vivian shaw

Feminism, Disability, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Here are two particularly interesting articles I read in the feminist/academic blogosphere a few days ago. Incidentally, both talk about public health issues related to women and their social lives, but in very different ways.

The first article is from Sociological Images, a blog that raises inquiry about the various images we as individuals and cultures interface with on a daily basis, and what the processes behind their production may be. This particular article, called Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Social Control of Mothers juxtaposes research on fetal alcohol syndromes (FAS) with the images most popularly used in public health campaigns to pregnant women.

But “women” do not cause FAS. Neither does alcohol. This strategy replaces addressing all of the other problems that correlate with the appearance of FAS–poverty, stress, and other kinds of social deprivation–in favor of policing women. FAS, in fact, is partly the result of individual behavior, partly the result of social inequality, and partly genetic, but our entire eradication strategy focuses on individual behavior. It places the blame and responsibility solely on women.

The next article comes from Feministing, which you might guess from the name is a blog discussing a range of feminist issues, from a left activist standpoint. Feminism, Disability, and John Currin caught my eye, largely due to some reading I did this past summer that alluded to disabilities activism as the next frontier in radical feminism.

I think a place where I see the potential for very positive growth in this intersection of feminism and disability is in the concepts of value and worth. What are people valued for? Their work value? Their value as mothers and caregivers? Their sex appeal? Disability studies has done a lot to reframe what is valuable in a person… generally speaking, we aren’t the best homogeneous work force, our bodies redefine what society claims as attractive and sexy, and disabled mothers and fathers often don’t fit into the historically defined rolls of caregiver and provider. So how do we define value or place worth? How can these troublesome and loaded categories of work, motherhood and sex appeal be reframed and integrated into a more just and equal society? I think disability studies has done a lot of thinking in these areas that could potentially be really invigorating for feminism.

Both of these ideas, though seated in a social justice dialogue (who doesn’t like social justice?) are pretty controversial, particularly the argument on fetal alcohol syndrome. For the record, I know very little about FAS and would need to compare some more medical data before jumping on board with the writer. Where these two very different topics meet is at the theme of conflict—between individuals, in this case women, and their right to manage control of their bodies and/or identities vs. restrictive governance of the medical state.

On an unrelated note, my ability to review and pair these articles was greatly enhanced by Google Reader, which I actually just activated this past week. I am not a huge fan of this Buzz stuff/conspiracy, but for those disorganized souls like myself, Reader is a worthy tool to try out.