Rosemarie Garland-Thomson in Integrating Disability Transforming Feminist Theory encourages the use of feminist theory as an outlet to understand disability studies. Garland-Thomson recognizes the intersection between race, ethnicity, sexuality, and class as well as the ability/disability system. She argues feminist theories negligence of recognizing disability as a part of ones identity that affects the categories of women. As feminist disability studies continues to make strides into the academic fields and become acknowledged, Garland-Thomson establishes the need to set a plan for the work in the future in disability studies. Feminist disability theory expands the limits of understanding the diversity as humans, the body as a possession rather than part of the self, and the socially construction of the interpretation of bodily differences. As we intertwine disability with feminist theories, an expansion of understanding society and the representation of our bodies intensifies. She divides her argument into domains of feminist theory that are: representation, the body, identity, and activism suggesting the integration of feminist theory can reflect those of disability.

            Representation structures reality according to Garland-Thomson’s argument. She analyzes the Western thought of women and the disabled as being both defective departures from what is considered ideal. From this argument, she discusses women’s Western history as being freaks or as what is considered deformed, labeling disabled people as just that. Garland-Thomson uses a study on stereotypes showing how blind people, the elderly, disabled people, and housewives are considered similarly incompetent. This suggests society’s attitudes and connection with the typical feminine position such as a housewife and the negative stereotypes of the disabled. In another example, the display of Saartie Bartmann the Hottetot Venus exhibited disability by presenting her body as something that was deformed and abnormal whose characteristics were defined by her race and gender. What was considered normative embodiment in Bartmann’s culture was considered abnormal to Western society. Those that do not fit into the ideals of Western ideologies are stigmatized as being inferior from what is considered normal. The terms defining disability suggest the image of people who lack or have excess creating the idea that they are not complete. In the past women have been described as being, “penis-poor” and are thought to have overactive hormones. Similarly, disabled people may have extra chromosomes or limb deficiencies. These ideas propose the illusion of women and disabled people as being incomplete deviations of normality. Seen as redundant and expendable, their bodies then become targeted for abolition. Practices such as eugenics, hate crimes, bride burning, domestic violence, and negligence become legitimized by our system of representation because of the way we understand something that is unfamiliar to us. If we attempt to take a serious look into disability and other systems, Garland-Thomson suggests we could clarify how all systems intersect one another.

            The ideas of normalizing the body endorse society’s discrimination practices. The beauty system for example, has mandated the standard of the female body as being able to be achieved via consumerism and self-regulation. Cosmetic surgery, rooted by society’s ideologies, now standardizes the female body into perfection. Through surgery, women are able to normalize their bodies according to society’s ideals. Similarly, reconstruction surgery attempts to eliminate disability and construct what is considered normal. However instead of helping the disabled, reconstruction surgery only solidifies the idea of what is normal. By having surgery, people are accepting the ideals of society’s image of normality. Their bodies are no longer a part of themselves but become possessions that can be altered if they do not agree with the standards. Medical technology has encouraged assurance that disability is something that is intolerable while charity campaigns affirm treatment rather than adjustment. These messages portray and promote disability as abnormal and something that needs to be fixed. In addition, genetic testing has leaped in technology and become an influential tool to eliminating disability. Often critiqued for being similar to eugenics, the Human Genome Projects has sought to create the perfect human being using the “best” genes. Through this, people can weed out defective or disabled genes; however, doing this will also intensify the prejudice attitudes towards those who acquire disabilities through the environment or with age. The battle for perfection often ostracizes those who do not fit in the categories making boundaries that are often impossible to cross.

            Human identity is mobile and unstable. Identity roots from multiple aspects of ones life. Disabled individuals however, are identified as just that, disabled. Cultural stereotype show disabled women as being asexual, dependent, unattractive, and in poor condition to reproduce. They become labeled as something other than women. Barbie, the epitome of femininity in American culture offers an analysis of how identity commoditized into consumers and norms. Barbie is considered a perfect human body, with her able-body representing the ideal in society. The alternative to Barbie is Becky who appears in multiple forms. In one figure she is a Paralympic Champion, in another she has been called, “Barbie’s queer accessories” by Erica Rand because Becky appears in a preppy outfit, camera, and high-top sneakers as the school photographer. A queer, disabled Becky challenges society’s conception of what is normal. Unlike Barbie whose overly feminize persona stigmatizes those who aren’t, Becky represents the masses with whom been ostracized for their disabilities. Disabled people then become the other, where their identity becomes marked as being worthless and incapable. The reason for this is because there is a lack of understanding of disabilities. The repetition of categorizing disabled individuals into separate categories only influences society to continue their lack of comprehension for the disabled.

            The final domain is activism. One effective way of familiarizing society with disabilities is exposing it in the media, making disabilities a norm. The media, more specifically the fashion industry, is widespread and affects everyone therefore; people would be face-to-face with something that had been unspoken about. Garland-Thomson states that the reason why disabilities have not become recognized in the media is because of the market force. However, as consumers, we hold disabled people within our population making it essential to also include them as well. Secondly, educating the masses about disabilities will allow for society’s attitude about disabled people to change. This method will ask questions but allow for answers as well. This method will look for equality while understanding the differences between each individual whether disabled or not. Both methods will help society recognize and accept those who are disabled without the label that binds them into categories.

            Rosemarie Garland-Thomson argues for the awareness for disability studies using a feminist approach. She states feminist theory does not necessarily acknowledge disability as a category that has been oppressed. However, she uses feminist theorists domains to assist in developing disability studies into a broader concept as feminist disability studies. In order to expand disability studies in the future, representation, the body, identity, and activism need to be established in society.  Once that is done, society will be educated and understand disability as part of the normative.

Reflection:

            When i first decided to analyze Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's piece, it did not occur to me how much of her theories can be applied to today. Her theories can still be used to understand the lack of information offered about disability. Her piece allowed be to better understand the privileges available for able-bodies and the lack of advantages disabled bodies have. Garland-Thomson challenges the use of the word, "disability" and connects it to it's patriarchal background and compares the word with the history of the word gender and sex. Her title alone links to notions, integration and transformation where integration suggests the equality of the disabled and the able-bodied which has been subordinated. Transformation suggest reestablishing the knowledge and the order of things in society. 

           Some problems i encountered when writing this was trying to critically analyze Garland-Thomson's ideas without misinterpreting them. To avoid this problem, I would reread the article multiple times and underline key terms, ideas, etc. One risk that i did take while writing this paper was trying to understand her argument properly from an outsider of the disabled community and someone who had no previous knowledge of the subject. If i did have to write this paper again, i don't think i would change that much,  however i would be more thorough in my analysis.