Notes on Women, Disabled: Feminist and Disability Theology Intersections

Notes on Women, Disabled: Feminist and Disability Theology Intersections

• Purpose and framing

  • The chapter argues that recognizing women as disabled (not in a universal sense but as a way to highlight embodied finitude) opens a space for rethinking theological anthropology and the meaning of bodies in Christian thought.
  • Feminist theology and disability theology share core concerns about how bodies are interpreted, valued, or devalued within Christian traditions, but scholars often engage in parallel tracks with limited cross-talk. The aim is to foreground cross-pollination while also acknowledging friction.
  • The chapter samples three key excerpts to tell a broader, non-exhaustive story:
  • Rosemary Radford Ruether (Catholic theologian): surveys feminism varieties and proposes a liberatory feminism.
  • Nancy Eiesland (disability theologian): The Disabled God; bridges feminism with disability liberation.
  • Sarah Coakley (Harvard Divinity School): postmodern, body-focused approach influenced by Judith Butler.
  • The term feminism is treated as plural (feminisms), with diverse aims and strategies; common thread often centers on concerns about bodies and power.
  • The basic question guiding the discussion: how might naming women as disabled reshape theological anthropology and morality?

• Core concepts and frameworks

  • Bodily constraints as a site of theological reflection
  • Both women’s bodies and disabled bodies have historically been framed as troublesome within Christian tradition.
  • Scriptural and theological readings have reinforced hierarchies: Eve from Adam’s side; sin linked to female body or disability in traditional readings.
  • The medical model vs. the social model of disability
  • Medical model: disability is a problem located in the individual; the aim is to fix or surpass the body (e.g., episiotomy, cochlear implants, gene therapy).
  • Social model: disability arises when social structures fail to accommodate differences; barriers are in society, not the body alone (e.g., accessible buildings, communication accommodations).
  • The move from universal “one body” to multiple embodied experiences
  • Paul’s image of the church as one body with many members is used both to celebrate diversity and to critique the earlier “one body” trend that universalizes a particular experience of bodiliness.
  • Liberalism, romantic feminism, and the call for liberatory feminism (Ruether)
  • Liberal feminism emphasizes individual autonomy and rights within a neutral state; romantic feminism emphasizes women’s caregiving and gentleness; liberatory feminism seeks to fuse insights from both to transform images of the body.
  • Intersectionality and plural feminisms
  • By the late 20th century, feminists recognized race, class, sexuality, and disability intersect with gender; white, educated women’s experiences cannot be universalized for all women or all disabled people; disability and feminist projects must be interwoven with race, class, and other identities.
  • The Disabled God (contextual Christology)
  • God is present where people are, incarnationally; Jesus’ embodiment, including his disabled aspects on the cross, grounds liberation theologies.
  • Salvation is not about surpassing the body but recognizing God’s solidarity with brokenness; healing should not be the sole or primary metric of salvation.
  • Postmodern critiques of grand narratives and gender as performative
  • Without a single universal narrative, gender and bodies can be understood as socially constructed and performative, rather than fixed by biology or divine fiat.

• The Body to Be Surpassed (historical and scriptural readings)

  • Jewish and Christian traditions have long treated women and disabled people as troublesome bodies.
  • Creation narratives and sin
  • Eve’s creation from Adam and her perceived inferiority tied to a literal reading of Genesis; similar patterns linked disability to sin in some traditions.
  • Augustine’s claim of woman’s bodily representation of inferior, sin-prone self; Aquinas’ view that women are the reverse of men (Summa Theologica I.92).
  • Reformation and the continuity of bodily readings
  • Reformers largely maintained restrictive bodily scripts; women and disabled bodies were barred from ordination in many traditions.
  • Scriptural foundations for exclusion vs. reinterpretation
  • Leviticus 21:16-23 details blemishes as disqualifying for priesthood; this text is foregrounded in discussions about why disability and femininity have been barred from religious leadership.
  • The question of salvation and the male body of Christ
  • If Jesus is male, does salvation render women and disabled people equally included? Excerpts address how a male flesh can still save women and disabled people through solidarity and liberation.
  • Implication: a model of disability as an opportunity, not a deficiency, to rethink salvation and priesthood
  • Practical example: episiotomies and birth interventions as evidence of the medical model’s reach into female bodies; the Seasonale pill as a pharmaceutical attempt to surpass issues associated with female physiology; CDC study showing lack of scientific basis for episiotomies yet continued practice for decades (Block 2007).
  • Question raised: why would feminists object to medical advances that reduce suffering if they also can bolster equality? The concern is about underlying norms that presume disability as a defect needing “fixing.”

