Feminism and Disability

Hoping that a feminist perspective on disability can assist her in raising her multiply disabled daughter, Hillyer, who founded the University of Oklahoma's Women's Studies Program, applies feminist principles to the relationship between caregivers and the disabled, notably mothers and daughters. The result is an exciting and suggestive exploration of the interstices of multiple female roles and an analysis that finds traditional feminist yardsticks wanting. Feminist language that seeks to empower women can result in shame by denying the reality of disability, observes Hillyer. She suggests that psychologists tend to over-analyze the symbiosis that develops between caregivers and the disabled. Both caregivers and disabled have a slower sense of time than other women, and participate in a chronic grief over the losses caused by the disabiity. That grief could serve as a model for responding to other losses that women experience, Hillyer concludes, and serve as a basis for feminist community. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.