s anything more than a noun describing an academic discipline that examines the nature and effects of disability through texts written by, often for, and about people with disabilities. When trying to define nouns, usually their meaning comes from listing the sum of their parts or their function. The basic definition of a wheelchair is that it is a chair mounted on wheels for use as a means of transportation. But asking the question, “what does the word ‘wheelchair’ mean?” is different than asking what a wheelchair is. This is because the word ‘meaning’ implies that the noun has individual significance to those interacting with it, like a symbol, whereas a definition exists on a societal, discourse-based plane. When I ask myself what Disability Studies means, I first choose to recognize that on a societal plane, my meaning means very little, and there is a high possibility that its significance to me only scratches the surface of what it really is. Likewise, the true definition can only scratch the surface of its significance to me. But then again, maybe I just have trouble comprehending abstract nouns without associating them with tangible objects. This happens to be why Dictionary.com is a tab I have always opened on my laptop. Therefore, to me Disability Studies is sitting in a classroom on wheel-y chairs at wheel-y tables with the expectation that if a wheelchair user were to enter through the door, they would be able to maneuver through the class easily, both in the metaphorical sense, and the physical sense. I think one of the main points of Disability Studies is to learn about and understand the needs of those with disabilities, and to create accommodations. I’d even go as far as saying the final goal of Disability Studies is to eliminate the need for “accommodations” because that term in of itself implies that those creating the accommodation are performing a kindness or a favor for those who require them. Therefore, perhaps engaging with Disability Studies is the act of recognizing that disability itself is normal, and thus “accommodations” shouldn’t be seen as anything more than the expected requirements followed by all institutions and spaces for the functional participation of every person. 

B) Questions: Can we Close the Gap between Theory and Praxis?

The questions I want to ask as we move forward might not have answers, or might have far too many. With that in mind, based on the idea that disability only exists within the context of its environment, I want to know, if we are able to change our environments by making them accessible to all, would we lose the term “disability” and the good that a label can bring to those seeking community? Is this question even relevant considering the current climate of minimal accessibility in most institutions and spaces? This again brings me to the difference between abstract nouns and physical nouns. Is the ultimate goal to support people with disabilities to the point of eliminating the need for the descriptor itself, because it implies a deviation from the norm? How can we actively change our culture’s societal expectations for how a “normal” person looks, acts, and lives? Should we be trying to destroy the concept of “normality” itself, by perhaps simply replacing it with the word “common?” Is it right to label people by what they cannot do, how they cannot exist, or function? Is a way of reversing this convention to start thinking about disability being the norm through the use of the word “nondisabled” rather than say “able-bodied,” because the word “nondisabled” implies that a person who lacks disability is the one who is deviating from the norm? I’m not sure if any of these questions even deserve discussion because of their theoretical nature compared to questions based in praxis that might lead to more material change in the lives of people with disabilities. A few final questions are: Should people who have no disabilities even have a right to voice their opinions on Disability Theory? Should their opinions just be seen as less valuable due their inescapable presence in discussion about changing spaces to increase accessibility? 

C) 

1. Meaning and Authority:

Based on information I’ve drawn from the readings Reassigning Meaning by Simi Linton and Celebrating Crip Bodyminds by Corbette Joan O’Toole, my first topic of discussion is focused on terminology within Disability Studies, and the history of the groups of people have had the social and legal authority to create and define those terms. Linton writes, “A glance through a few dictionaries will reveal definitions of disability that include incapacity, a disadvantage, a deficiency, especially a physical or mental impairment that restricts normal achievement; something that hinders or incapacitates, something that incapacitates or disqualifies” (Linton, 10-11). This quote is interesting because I think it’s important to ask where dictionary writers are getting their definitions that are put into publication and become standard. Clearly the words like handicapped, crippled, and special were not created by the communities they were meant to represent, and instead were designated by nondisabled people who viewed disabled people as lesser beings. From what I learned from Linton is that much of the arbitrary designation of terms were upheld by those in the medical field who were primarily white, upper-class men who made strict distinction between how they viewed a “normal” bodymind is supposed to exist, and those considered abnormal despite the commonness of disabilities throughout all human populations. O’Toole writes, “Once we stop viewing ourselves from the medical perspective of sickness, diagnosis, and aberration, and find circles of disabled people, we can often feel pride about who we are, the skills we’ve learned and the interdependent circles we’ve created (O’Toole, 14). I really appreciate this quote from their piece because only in the last handful of decades since the Disability Rights Movement have disabled people been able to lead the discussion on disability and how they deserve to be treated within medical institutions, in academia, in media, and every space that nondisabled people occupy and have a history of excluding disabled people from. Linton writes, “The Disability Community has attempted to wrest control of the language from the previous owners, and reassign meaning to the terminology used to describe disability and disabled people” (Linton, 8-9). From what I can tell, there is still a long way to go for the disabled community in terms of wresting authority on the language surrounding disability as well as making legal strides to uplift the community. However, the field of disability studies continues to grow and I do think there will be great progress made in the next few decades.  

