Susan Wendell's book examines how disability is socially constructed and argues that feminist theories of embodiment have not fully considered the experience of bodily suffering and limitation. She discusses the social stigma of disability and rejects the view that people are solely responsible for their health outcomes. Wendell also critiques the authority of medicine in defining normal bodies and experiences. She argues that incorporating the perspectives of people with disabilities is vital to feminist ethics and developing a more complete understanding of transcending the limitations of the body.

4. Introduction
1. Who Is Disabled? Defining Disability
2. The Social Construction of Disability
3. Disability as Difference
4. The Flight from the Rejected Body
5. The Cognitive and Social Authority of Medicine
6. Disability and Feminist Ethics
7. Feminism, Disability, and Transcendence of the Body
9. Conclusion
References

5.  Susan Wendell was born at November 13, 1945 (age
70 years)
In February of 1985, she was healthy. She was
teaching philosophy and women's Studies,
coordinating the women's studies program, working
with graduate Students, writing academic articles,
and enjoying the company of her Friends.
 She was also exercising regularly eating reasonably
well, and taking Her vitamins. One weekend, she
came down with what she thought was the Worst flu
she had ever experienced, high fever, coughing,
nausea, light-sensitivity, perceptual distortions, and
intense pain in her joints and muscles.

7.  She spent her days on the couch or in bed and
still Could not walk a block. A year after she fell
ill, she had managed, by a tremendous
Effort of will and gentle, gradual exercise, to
condition herself to
Walking five blocks on a good day In January of
1987, almost two years after falling ill, she
returned to teaching half-time at the university.
Reaching that point was the most difficult thing
she have ever done.

8.  Her struggles now are not primarily with the
disease. After ten years it has become a given, a
somewhat unpredictable limitation around which
she must plan as best she can.
 She try to commit herself to doing only as much on
any given day as she could do if she were going
through a bad period of illness, since on any given
day she might be in an her valley, but she make long-
term commitments based on what she can manage
on an average day.
 she adhere faithfully to routines of acupuncture,
Chinese herbal medicine, and therapeutic touch, and
she take pain medications and rest breaks, but her
life does not revolve around the disease as it once
did.

9.  It is probably sometimes obvious that she was
having difficulty finding words or Remembering
names, and her colleagues and students are good
at supplying the missing pieces, but this is a
weakness to which many of people who are over
forty-five are susceptible.
 Social analysis helps a lot. she have learned from
other people with disabilities that most non-
disabled people cannot wrap their minds around
the possibility that someone can be disabled or ill
and also work productively, have intimate
relationships, or be happy.

10.  In 1990 she developed an undergraduate course on
women and disability, Which she has since taught several
times. The students in that course, many of Who have
disabilities, have taught her a great deal more. She
personally And intellectually interested in the lives of
women with disabilities, and in Gender differences in both
the experience of disability and the treatment of People
with disabilities.
 She focus on physical disability here, both because she
know much more about physical disabilities than she do
about mental disabilities, and because she particularly
interested in attitudes towards the body.
 she know that many people with disabilities have both
physical and mental disabilities, and she interested in
mental disability, of which she have some personal
experience; but since it raises some different, additional
issues, she discuss mental disability. She has tried,
however, not to make any unqualified generalizations
about disability without questioning whether they apply to
mental disabilities.

11.  She focused upon the social and cultural factors that, in interaction with
biological differences, create disability.
 She examine the stigma of disability and illness, beginning with Goffman's
famous study of stigma.
 She also discuss some political issues among people with Disabilities.
 She concerned with the idealization and objectification of the body in the
commercial-media-soaked societies of North America.
 She discuss some of the consequences of the cognitive and Social authority of
scientific Western medicine to describe our bodies in the Societies where it
holds sway.
 She argue that the experiences and interests of both people with disabilities
and those who care for people with disabilities are vitally relevant to the
projects and issues of feminist ethics, including the attempt to develop an ethic
of care and to balance it with a morality of justice, the critical re-examination of
the ethical ideals of autonomy and independence, and feminist ethical
approaches to abortion, euthanasia, and health care reform.
 She devoted to what might seem like an esoteric subject—transcendence of the
body.

12.  Susan Wendell have discussed in this chapter about who is
disabled, which is not as easily answered as it might seem.
 She consider definitions of disability, including the highly
influential United Nations definitions of "impairment,"
"disability” And "handicap," arguing that neither impairment nor
disability can be defined purely in biomedical terms, because the
biological and the social are interactive in creating (or
preventing) both.
 She also examines the controversial question whether people
with illnesses and people experiencing the frailties and
limitations of old age should be considered disabled.
 She then discuss who defines disability and for what purposes,
and how their purposes may affect the definitions. Finally she
turn to issues of identification—who identifies her/himself as
disabled, who is identified by other people as disabled, and how
these may be in conflict—and some political issues of disability
identity, including whether "people with disabilities" is a
meaningful category.

