ABSTRACT
Noting the limited corpus of work on gender, rurality, and difference has been a constant refrain throughout this book. Nowhere does this seem to be as pronounced as in relation to disability. As feminist disability scholars1 argue, feminists’ preoccupation with difference rarely extends to disability (Chouinard and Grant 1995; De Pauw 1996; Ferri and Gregg 1998; Garland-Thomson 1994, 1997, 2002, 2005; Lloyd 1992, 2001; Meekosha and Jakubowicz 1999; Morris 1992; Schriempf 2001; Sheldon 1999, 2005; Wendell 1989). They assert that while feminists regularly include categories such as class, ethnicity, and sexuality in taxonomies of identities that may intersect with that of gender, they rarely include disability. Collectively, they have provided stark evidence of the omission of disability as a topic for analysis in feminist journals, at feminist conferences, and across feminist activist groups.2 Some critics suggest that, like aged women, women with disabilities are written out of the feminist script because their experiences may sit uneasily with a narrative of celebrating female power, competence, and strength (Fine and Asch 1988; Thomas 2006). Others posit that this has been aggravated as tensions between the agendas of mainstream feminism and women with disabilities have come to the fore, particularly around questions of reproductive rights, abortion, mothering, and care (Sheldon 1999).
