Abstract
This paper explores the lived experiences of women with locomotor impairments in the cultural context of Bengal in India and elaborates the ways in which women with disabilities construct their selves, negotiate their identities and live their lives in adherence with, redefining or subverting the accepted ideas of femininity and ability. An embodiment that is shaped by an impaired female body coupled with the sociocultural valuation of a disabled person as well as of the different social roles a woman plays greatly influences the way in which disabled femininity is constructed, nurtured and contested. This paper illuminates and illustrates the ways in which disabled women strive towards normative femininity, despite facing negation and denial of the sexuality in the form of suppression within the household to stigmatizing encounters in the public sphere. Disabled women also redefine, the ideal of a bhalo meye in the different domains of their daily lives, whether in the private realms of their homes and personal processes or in the public sphere.
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Ghosh, N. (2016). Negotiating Femininity: Lived Experiences of Women with Locomotor Disabilities in Bengal. In: Ghosh, N. (eds) Interrogating Disability in India. Dynamics of Asian Development. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3595-8_8
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