Feminist, Queer, Crip

Although both the social and political/relational models share a critique of the medi-cal model, the social model of t en relies on a distinction between impairment and dis-ability that i don’t fi nd useful. in that framework, impairment refers to any physical or mental limitation, while disability signals the social exclusions based on, and social meanings attributed to, that impairment.18 people with impairments are disabled by their environments; or, to put it dif f erently, impairments aren’t disabling, social and architectural barriers are. Although i agree that we need to attend to the social, asserting a sharp divide between impairment and disability fails to recognize that both impairment and disability are social; simply trying to determine what constitutes impairment makes clear that impairment doesn’t exist apart from social meanings and understandings. susan Wendell illustrates this problem when she queries how far one must be able to walk to be considered able-bodied; the answer to that question, she explains, has much to do with the economic and geographic context in which it is addressed.19 What we understand as impairing conditions—socially, physically, men-tally, or otherwise—shif t s across time and place, and presenting impairment as purely physical obscures the ef f ects of such shif t s. As feminist theorists have long noted, there is no mention of “the” body that is not a further articulation of a very particular body.