Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Docile bodies, supercrips, and the plays of prosthetics

2010; Feminist Approaches to Bioethics; Volume: 3; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2979/fab.2010.3.2.63

1937-4585

Amanda K. Booher,

Disability Rights and Representation

In this paper, I consider the implications of representations of women with prosthetics in popular culture, specifically Heather Mills and Sarah Reinertsen. Using analyses from feminist and disability studies, I explore prosthetized bodies as bodies fixed to aesthetic and functional near-perfection. I then employ narratives emphasizing the complex corporeal experience of prosthetics to destabilize this seeming docility. I argue that docile readings are problematic and insufficient, building from faulty grounds of distinctions between natural and technological, and therapy and enhancement. Finally, I posit a more complex, phenomenological epistemology from which to consider prosthetized bodies and to reground prosthetic interpretations.