• The three excerpts in depth and their implications

  • Ruether: liberal and romantic feminism in dialogue with disability
  • Explains different strands of feminism and proposes “liberatory feminism” as a synthesis to emancipate women while acknowledging bodily differences.
  • Eschatological feminism (12.2): critiques Gnostic tendencies that imagine salvation as transcending the body; Ruether argues for a balanced focus on present-world justice.
  • Liberal feminism (12.3): primacy of individuals, autonomy, and rights; critiques of liberalism’s attempt to universalize rationality and autonomy, which can erase embodied differences.
  • Romantic feminism (12.4, 12.5): emphasizes feminine caregiving and complementary difference; concerns that ethical frameworks (the ethic of care) can reify dependence for disabled individuals and reproduce gendered stereotypes.
  • Liberatory feminism (12.5–12.6): combines insights to liberate women from restrictive gender norms; argues that Christ’s masculinity can be a source of liberation when read through anti-oppressive lenses; critiques the idea that the male form is the sole norm for salvation.
  • The “one body” ideal, and the critique that this universalizes a particular experience of bodiliness; the need to multiply bodies and recognize diverse experiences and identities.
  • Eiesland: The Disabled God and contextual Christology
  • Contextual Christology: God cares for people where they are; incarnation means God becomes in flesh and experiences disability.
  • Disability as salvific and liberatory: salvation arises through God’s solidarity with broken bodies; Jesus’ disability on the cross is not merely symbolic but existentially meaningful for disabled and non-disabled alike.
  • Critique of divine healing as healing-only theology; challenges the idea that faith must erase disability to be valid.
  • The multi-voiced Body of Christ: emphasizes a Pentecostal, multi-member body that includes disabled, Black, Latina, and other voices; the “corporate embodiment” of resurrection.
  • Commentary on abortion debates: disability bias in feminist pro-choice arguments; the need to consider ableism in reproductive choices and the implication for how disabled people are valued in society.
  • Coakley: postmodern, performative bodies and ordination
  • Uses Gregory of Nyssa to illustrate gender and body fluidity; virginity as fecund in a spiritual sense (not simply biological childbearing).
  • Critiques anti-ordination arguments (Douglas and Balthasar), which rely on fixed gender binaries; they miss the possibility of gender-bending or gender-fluid priesthood.
  • The final excerpt (12.9) presents the author’s own Eucharistic practice as a lens for gender play, where she experiences both femininity and masculinity in ritual action while remaining female.
  • Conclusion: gender fluidity can be a sign of God breaking into the world, transforming but not erasing the world; bodies can be limited yet capable of transcendence.

• The Playful Body and the end of grand narratives

  • The absence of a single grand narrative challenges universal claims about gender and disability but invites a more plural, context-sensitive approach.
  • Judith Butler’s stance (Bodies That Matter) is referenced to illustrate that gender is performative and culturally constructed rather than fixed by biology alone.
  • Coakley’s approach reconciles the fluidity of gender with a constructive sense of identity that remains authentic to one’s self while open to transformation.

• The ethical, philosophical, and practical implications

  • Ethical implications
  • Recognizing disability and gender as socially constituted invites humility about one’s own body and limits, and challenges prideful claims about normalcy.
  • The Disabled God model foregrounds solidarity with the marginalized and critiques relational hierarchies in care.
  • Philosophical implications
  • Reframing identity beyond binary oppositions (man/woman, disabled/able-bodied) toward a more robust anthropology that appreciates multiplicity.
  • The value of embodied, contextual knowledge in theology rather than abstract universal claims.
  • Practical implications for church and society
  • Move toward social inclusion: accessible spaces, inclusive liturgy, and leadership structures that include women and disabled people.
  • Critique of reproductive ethics that assumes able-bodied autonomy as the default; recognize disability as a legitimate and valued form of human life.
  • Emphasize relational ethics and care without reproducing paternalistic dynamics (ethic of care must avoid implying disability as a deficit requiring constant intervention).

