About semantic slips and the contributions of gender theories to a new approach to the concept of intellectual disability

Abstract

This theoretical essay is divided into three parts. The first provides a brief overview of the semantic slips that culminated in the construction of the concept of mental disability. The second part reflects on the consolidation of the notion of mental disability by medical knowledge. Later, it analyzes the transformations motivated by the claims of the social model of disability, as well as its resonance in the construction of the concept of intellectual disability adopted by the sociolegal and health fields. Finally, the third part invests in the approximation of the discussions on intellectual disability with gender theories. It proposes that the same denaturalizing effort carried out by feminist theorists about sex and gender helps to deconstruct the negative image of disability as something natural, individual, and unavoidable in the lives of certain people. In this way, it allows the formulation of a new approach to health care and care policies.