by Barbara Hillyer Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997, 320 pages

Reviewed by: Patricia M. Burrell, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Barbara Hillyer informs us that the dissonance between feminist ideas and the disability movement as well as between the professional and personal literature and experience were the major factors that instigated her writing of Feminism and Disability. Her living and raising a mentally handicapped daughter and her involvement in the feminist and disability movements forced her to examine closely and evaluate the lived ramifications of the ideology of the two movements. While acknowledging the difficulties and fears of growing up into womanhood, felt by any American girl, the limitations of the feminist perspectives as well as those of the societal norms for a young girl who is mentally and physically disabled are made evident. Her daughter cannot be what she wants to be because of her very real limitations.

Hillyer addresses caregiving and the lack of a feminist literature that truly addresses the mother-daughter relationship within a disability context. She continually addresses the societal expectations of both the disabled and the caregivers. The perpetual paradoxes of the caring regimen forced on women caregivers of "emotional and physical strength, constant and dependent availability" are off-set by the expectation of detached or absent "emotional responsiveness." Societal emphasis on independence and productivity has very real implications for the disabled and explains how society's push for independence may ultimately undermine the relationship between caregiver and care recipient. She delineates the tremendous burden placed on the mother of a disabled child as well as the increased suffering of a very intense scrutiny.

She examines the language and concept of handicap and notes that it applies to the perception of a "significant barrier" and/or having a negative effect for relationships. Hillyer's perception of balancing off her daughter's incapacities with her own intellect and her daughter's complementing her intellectuality with her very deep emotionality are pathologized by the professionals as symbiosis. She notes that there is a beginning acknowledgment of the failure by those who...