Biography, Event, Women's History

Blogging Against Disablism

Yesterday was ‘Blogging against Disablism’ day, where bloggers everywhere are called to speak out against discrimination against those with disabilities. With that in mind, I began to think about what historians know about women with disabilities in the British past and whether there was a particular woman with a disability whose biography would make an interesting post. And, it was surprisingly difficult. So, I began to survey what we did know. There are a number of famous women who had disabilities- the feminist and writer Harriet Martineau was deaf; Helen Gladstone, sister to the prime minister, suffered from poor mental health- but, the only famous woman whose disability is a central part of her biography is the political activist, Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind.

However, there is another major theme in women’s history and that is the story of womanhood as disability. Now, this is not just a story of women as second-class citizens who suffered from discrimination and restricted life-choices, much as people with disabilities continue to do- but, the story of the female body as ‘other’ or ‘less than’ the male body. Whether it was early modern understandings of the female body, which saw it as an imperfect male body; or modern interpretations of the female body, which saw it as perfect in its own right, but labelled menstruation, pregnancy, and other female experiences as illnesses- the female body has been labelled as pathologically disabled when compared to the male.

This interpretation of the female condition led to both the restriction of women from social and political rights and to the right to interfere with women’s bodies by medical professionals. In the Victorian period, women were warned against taking too much vigorous exercise- but they should take some; they shouldn’t do too much intellectual activity- but they should do some;  and most importantly,  don’t get upset, or angry, or emotional! Similarly, the illness of pregnancy and menstruation must be highly monitored and regulated and female bodies must be willing to be poked and prodded and their activities limited in the name of health. The stamp of illness took control of female bodies from women and placed it into the hands of male professionals who decided what was and wasn’t appropriate behaviour- what was and wasn’t too much exercise/ reading/ talking/ anger.

And, as historians such as Elizabeth Foyster have pointed out, because women were ‘by nature’ already ill, it became very easy to exploit this to take power from women. As institutionalisation became increasingly seen as the appropriate way for dealing with recalcitrant bodies and minds- and people with a range of physical and mental disabilities were locked away from public view- so the female body was at risk. A number of women were locked up in mental hospitals, because their husbands and families claimed that their behaviour or anger showed pathological illness. The medicalisation of the female body could be used to punish disobedient women.  

How much more problematic then was the disabled female body?  And perhaps this is the question that historians have yet to answer.  There is a growing body of work on mental illness and on the impact of institutionalisation on both care of people with certain types of disabilities and how this impacted on their civil and human rights- yet, there is a lot less work on what it meant to be disabled- and particularly what it meant to be female and disabled. How did having a physical or mental disability shape how women walked, or otherwise moved, through the world? This is especially true in a context where physical and mental disability may have been significantly more common and visible than today- where poor diet, a lack of medical care, and war impacted on the bodies and minds of so many.

One woman who has received attention is Marion Brown (1844-1916) of Sanquhar, Drumfriesshire. She suffered from a number of physical disabilities, including periodic blindness and difficulty walking. Marion spent much of her life bed-ridden in her family home, yet, she was an avid correspondent, detailing her life and that of her family to relatives in the United States. Through her letters, we learn that when she was able she spent much of her time dress-making and later in life, worked as a telephone operator- contributing to the family income. Yet, Marion was not the only member of her household with a disability- her aunt Agnes was bed-ridden for a number of years towards the end of her life and a nephew, who had been kicked in the head by horse, suffered short-term memory loss and could not work. Generally, her family were accepting of her disability, although Marion noted in one letter that, during an argument, a nephew’s wife told her that she should be in the workhouse- and Marion had no reply. Similarly, she often expressed a longing to emigrate, but her disability stood in the way of her ambition. Marion’s story highlights the way in which a disability could limit some life choices, but did not stand in the way of a full life, and the extent to which it was not necessarily the disability, but the ability to contribute to the household economy that determined social worth.  These are issues that continue to hold relevance today as men and women with disabilities contest their social value, fighting to be full members of society.

The story of countless other women with disabilities waits to be told.

Further Reading

Elizabeth Foyster, ‘At the limits of liberty: married women and confinement in eighteenth-century England’, Continuity and Change, 17(1) (2002), pp. 39-62.

Iain Hutchison, ‘Disability in nineteenth century Scotland- the case of Marion Brown’, University of Sussex Journal of Contemporary History, 5 (2002), pp. 1-18.

Julie Anderson, ‘British women, disability and the Second World War’, Contemporary British History, 20(1) (2006), pp. 37-53.

 Patricia Vertinsky, ‘The social construction of the gendered body: exercise and the exercise of power’, International Journal of the History of Sport, 11(2) (1994), pp. 147-171.

Katie Barclay remembers that only a decade ago there was significant public discussion around whether menstruation limited women’s ability to work and whether women should be able to take time off work to menstruate.  She proudly blogs against disablism.

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