Discovering bodies beautiful

In Western society, women are scrutinised for the way they look and presented with a succession of aesthetic hoops to jump through; it’s hard for even the most agile female to keep up so, ponders Lara Masters, how does physical disability shape how women see themselves and others see them

My mum was a model so I learnt that beauty and physical “perfection” were important attributes. I started modelling at 13 but with a degenerative nerve condition, it became increasingly difficult to keep up appearances. As my disability progressed, so did my assumption that being disabled and beautiful was an oxymoron and for some time I hid myself away from the world.

Eventually, I got bored of feeling sorry for myself. It took some nerve (ironically, since my condition means those are the very things I’m lacking) but I started dressing up and going out and I soon found it was entirely possible to be disabled and hot. Wherever I went, girls admired my style, guys chatted me up or eyed me up whilst their girlfriends seethed quietly because they couldn’t throw their drinks over a girl in a wheelchair.

For me, a dash of scarlet lippy and a satin corset undid years of feeling I was my wheelchair. I asked other disabled women how they “roll” in our body fascist society.

Tess Daly, 21, who has spinal muscular atrophy type 2 and is dependent on her electric wheelchair says: “I live for fashion, six inch heels, my friends and clubbing. I’m an addict of women’s glossies but being bombarded with images of stick thin, ‘gorgeous’ women with no noticeable disabilities or imperfections can lead us mere mortals to feel inadequate.

“I have very mixed feelings about my body. I know I can make myself look good when I’m dressed to the nines but take my clothes off and I literally despise myself and become aware of how disabled I am.”

However, Tess has learnt to maximise her assets: “Five years ago I wouldn’t even have worn a knee-length skirt and now my favourite item of clothing is a miniskirt that would be better described as a belt! In clothes, I can make myself feel a million dollars –
I just hide the parts I dislike.”

For 25 year-old Marie Tidball who has foreshortened arms with a digit on each hand and one leg amputated at the ankle from a congenital disability, exposing the parts of her body she disliked helped her body-confidence. Marie, who is currently doing a Masters in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Oxford University told me: “Growing up, I never saw anybody in the media with a disability who was attractive, so it was difficult for me to believe that disabled women could be seen as desirable and beautiful.”

During her teens, she would only look at herself in the mirror from the waist up to avoid seeing her amputation but things changed when Marie went on holiday with a friend: “I had never worn a bikini and had a huge fear of people seeing me without my prosthetic limb, but my friend was sunbathing in her bikini so I just did it. When a guy who had seen me sunbathing without my leg later chatted me up at the hotel bar, it really reassured me.

“I realised I could influence other people’s response to my disability and when I went out with my friends I would go up to men and chat them up myself. I’d ask them how they felt about my disability and found it was more my paranoia than their negativity that was the problem.”

Overcoming feeling uncomfortable around disability was something Hollyoaks’ actress Kelly-Marie Stewart confronted soon after contracting Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

“When I first got in the chair I went for a casting with other wheelchair-using models. I didn’t know anyone with a disability and I felt awkward around the girls but they were so bubbly – I left not remembering their disabilities but the fact that they were at university or things they said about their boyfriends. I made some good friends that day and it taught me that personality easily trumps disability.”

As for media pressure, Kelly-Marie keeps things in perspective: “I read mags but I don’t feel in any way pressured to look like those models. They’ve got top hairdressers and top make-up artists; if we all had those we’d all look like that!”

Talking to these women made me proud to be disabled. Gandhi said “be the change you want to see in the world” and in different ways, we’ve all worked at breaking down our own prejudices rather than waiting for society to change. Who knew spirituality could be found in a corset, six inch heels, a bikini and a TV soap!