Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Thinking about what sort of bodies are abject...

"Lakshmi before surgery to remove her 'parasitic twin' that stopped developing in the womb. A two-year-old Indian girl, born with four arms and four legs, is making a good recovery after a 27-hour operation last week. Doctors say her condition is stable and will decide later this week whether to move her from the intensive care unit."

It's also interesting that this girl had eight limbs, like some Hindu gods. While this may seem like a disability that would cause this girl a lot of hardship in her life, I wonder if she is treated with more dignity because her culture is more familiar with images of multiple limbs. I wonder if anyone thought she could be an incarnation of Lakshmi- while this little girl might really benefit from becoming "normal," and who am I to say she shouldn't get that chance, it's worth thinking about how she might have been thought of in a time before advanced surgery could transform her. It's kind of eugenic- and reminds me of sex-assignment surgery of intersex infants- isn't it worth asking -"what's wrong with being this way?"

Looking up the name Lakshmi on wikipedia, I found that it the name of a Hindu goddess:

Physically, goddess Lakshmi is described as a fair lady, with four arms, seated on a lotus, dressed in fine garments and precious jewels. Her expression is always calm and loving. The most striking feature of the iconography of Lakshmi is her persistent association with the lotus. The meaning of the lotus in relation to Shri-Lakshmi refers to purity and spiritual power. Rooted in the mud but blossoming above the water, completely uncontaminated by the mud, the lotus represents spiritual perfection and authority.

Lakshmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, love and beauty, the lotus flower and fertility. Representations of Lakshmi (or Shri) are found in Jain and Buddhist monuments, in addition to Hindu temples. Analogous to the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus - who also originated from the oceans - she is generally thought of as the personification of material fortune, beauty and prosperity.