Introduction: Women Writing Disability

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Introduction:Women Writing Disability Michael Davidson We were told of disabilities,—a long array of these,Till one would think that womanhood was merely a disease;And "the maternal sacrifice" was added to the planOf the various sacrifices we have always made—to man. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Women Do Not Want It" Disability, Intersections, Aesthetics Rosemarie Garland Thomson observes, "Many parallels exist between the social meanings attributed to female bodies and those assigned to disabled bodies" (19). In this regard it would be hard to imagine early-twentieth-century psychoanalysis without so-called women's diseases like hysteria or neurasthenia. Female sexuality and reproduction have, historically, been monitored by male-dominated medical and psychoanalytic professions. Fashion, building design, and juridical definitions of identity have reinforced the idea that, as Iris Marion Young says, "women in sexist society are physically handicapped" (qtd. in Wendell 15). Concepts o

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