Frontmatter and Editorial

In lieu of an abstract, here is the first paragraph of the editorial: For a long time the relationship between gender and disability has been viewed in a subtractive or additive fashion, often pointing to the emasculation of men or double discrimination against women, often limiting itself to binaries. The portrayal of disability annihilating gender and exacerbating systems of oppression can be found in mainstream media and disciplinary scholarship alike. While identity is commonly explored through the axes of race, class, and gender, this issue of Gender Forum chimes in with arguments that have been put forward to include the category of the body or more explicitly disability. Be it Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s assertion of ‘feminist disability studies’ or Tom Shakespeare’s, Russell Shuttleworth’s, and Thomas Gerschick’s work on ‘disabled masculinities,’ or approaches within Queer Studies by Rober McRuer or Mark Sherry, the shared objective is to catalyze a negotiation of the interlocking of identity markers in subject formation and the resulting particularities of oppression that permeate all of these discourses. In tackling these questions, conceptualizations of bodily difference similarly move to address the construction of normalcy, heteropatriarchy, and privilege.