Experiences Of Disabled Women Research Articles

I see you but you don’t see me: the “two-way mirror effect” of gender and disability in employment

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to prior gender-based conceptual models within organisational and management studies by incorporating an additional lens of disability. The authors present a context specific and embodied based model that we call the “two-way mirror effect” which accounts for the environmental and discursive effects of gender and disability within the workplace. Design/methodology/approach The paper reviews existing literature on gender, disability and employment and uses that literature to construct and support the concept of a two-way mirror effect. Findings By drawing on organisation and management-based studies, the authors have shown how previous models do not currently account for the experiences of disabled women within the workplace. Disabled workers, and especially disabled women face a myriad of unique barriers, including masculine and able-bodied employment practices (e.g. performative expectations) and exclusionary physical spaces (e.g. access, location to required facilities), that exclude them from full employment participation. Practical implications The review of existing literature and conceptual models reveal the gaps in research that academics and practitioners can build upon and the paper identifies the dominant norms that are embedded within organisational practices, which can be challenged to promote inclusion and equality. Originality/value The authors present a new intersectional-based conceptual model to fill a gap in organisational and management-based studies that accounts for the unique employment experiences of disabled employees, specifically disabled women.

Barriers to marriage and motherhood: the experiences of disabled women in Malaysia

ABSTRACT The conceptualisation of disability is contested globally and issues in gender studies further complicate the movement towards the development of an inclusive and equal society. However, most disability and gender research studies are based on the data collected in the Global North, and little is known about disabled women in the Global South. The data presented here is from a bigger study focusing on the lived experiences of women with disabilities. This paper sets to explore how disabled women in Malaysia experience their lives in terms of marriage and motherhood prospects. The data of this qualitative study was collected from a set of in-depth interviews involving 32 women in Malaysia with physical (mobility) impairment. Over a period of 6 months, 16 Malays, 8 Chinese and 8 Indian women were interviewed twice. The analysis proposes both retrospective and introspective accounts on marriage and motherhood. The data gathered from the in-depth interviews was transcribed and analysed thematically with the help of NVivo software. The findings indicated that most participants have experienced significant barriers concerning individual constraints, familial control, and societal barriers. These were discussed with the intrinsic aspects and contextual factors of living in a patriarchal and traditional society that significantly undermined the wellbeing of disabled women in this study. Nevertheless, many of those interviewed refused to give up their hope of having a family life despite the constant struggles they encountered in their pursuit of happiness. However, their aspirations to experience family life were restricted and this caused them to experience significant psycho-emotional problems. They were constantly reminded that they were ‘disabled’ and not worthy of experiencing life like other women. The paper will discuss these challenges and negative societal attitudes towards the issue.

Niepełnosprawność i sprawiedliwość reprodukcyjna. Zarys wybranych zagadnień dotyczących kobiet z niepełnosprawnościami Podejście

Disability and reproductive justice. Mapping disabled women’s experiences The aim of this paper is to map experiences of disabled women regarding parenthood and childfreeness/childlessness as well as support in upbringing their own children. The concept of reproductive justice is employed, as it proposes a critical approach to understanding how societies construct who can and should be a parent. Approaching the question of individual choice in a broad social context, I analyse factors that shape experiences of disabled women in Poland (e.g. restrictions on parenting of disabled persons or lack of marriage equality). Keywords: reproductive justice, disabled women, motherhood, reproductive choice

“Most of Them Are Amateurs”: Women with Spinal Cord Injury Experience the Lack of Education and Training among Medical Providers While Seeking Gynecological Care

Although the American Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990) became federal law more than two decades ago, individuals with disabilities continue to experience substandard healthcare. We use this article to hone in on disabled women's experiences of seeking gynecological care and the access disparities they still face. The data for this qualitative study were gathered using in-depth interviews with 20 women living with spinal cord injuries in or around Detroit, Michigan. Each interviewee was questioned about overall health and physical functioning, accessibility of doctor offices, interactions with health care providers, and gynecological health-seeking behaviors. In this paper we report on women's gynecological healthcare experiences and related attitudes and practices, and what women see as the primary structural and social barriers to comprehensive care. Findings echo past literature about the inaccessibility of doctor's offices, including the lack of suitable exam tables. However, our findings also suggest that the lack of education and training among medical providers could be a key social barrier and determinant of whether individual women actually secure gynecological care.

