As Tobin Seibers discusses in \u201cDisability in Theory\u201d, the social constructionist model of viewing disability implies that the body itself is a social construction; further, our overall views of the body are dictated by society\u2019s standards of normality and physical ideals. While Seibers also presents counterarguments to using this theory in the context of disability studies, I still believe that its central points are applicable to this field and can enrich our studies of disability as a part of our society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main point of social\nconstructionism is that all of our ideals and standards, what we consider \u201cnormal\u201d,\nis influenced by our society as a whole. When changing the societal context in which\nwe view a certain body, the actual view of that body is altered accordingly as\nwell. As Seibers wrote in his article, \u201cIn a society of wheelchair users,\nstairs would be nonexistent,\u201d (p. 174). This is a simple example which reinforces\nthe discussions our class has been having for over a month, that an individual\nis not disabled until their society makes it so. As a personal example, I am incredibly<\/em> nearsighted, and depend fully\non glasses and contacts to navigate my world. If I lived in a society in which\nthese resources were inaccessible or considered abnormal, I would be disabled;\nhowever, since this is not the case in our society, I merely have a vision impairment<\/em>, which is easily adapted into\nmy life. This again shows the dependence we have on our society to determine\nhow our bodies are viewed, treated, and accepted (or not). <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to this, I felt that Sheila Black\u2019s poem \u201cWhat You Mourn,\u201d spoke volumes to the conversation which Seibers has in \u201cDisability in Theory,\u201d and ultimately reinforces the strength of social constructionism as a theoretical argument in disability studies. While the poem\u2019s narrator has a physical disability which has been \u201cfixed,\u201d the narrator themself is mourning the body they were born with. Regardless of how their physical impairments made \u201cnormal\u201d activities difficult or impossible for them, the narrator is speaking of their disabled body as a lost love of sorts. In response to the societal voices which called their body \u201ccrippled<\/em>\u2026 disabled<\/em> and then differently abled<\/em>,\u201d the narrator explains that these labels were given from an external<\/em> point of view, from people who had never shared the narrator\u2019s experiences. In discussing the ongoing commentary about their body, the narrator explains that \u201cnone of [these outsiders] could imagine \/ that the crooked body they spoke of \/ \u2026 was simply mine.\u201d Here the narrator is saying that their disabled body had inherent value despite their society saying that it didn\u2019t; instead of looking at their impairments as flaws in need of perfecting, they saw them as unique differences which enhanced their value. At the poem\u2019s conclusion, the narrator compares loving their unique and \u201cabnormal\u201d body to one loving one\u2019s country, including \u201cthe familiar lay of the land, the unkempt trees, \/ \u2026down to the nameless \/ flowers at your feet.\u201d Regardless of how society views the physically impaired body, this poem allows us to view this situation from the perspective of someone who values<\/em> their supposedly disabled and undesirable body, and ultimately ties in perfectly with the theory of social constructionism by showing that societal views of the body are not universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Word Count: 553<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Tobin Seibers discusses in \u201cDisability in Theory\u201d, the social constructionist model of viewing disability implies that the body itself is a social construction; further, our overall views of the body are dictated by society\u2019s standards of normality and physical ideals. While Seibers also presents counterarguments to using this theory in the context of disability … Continue reading “Rebecca Young’s Response to Tobin Seibers’ “Disability in Theory” and Sheila Black’s “What You Mourn””<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30],"tags":[34,41],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-reading-response","tag-short-reading-response-paper","tag-social-constructionism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/papJgd-hl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1101,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/1101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.chris-foss.net\/dislit19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}