When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genreâs subversion of traditional femininity. We werenât just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.
But since Iâve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I⌠find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. Itâs that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it⌠but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.
As Iâm disabled, as I say to groups of friends, âI canât walk that far,â as Iâm in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: Iâm boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: Youâre out of the narrative, youâre secondary, youâre a burden.
The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; itâs common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that sheâs like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, sheâs important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork. Â In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her householdâs moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.
That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.
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