hope's blog

It has often been the goal of feminist organizations to protect and defend women. Recently, the “stop violence against women” movement gained popular attention. Such a movement is, taken at face value, hard to oppose. However, while any attempt to reduce violence is to be applauded, does this campaign not in some ways reinforce the notion that being female is somehow a disability? Does it not imply that women are weaker and therefore in need of special protection? Is stopping violence against men not an equally worthy cause? Rosemarie Garland-Thompson writes that “Indeed, equating femaleness with disability is common, sometimes to denigrate women and sometimes to defend them.” Efforts to classify women as