13.  She argued that neither impairment nor disability can be
denned purely in biomedical terms, because social
arrangements and expectations make essential
contributions to impairment and disability, and to their
absence.
 The United Nations Definitions
The United Nations definition of disability is widely used
and tends to be favored by disability activists and other
advocates of greater opportunities for people with
disabilities. It offers the following definitions of and
distinctions among impairment, disability, and handicap:
 "Impairment: Any loss or abnormality of psychological,
physiological, or anatomical structure or function.
 Disability: Any restriction or lack (resulting from an
impairment) of ability to perform an activity in the manner
or within the range considered normal for a human being.

14.  Handicap: A disadvantage for a given individual,
resulting from an impairment or disability, that
limits or prevents the fulfillment of a role that is
normal, depending on age, sex, social and cultural
factors, format individual.“
 Handicap is therefore a function of the relationship
between disabled persons and their environment. It
occurs when they encounter cultural, physical or
social barriers which prevent their access to the
various systems of society that are available to other
citizens.
 Thus, handicap is the loss or limitation of
opportunities to take part in the life of the
community on an equal level with others. (UN 1983:
I.e. 6-7as cited by Susan Wendell)

15.  There are two things she likes about the UN
definitions. First, they are general enough to include
many conditions that are not always recognized by
the general public as disabling, for example,
debilitating chronic illnesses, such as Crohn's
disease, which limit people s activities but do not
necessarily cause any immediately observable
disability.
 Second, the definition of handicap explicitly
recognizes the possibility that the primary causes of
a disabled person s inability to do certain things
may be social; they may be lack of opportunities,
lack of accessibility, lack of services, poverty or
discrimination, and they often are. It is this latter
aspect of the definitions that makes them appealing
to advocates for people with disabilities.

16.  There are several criticisms she has of the UN definitions
that may throw some light on the nature of disability and the
problems associated with denying it.
 First, the definitions of "impairment" and "disability" seem
to imply that there is some universal, biologically or
medically describable standard of structure, function, and
human physical ability. As we shall see, there would be
important advantages to employing some universal
standards, should we be able to agree on them. Yet surely
what are "normal" structure, function, and ability to perform
an activity all depend to some degree on the society in which
the standards of normality are generated.
 On the other hand, definitions of impairment and disability
could be relativized too much to some societies. If most
people in a particular society are chronically
undernourished, that society's standards of "normal"
functioning might become so low as to mask the widespread
disability among its citizens that starvation is causing.

17.  Chapter 2 she focused upon the social and cultural
factors that, in interaction with biological differences,
create disability.
 These factors include social conditions that cause or fail
to prevent damage to peoples bodies, social
expectations of performance, the physical and social
organization of societies on the basis of a young, non-
disabled, 'ideally shaped/ healthy adult male
paradigm of citizens, the failure or unwillingness to
create ability among people who do not fit the
paradigm, cultural representations and failures of
representation, and the cultural meanings of disability.
 She discusses how disability could be socially
deconstructed and consider some obstacles to its
deconstruction.

18.  In this chapter Susan Wendell examine the stigma of
disability and illness, beginning with Goffman’s
famous study of stigma.
 she consider the concept of 'the Other/ developed in
feminist theorizing, as a way of understanding the
social position of people with disabilities, look at
some of the symbolic meanings of disabilities and
illnesses, and describe some consequences of being
'the Other' in this particular way.
 She then turn to the possibility of regarding
disability as a neutral or valuable form of difference
that is, among other things, a source of knowledge.

19.  she discuss the standpoint-epistemology question in
relation to people with disabilities—whether having a
disability gives a person access to a less distorted and
more complete perspective on certain issues—in the
light of recent criticisms of feminist standpoint
epistemologies.
 she also discuss some political issues among people
with disabilities centering around the question
whether to emphasize similarities to the non-disabled
or differences from them, and some disputes about
language—what to call ourselves and what changes in
linguistic usage to promote.
 Finally, she considers the question: If we value the
differences of people with disabilities (as she does),
what implications does that have for efforts to prevent
or cure disabilities?

