The representation of disabled women and recent disabled women-led media

Abstract

This is a Current Issue because media industries have recently made renewed efforts to address problems in representations of disability, including UK initiatives for disabled-led content in 2020/2021. Analysis of these new forms of work will be necessary to learn more for improving future representations. Since portrayals of disabled women have been disproportionately neglected in academic analysis of media, my focus is on ‘Hen Night’, an episode of the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine programme of work. I discuss this as an exemplar of disabled women’s representation. I argue that ‘Hen Night’, and other pieces written and performed by disabled people in recent collections provide valuable insights into how and why gendered dimensions of disability imagery and social relations in mainstream media can begin to be changed for the better, improving understanding of the forms of marginalisation disabled women continue to face in cultural industries and gendered forms of representation.