• Key terms and references to remember

  • The body as a locus of liberation vs. exclusion
  • Medical model vs. Social model of disability
  • Liberal feminism, Romantic feminism, and Liberatory feminism (Ruether’s synthesis)
  • Contextual Christology (Eiesland)
  • The Disabled God (Eiesland): God embodied in disability; salvation through embodiment
  • One body, many members (Paul) and its interpretive tension with disability
  • Postmodern gender theory (Judith Butler) and the critique of grand narratives
  • Theologians and sources cited in the excerpted chapters and primary/secondary works
  • Important texts and authors to follow up: Ruether (Sexism and God-Talk), Eiesland (The Disabled God), Coakley (Powers and Submissions; The Eschatological Body)

• Connections to broader and previous work

  • Links to liberation theology and anthropology: bodies as sites of oppression and liberation; the need for praxis grounded in social justice and embodied experience.
  • Continuity with feminist ethics of care and critique of rational-autonomous models of personhood; intersectionality with race, class, sexuality, and disability.
  • The shift from a solely male-centered Christology to a more inclusive, plural, and embodied Christology that can articulate the experiences of women and disabled people without erasing differences.

• Questions for study and reflection

  • How does naming women as disabled reframe the questions we ask about salvation, leadership, and moral agency in Christian communities?
  • In what concrete ways might a social model of disability change church practices (worship, leadership, accessibility, decision-making)?
  • Can scholars hold a view of bodily normalization as a potential good without reproducing ableist norms? How do the AA (Abled/Disabled) and gendered dynamics interact in interpretation?
  • What are the risks of romantic feminism in disability contexts, and how can liberatory feminism avoid reproducing dependency or essentialism?
  • How does the idea of a “Disabled God” challenge or reinforce traditional notions of divine sanctuary, healing, and miracle narratives?

• Important passages and references (for quick recall)

  • Leviticus 21:16-23 as a scriptural basis often cited in discussions of priesthood and bodily blemishes: $ext{Leviticus 21:16-23}$
  • Summa Theologica I.92 (Aquinas’ view of women as inferior): $ext{Summa Theologica I.92}$
  • The idea of a “one body” in Paul and the move to multiply bodies in contemporary theology; Acts 2 and Pentecostal localization of the Body of Christ: $ext{Acts 2}$
  • Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (postmodern gender theory reference)
  • The Disabled God, Nancy Eiesland (core text for contextual Christology) and Pushed (Block) as a critique of medical interventions in childbirth and woman-centered care

• Summary takeaway

  • Naming women as disabled opens a broad, fruitful field for reimagining Christian anthropology, ethics, and praxis. The goal is not to erase difference or reduce people to disability, but to recognize embodied diversity as a site of theological meaning and liberation. A mature theology of the body acknowledges the potential to embrace, transform, and play with our embodied identities while maintaining humility about what we do not fully understand. The diverse voices—Ruether, Eiesland, Coakley—offer complementary paths: liberatory feminism, the sanctified dignity of the disabled body, and postmodern openness to gender fluidity, all converging on a shared invitation to re-vision what it means to be human in God’s creation.

• Primary sources cited in this chapter

  • Coakley, Sarah. 2004. “The Woman at the Altar: Cosmological Disturbance or Gender Subversion?” Anglican Theological Review 86, no. 1 (Winter): 75-94.
  • Eiesland, Nancy. 1994. The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
  • Ruether, Rosemary Radford. 1983; revised, 1993. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Boston: Beacon Hill Press.

• Secondary sources referenced for context

  • Block, Jennifer. 2007. Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Lifelong Books.
  • Coakley, Sarah. 2002. “The Eschatological Body: Gender, Transformation, and God.” In Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy, and Gender. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
  • Elshout, Elly, et al. 1994. “Roundtable Discussion: Women with Disabilities: A Jana Bennett 440”

• Keepsake takeaways for exam prep

  • Be able to articulate the difference between the medical and social models of disability and their theological implications.
  • Explain Ruether’s concept of liberatory feminism and how it attempts to reconcile liberal, romantic, and religious strands.
  • Describe Eiesland’s concept of the Disabled God and contextual Christology, including why healing-only theories fall short.
  • Discuss Coakley’s postmodern approach to gender and theology, especially the idea of gender fluidity and ordination debates.
  • Reflect on the ethical implications of abortion discussions within feminist disability contexts and the critique of ableist assumptions in feminist thought.