Enabling Community: Disabled Women's Practice of Changing Disability Values

Abstract

The beginning of disabled women's political activism can truly be considered an opportunity for them to disclose their experience of discrimination to society as a whole, obtain a chance to empower themselves and embark on a struggle against social injustice. Through their movement, disabled women have developed alternative values whereby they tackle the able-body-centered culture. With these new values, disabled women have also developed the philosophical basis and practical tools for resisting patriarchal disablism in Korean society. This paper aims to examine the significance of the disabled women's movement and their resistance against patriarchal disablism. It also seeks to investigate these women's emancipatory politics, which is part of the counter-culture. Disabled women's politics providesa model for changing discriminative values as well as resisting the oppression of those with disabilities.