Animality-patriarchy in Mental Disability Representations

Abstract

In this article, I theorize an ableist, familial discourse of animality-patriarchy through examination of Foucault’s (1988), Gilman’s (1976, 1988, 1995, 1996), and Kromm’s (2002) histories of mental disability representations. These scholars show how animal as well as female and infant hu-man characteristics were each used to signify inferiority, but they overlook the collective function of such characteristics within a discursive system that appeals to hierarchical animal taxonomies. Utilizing perspectives from Disability Studies, Gender Studies, and Animal Studies, I provide a historical overview of how representations of mental disability in West-ern cultures rely on multiple, overlapping types of oppression, specifically ableism, paternalism, and speciesism, which I argue coalesce as a form of patriarchy. Contrasting Mitchell (2012), who asserts that madness was always represented as an exaggeration of what society perceives as normal thinking, I argue that the taxonomic aspect of what I am calling animality-patriarchy implies absolute difference between disabled and non-disabled people, between men, women, children, and pets, and so on, which is used to rationalize the oppression of such groups.