Rachel Watters is animated as she remembers spending time in hospital rooms as a child. Even though she was there for a medical condition, she says she thrived in the spotlight.
“My mother would tell me that I would be dancing around the room, playing with their instruments, telling knock-knock jokes.”
The 30-year-old Fredericton resident has a very rare physical disability called Miller syndrome, a condition that affects the development of limbs and the face. It usually results in shortened limbs, recessed chins and a cleft palate.
“Sometimes I have difficultly with certain doorknobs or there’s certain things I can’t do, but you sort of learn to find a way around them or adapt. In many ways, my life has been quite blessed.”
Watters is combining her experience with physical disability and her interests in photography, the media and women’s studies for her master’s thesis at the University of New Brunswick. Her project is examining how women with disabilities are portrayed in the media.
“Somebody suggested to me that I should pick a topic that is close to my heart because then you stay involved in it and stay focused on it.”
Watters decided on her thesis topic after an undergraduate degree in photography at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, an attempted master’s degree in women’s studies at Saint Mary’s University, a diploma in graphic design at the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design and a year in the Aquinas program at St. Thomas University.
She says only 30 to 40 people around the world have Miller syndrome. The severity of the disorder differs among cases and Watters has a mild to moderate case.
She’s looking for 10 women that are 18 years or older who self-identify as physically disabled, to participate in her thesis, which she hopes to finish by June. So far, she has three participants confirmed.
Her thesis will include new representations of women with physical disabilities, but she wants to take it one step further.
Following the completion of her thesis, she hopes to create a book of photographs depicting women with physical disabilities in a different way. She is also planning to earn her PhD in interdisciplinary studies.
Watters says her interest in photography sprouts from her father’s love for it, and she attributes her mother for her interest in women’s studies.
“I’ve always been a feminist because my mother is a feminist. I remember as a kid, I used to really love comic books and how I would decide what comic book to buy would be I’d go through the bin of four for a dollar and any that had a woman on the cover, that’s the one I wanted to buy.”
If you would like more information or are interested in participating in Watters’ study, she can be contacted at [email protected].
