Docile bodies, supercrips, and the plays of prosthetics

Abstract

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 docile 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.