At the intersection of disability and masculinity: exploring gender and bodily difference in India

Abstract

Despite a conventional view that bodily impairments are necessarily interpreted as emasculating and negative, this article -drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with men affected by leprosy and by cerebral palsy (CP) in India -offers a more nuanced account of how disabled men negotiate their gendered identities. Different kinds of impairments have very specific, context-defined, meanings that, in turn, have different implications for how gender and disability might intersect. Rather than diminishing masculinity in all instances -some bodily differences, as the article demonstrates, might even be enacted as hyper-masculine -impairments are shown rather to reshape understandings of the masculine in sometimes unexpected ways. And while my informants were constrained both by ableist norms and by the biological limitations of their own bodies, ambivalence towards certain forms of masculinity also afforded them space to perform their identities more creatively, sometimes to potentially positive effect. At the intersection of disability and masculinity 2At the intersection of disability and masculinity: exploring gender and bodily difference in India James Staples, Brunel University

Culture and Carelessness: Constituting Disability in South India

“…These interventions are in turn validated and enabled through public health education and campaigns—sponsored by NGOs, the state, and international medical organizations—that locate responsibility for negatively construed bodily differences in the affected individual and his or her family. This framing informs and naturalizes decisions taken about, for example, treatment and rehabilitation of those socially constituted as “the disabled.” It also defines, within tight constraints, the very terms within which “disability”—long since exposed by disability studies scholars as a fluid social category, rather than an objective medical one (Barnes and Mercer 2003; Shakespeare 2006; Shuttleworth and Kasnitz 2004; Thomas and Corker 2002; Tremain 2002; Staples 2011)—may be imagined and acted on. This has implications for how families make decisions concerning the relative social worth of those of its members whose bodies are configured or perform differently to the mainstream.…”

Understanding Gender Spectrum: Indian Experience

“…The most remarkable aspect of NALSA judgment has been its vivacious attempt in understanding the term "identity." As stated by Staples (2011).…”

“…Identity refers to our deeply held, inner sense of self as female, male, a blend of both, or neither of these; and expression here, refers to how we present our gender to the world and how family, culture, society and community recognize, relate with, and try to mould it. According to Staples (2011), the concept of expression is also associated with gender roles and in what way society uses it to impose conformity to current gender norms. The binary thus created, points towards the concept of "Doing gender" (which was used in the seminal article "Doing Gender" by Candace West and Don Zimmerman) and "Gender performativity" which was given by Judith Butler in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, where the outdated perception of gender is criticized by Butler on the ground that dominant perception of gender is labelled as binary.…”

Identity and Masculinity in Two Cases of Early-Onset Disability Autobiography

“…Rather than diminishing masculinity in all its aspects, some disabilities might even be viewed as hyper-masculine: impairments have been shown to reshape understandings of masculinity sometimes in unexpected forms (Lindemann & Cherney, 2008;Staples, 2011). There have been variations in the ways that disabled men assess their ability and gender: responses have ranged from mourning, defying, accepting, and/or embracing their daily performances in terms of physically disabled masculinity.…”

“…The diversity of disability is both wide and heterogeneous: disability may be visible or hidden, permanent or temporary, may exert a minimal or substantial impact on an individual, and can be in-born or acquired, to name just some examples (WHO). Different kinds of impairments entail very specific and context-dependent implications for how gender and disability might intersect (Staples, 2011). For example, physical impairment and disability impose concrete limitations on activities of daily living and may create friction for an individual's social identity and agency (Coleman-Fountain & McLaughlin, 2013;Nolan, 2013;Smith & Sparkes, 2004).…”