2. Celebrating Disability: 

As stated by S.E. Smith in “The beauty of Spaces Created for and by Disabled People” from Disability Visibility, “there is something weighty and sacred here…. where disability is celebrated and embraced” (Smith, 271-273). This second topic I have found particularly significant because it seems that a large aspect of disability studies is centered on not only on how the disabled community is trying to garner a baseline human respect from their nondisabled peers, but also a respect that their bodies and minds are not undesirable to inhabit and exist within. O’Toole writes about how oftentimes in the United States, people will test for fetal “abnormalities” during pregnancy so parents can decide whether or not they want to abort a potentially disabled child. For a long time I was only ever aware of the ableist rhetoric behind this practice which centers around the idea that parents wouldn’t want their child to have to “suffer” from their disability, and the quieter notion that the parents wouldn’t want to “suffer” from being financially tied to a child that may require medical care which is far more expensive in the United States than any other first world nation. However, through this class, it has become clear that one of the only reasons why these ableist societal beliefs exist is because of a lack of accessible infrastructure in our institutions and a generally gargantuan disrespect for any human lives that deviate from the “norm,” especially multiple overlapping marginalized identities. O’Toole writes that, “For many of us, the reality of being disabled, the way our bodyminds function is cause for celebration” (O’Toole, 14). Because of the disenfranchisement of disabled people, the ability to create loving, supportive communities has allowed for a much greater quality of life for disabled people, which wouldn’t be possible without their strength and determination. Disability is cause for celebration because experiencing life itself is cause for celebration, in any and all forms it takes. 

3. Compulsory Able-Bodiedness

The concept of compulsory able-bodiedness is a subsequent issue that stems from the two prior ideas. In the chapter “Queer” in Keywords for Disabilities, the author Tim Dean references another authors work, saying, “Rosemarie Garland-Thomson deployed the concept of the “normate” in her influential book Extraordinary Bodies to designate ‘the social figure through which people can represent themselves as definitive human beings’ (1997, 8)” (Dean, 144). This idea is important because when people are forced to, or expected to compare themselves to an unrealistic ideological standard, their framework of the world becomes imbedded with the sense that they are the incorrect form of a human being, when there really isn’t a true and perfect form other than what people have collectively decided it is. This ties in with how sexuality is talked about in terms of Disability Studies as well. Dean succinctly explains that “Comulsory hetero-sexuality depends of compulsory able-bodiedness, since heteronormativity assumes first and foremost that sexual subjects must be able-bodied, healthy, and therefore ‘normal’” (Dean, 143,144). The way that I interpreted this concept relates to the previous sections where O’Toole expresses their issues with aborting disabled fetuses. Because of the relationship between heteronormativity and able-bodidness, there is the problematic societal expectation that people with disabilities should engage with their sexualitites because of our culture’s history of eugenics, and the violent discouragement from reproduction that people with disabilities have faced in the past from bigoted systems of power. However, we can choose to see truth in the idea that “Queer approaches to thinking about disability and sexuality argue that neither the human body nor its capacities are biologically determined; rather, both disability and sexuality are constituted via sociocultural processes of normalization” (Dean, 144). This quote is particularly meaningful because it separates both disability and sexuality from the body as concepts, and places them in the realm of the environment. As I’ve stated previously, our conceptions of what disabilities are, only exist because of the expectation that people are supposed to function differently. Similarly, our culture’s expectation of heterosexuality as norm is what has led to the quantification of other sexualities being lumped together under umbrella terms like “queer.”

Works Cited:

Dean, Tim. “Queer” Keywords for Disabilities. NYU Press, 2015. pp 143-144

Wong, Alice, et.al., Disability Visibility. Vintage Books, June 2020.

Linton, Simi. Reassigning Meaning. NYU Press, 1998. Pp 8-11

O’Toole, Corbette Joan. “Celebrating Crip Bodyminds, ”Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History, 1st ed., Autonomous Press, June 9th, 2015. pp 14.