20.  Chapter 4 is concerned with the idealization and
objectification of the body in the commercial-media-
soaked societies of North America.
 These create demands that we control and attempt to
perfect our bodies, which in turn create rejection, shame,
and fear concerning both failures to control the body and
deviations from body ideals, which in turn contribute to
the stigmatization and 'Otherness of people with
disabilities.
 Refusal to come to terms with the full reality of bodily
life, including those aspects of it that are rejected
culturally, leads people to embrace the myth of control,
whose essence is the belief that it is possible, by means of
human actions, to have the bodies we want and to avoid
illness, disability, and death

21.  she examine various contemporary versions of the
myth of control, including those of scientific Western
medicine, those of some alternative therapeutic
practices, various versions of mind-over-body, and
some theories about how people 'make themselves' ill
or disabled by mismanaging their lives, their psyches,
or their spirits.
 she discuss the burdens of blame and guilt that are
fostered by these versions of the myth and the
widespread, profound reluctance to admit that bad
things happen to people who do not deserve them, or
seek them, or risk them, or fail to take care of
themselves.
 She do not advocate giving up all attempts to control
the body or abandoning all aspects of the myth of
control, but she do discuss how they might be changed
to the benefit of people with and without disabilities.

22.  In chapter 5 she discusses some of the consequences of
the cognitive and social authority of scientific Western
medicine to describe our bodies in the societies where it
holds sway. This authority affects how we experience
our bodies, contributing its objectifying perspective to
the alienation already fostered by other aspects of
commercial cultures.
 It affects how a society describes our experiences and
validates or invalidates them, adding the burden of
epistemic invalidation to many people's experiences of
illness and disability.
 It also affects how a society supports or fails to support
our bodily suffering and struggles, for people who are
ill or disabled without a medical diagnosis are not
eligible for social programmes and are frequently
abandoned by friends and family.

23.  The authority of medicine shapes and limits,
through its effects on the flow of communication
about bodily experience, what our culture knows
about the human body. It also profoundly affects
the relationship of medical practitioners to
patients and the quality of medical care.
 Those medical practitioners with the most
authority tend to measure their success by the
'objective state of the patient's body and to
regard death as their greatest failure, while
patients are more likely to measure a healer's
success by the quality of their subjective
experiences and to consider medicine's greatest
failures to be unrecognized, unsupported,
meaningless, or hopeless suffering.

24.  She concludes by pointing out that philosophers
of biomedical ethics have tended not to question
the authority of medicine and to adopt medicine's
preoccupation with life-and-death issues.
 she give reasons for hoping that the emerging
field of feminist medical ethics will produce a
critique of medicine that speaks to the concerns of
people with disabilities and people with
unrecognized or incurable illnesses

25.  In chapter 6 she argue that the experiences and
interests of both people with disabilities and those
who care for people with disabilities are vitally
relevant to the projects and issues of feminist
ethics, including the attempt to develop an ethic of
care and to balance it with a morality of justice, the
critical re-examination of the ethical ideals of
autonomy and independence, and feminist ethical
approaches to abortion, euthanasia, and health
care reform

26.  By discussing the analyses arid concerns of people
who have some experience with disability,
especially those with feminist perspectives, she
attempt to show how they must be included in any
adequate treatment of these projects and issues.
 She maintain that feminist ethics needs the
insights of people with disabilities, that people
with disabilities need feminist ethics that some
people involved in disability ethics and politics are
already practicing feminist ethics, and that more
feminist ethicists should be practicing disability
ethics.

27.  Chapter 7 is devoted to what might seem like an esoteric
subject—transcendence of the body. In fact, for many
people with disabilities, it is a practical matter of immediate
daily concern.
 Ideas of transcending the body have generally been rejected
by feminists, partly in reaction to philosophies and religions
that derogate the body (especially women's bodies) and
partly because feminist theorizing about the body has not
fully confronted the experience of bodily suffering.
 she describe some strategies for living with pain, sickness,
and physical limitation gathered from her own experience
and the writings of other people with disabilities, and argue
that a more complete feminist understanding of the body
might include some concept of transcendence.

28.  The rejected body is a brilliant and original work that
goes beyond the topic of disability and question the
adequacy of feminist theories of embodiment generally.
 Wendell combines her personal experience of disability
with her knowledge of feminist philosophy to bring
clarity to both. She validates invalidity.
 The rejected body argues that feminist theorizing has
been skewed toward non-disabled experience, and that
the knowledge of people with disabilities must be
integrated into feminist ethics, discussions of bodily life,
and the criticism of the cognitive and social authority of
medicine.

29.  Wendell, S. (1996). The rejected body: Feminist
philosophical reflections on disability. London:
Routledge