I’m not proposing that every single feminist conversation has to be about or for or even include disabled women. I am saying that erasing disabled women from our vision of what it means to be a woman limits all of us. And not in some abstract, theoretical way. Literally and truly—every single woman is subject to the demands, uncertainties, and limitations of her body—a body that strains under the forces of gravity and time, that wrinkles and breaks, swells and sags, accumulates pain and injury. Many of our bodies are literally torn by giving birth, transformed into food through lactation, and subject to the roller-coaster unpredictability of menstruation, menopause, and hormone therapy.

The most consistent, most universal, most shared experience in having a body is that they all change, and if you live long enough, they all start to slow, forget, fracture, ignore orders, and revolt. When we pretend disability is not a part of womanhood—when we keep the two separate and distinct—we’re all left less equipped, less adaptable for the inevitable challenges of life.

Honestly, I get it. It’s not hard to see how the chasm between womanhood and disability formed. In our not-so-distant past, the “physical frailties” of women (which, yes, included monthly cycles, because, BLOOD!) were used as evidence that they shouldn’t be educated, shouldn’t work, shouldn’t leave the house, shouldn’t travel alone, blah, blah, blah. (Side note: Did you know that when public restrooms were first created, they existed only for men? Because, why would a woman ever be in public long enough to need a toilet out in the wild? TRUE STORY.)

In order to assert that we do deserve education and work and the right to exist in public, women have felt the need to claim their strength and hide any perceived weaknesses. Because, in a very real way, they could be used as evidence to send us home. This has to be felt even more intensely from women who intersect with additional marginalized identities, women who don’t need one more reason to be excluded, dismissed, or rejected. I also wonder what we’ve lost in our struggle to minimize these so-called weaknesses and prove we can fight just as hard. Can we be both gentle and strong? Fragile and resilient?

As we ignore or minimize our vulnerabilities, our most tender parts, our inherently human physical limitations, I wonder—are we just reinforcing the rules patriarchy wrote: a body that doesn’t have needs = ideal, valuable, worthy. A body that has needs = discard pile. Not only are these rules utter bull-a-shit, but they’re boring. What else is out there that we can’t see beyond the towering fence of rougher-tougher-stronger patriarchy? What happens when we acknowledge the fact that all of our bodies need help, intervention, and support? And why not invite the experts on the front lines of adaptability and access to that conversation?