'You Only Need Three Senses for This': The Disruptive Potentiality of Cyborg Helen Keller

Annie Sullivan. Feral Child. Water-pump. W-A-T-E-R. These are the images associated with Helen Keller, part of the pictorial mythology surrounding a beloved historical figure whose image has been co-opted to deliver a sentimental tale about perseverance over adversity. The pictorial mythology keeps Keller frozen in adolescence, ignores the radical pursuits of her adult life, and renders her into an asexual and a passive participant in her own narrative. Of course, the impulse to depict people with disabilities as passive and asexual is not new. As Mitchell S. Tepper explains, “Neglect of the pleasurable aspect in the discourse of sexuality and disability is perpetuated by the assumption that people with disabilities are child-like and asexual” (287). Women with disabilities are particularly susceptible to an erasure of sexuality, because “Sex is portrayed as a privilege of the white, heterosexual, young, single and non-disabled” (285). As Rosemarie Garland-Thomson observes, “women are the proper object of the male gaze, while disabled people are the proper object of the stare” (“Reshaping” 9). The “gaze” objectifies, while the “stare” dehumanizes (“Reshaping” 9), and representation of disabled women not only shapes how we are viewed by society, but how women with disabilities see ourselves, and the consequences go way beyond just perception.