Sexuality on Screen
A Feminist Disability Studies Reading of Izzy Armstrong in Coronation Street
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24230574 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bev Enion (0009-0001-7414-2322) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 551-563 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-07 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1501-7419 • E-ISSN: 1745-3011 |
| Publisher | Stockholm University Press (PUBLISHER • SE) |
| DOI | 10.16993/sjdr.1412 |
| OpenAlex | W7220830458 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 28 |
This paper employs textual analysis of long-form storyline arcs, informed by Feminist Disability Studies, to explore how Coronation Street, a long-standing UK soap opera, represents disabled women’s sexuality through the character of Izzy Armstrong. By examining Izzy’s sexuality-related storylines, this paper contributes to addressing a gap in disability, sexuality, and soap opera scholarship. The analysis exposes a series of tensions and contradictions. Izzy’s early romantic storylines disrupt normative understandings of sexuality, yet her pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage frame disability and pregnancy through discourses of medical risk. Her route to motherhood via surrogacy is simultaneously empowering and constrained, while her co-parenting arc offers a scarce portrayal of disabled motherhood as capable and conventional. Through this, it is argued that Coronation Street challenges and reproduces ableist assumptions, highlighting the complexities and tensions involved in representing disabled women’s sexuality within a mainstream soap opera.
Ableism · co-parenting · Coronation Street · feminist disability studies · surrogacy · Disability Rights and Representation · Gender and Feminist Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media
Sexuality and Disability
Why Don’t Employers Hire and Retain Workers with Disabilities?
Surrogacy and Disability
‘Like, pissing yourself is not a particularly attractive quality, let’s be honest’
Lost in representation
Contested pleasures
Forbidden option or planned decision? Physically disabled women’s narratives on the choice of motherhood
Stereotypes
The representation of disabled women and recent disabled women-led media
The social model of disability
Drifting down the gulf stream
Performing motherhood in a disablist world
Disability images and the art of theorizing normality
Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability
Furthering the person-first versus identity-first language debate
The impact of gender and disability on the economic well‐being of disabled women in the United Kingdom
Women with Disability and Reproductive Rights
Navigating visibility and risk
A Class Act
The Baby and the Bath Water
Feminist Disability Studies
| Highly cited | No |
|---|