Ableism

Mingus names the structural experience of disabled people being forced to disclose bodies, needs, medical histories, and vulnerability in order to access basic survival.

Mingus writes from disability justice to critique how beauty, normality, and desirability organize bodily value, proposing a liberatory politics of moving toward the ugly.

Garland-Thomson maps feminist disability studies as a field, showing how disability reshapes feminist questions about bodies, staring, normalcy, dependency, and public life.

McRuer reads As Good As It Gets to show how queer and disabled characters become resources for a heterosexual protagonist’s transformation - and how able-bodied and heterosexual norms reinforce each other.

Wendell begins from disability as socially constructed from bodily reality, asking how ideals of bodily control, productivity, and independence shape feminist body politics.