Society Scared of Differences

My dark complexion is always seen as a lack, as our society attaches great value to appearance and fairness and the emphasis on a woman’s physical appearance and attractiveness is more than evident in its norms and ideal standards, set by the media and society. Society not only views women but also a person with a disability as a lack and requires us to meet the standards set by them. The ideal standards of our society glorify sameness and fear the difference, therefore, promises "the cure" for all who stand out through correction and cosmetic surgeries.

Iris Marion Young understands women as physically handicapped in a sexist society and by patriarchy.

The Notion of Lack

Society views women and person with a disability as a lack and a deficiency that requires constant self-creation and modification to fit the ideal standards set by it, showing the connection between gender and disability.

Representation of Women and Persons with Disability

There has always been a tradition of portraying women, persons with a disability, and dark bodies as dependent, incomplete, vulnerable, and incompetent bodies, and how they always have a rescuer in the form of a strong male, distinguished doctor, or the beauty industry with their products as solutions. The idea of women and persons with a disability being dependent and incapable is often propagated through various media platforms like storybooks for children, novels, advertisements, movies, and TV shows. The negative depiction is so ingrained in popular culture, making it too easy to overlook the harmful ideologies that it perpetuates through misogynistic characters.

Like most fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty, show women being saved from misery by a heroic Prince Charming figure, a glorified caricature of defunct masculinity. Depiction of characters with disabilities are often as the bad guys like Captain Hook and Chucky, or as victims of a curse like Quasimodo, presented as helpless and as objects of pity, sympathy, making them look less than the others. Or are depicted as heroes who prove their worth by overcoming the impairment that helps them become normal in heroic ways, which make up for their disability.

Since media is a powerful source of education in our society, it makes it more important to dwell on its influence and stress on correct representation. Media plays a major role in changing the dynamics of our society by influencing the viewer’s thoughts about themselves or others and what they consider normal.

Othering Leading to Discrimination

The ideal standards set by the society and media become the norm, normal, or natural, therefore, leading to othering, differentiating, and marking of bodies through comparison, which penetrates our culture, further legitimizing discrimination. These ideal standards make women, girls, people with disabilities victims of infanticide, selective abortion, hate crimes, mercy killing, honor killings, domestic violence, normalizing surgical procedures, and face neglect from peers.

Emphasis on Cure

As society views women and persons with disability as abnormal, the medical model addresses these abnormalities through correction surgery, the idea of designer babies, sex-selection abortion, the selection on the grounds of disability, cosmetic surgery as a solution by eliminating disability and enforcing the ideals of normalcy through surgical and medical interventions. This emphasis on “the cure” shows the lack of cultural tolerance for differences in our society leading to viewing differences as flaws that require fixing, and these medical interventions are not to make one unique or stand out instead, it promises sameness.

This makes it evident how a person with a disability and women in our society are constantly subjected to many disabling expectations to become independent and normal. Such unrealistic expectations by the abled society cause more damage to the sense of self of a person with a disability than the impairment itself.