The ambiguity of disabled women's experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood: A phenomenological understanding

Backgroundthere is limited knowledge about the pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood experiences of women living with a disability. Traditionally, such women have been viewed unsympathetically by society and professionals have challenged their fitness for motherhood. The situation is compounded by a lack of robust evidence regarding the life experience of pregnant women with a disability and their perspective on childbirth. Methodseventeen pregnant women from the island of Ireland who had a physical, sensory and/or intellectual disability were interviewed at home, pre and post birth, using a qualitative approach derived from descriptive phenomenology. Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), was chosen for data analysis. Findingsthe women in this study welcomed pregnancy as affirming their identity and worth as women and as mothers. They encountered mixed reactions from partners and families, while professionals tended to view them as liabilities, regarding most as ‘high risk’. These reactions intensified mothers' fears. They felt their ability to make choices and maintain control over their childbirth experiences was removed as the usual services were geared to provide for ‘normal’, able bodied women and were not adapted to their individual needs. Moreover, a proportion were offered a termination and, although all refused, they subsequently went on to indicate feeling pressurised to place their newborn babies into social services care. Conclusionpregnant women with disabilities, in particular those labelled ‘high risk’, should expect equal ease of access to appropriate maternity care and consultation as that enjoyed by their mainstream, ‘low risk’ or ‘normal’ counterparts. Maternity services should foster these vulnerable women's independence and autonomy as far as practicable and uphold their identity and worth as women and as mothers. Three strategies are proposed for doing this.

Physical and social barriers to social relationships: voices of rural disabled women in the USA

Through exploring the lived experiences of disabled women, this study investigates how physical and social barriers affect their social relationships. In‐depth tape‐recorded interviews investigating a variety of social and interpersonal issues were conducted with 24 women with physical or visual impairments who lived in a rural region of the midwestern USA. Using content analysis, the researchers examined interview data for common themes and patterns relating to social relationships. The findings indicate that physical barriers, related to the physical environment and personal physicality, along with social barriers, involving preconceptions of others about impairment and restrictions in personal networks, hamper the initiation and maintenance of social relationships. Further, the experiences of this group of disabled women corresponded most closely with the premises of a social relational understanding of disability.

Disablistic Practices of Womanhood

In this article I examine twenty autobiographical texts, which include women's personal experiences of disability and womanhood, and are written by disabled women. Both the texts and the personal experiences are treated as social products which can, through their discourses, offer insight into the socio‐cultural practices and norms of disability and womanhood. Employing a Foucauldian discursive approach, the analysis of the texts focuses on references to the discourses and practices of disability and womanhood that can be disablistic, i.e. oppressive, exclusive, and disabling, to disabled women. I argue that more than by the impairment in itself, the experiences of disabled women are shaped by the social and cultural discourses and practices that define disability and womanhood as well as the normative roles, places, and contexts associated with them. The analysis covers issues such as practices of isolation, medical practices, and practices of motherhood, work, and caring. Simultaneous analysis of disability and womanhood exemplifies the way in which disablism operates in a complex interaction with the socio‐cultural discourses and practices of womanhood, thus producing gender‐differentiated disabling obstacles for disabled women. Some of the traditional normative ideas of disability and womanhood appear as mutually exclusive opposites in the experiences of disabled women. In addition to the need to become aware of the disablistic practices of disability in disabled women's life, I suggest that disability, as a socio‐culturally meaningful difference, could function as a significant analytical dimension of feminist research and analysis in identifying disabling and oppressive features in the normative and hegemonic discourses on womanhood and femininity, and in resisting and deconstructing these features in the future.

‘Because they have all the power and I have none’: state restructuring of income and employment supports and disabled women's lives in Ontario, Canada

We examine the connections between neo‐liberal forms of state restructuring and intervention in disabled people's lives, looking in particular at how these have affected disabled women's experiences of an income support program, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), in Ontario, Canada. We first outline why and how state programs have been re‐designed and implemented in increasingly harsh ways as a result of such neo‐liberal forms of state restructuring. Even groups formerly considered among the ‘deserving poor’ have found their access to social assistance diminished. We then argue that this is an outcome of state programs, policies and practices which are re‐asserting and more deeply entrenching ‘ableness’ as a necessary condition of citizenship, inclusion and access to justice. Finally, we illustrate how disabled women's lives and well‐being have been altered as a result of changes in the provision of these forms of state assistance using in‐depth semi‐structured interviews conducted with 10 women in Ontario.

MEDICINE, GENDER, AND DISABILITY: DISABLED WOMEN'S HEALTH CARE ENCOUNTERS

In this article I examine the intersection of gender and disability in the medical arena by considering disabled women's experiences of receiving health care in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the "social model of disability," I focus on the attitudes and practices of doctors. I use two sources of qualitative data: (i) 68 disabled women's narratives gathered in the United Kingdom in 1996?1997; (ii) interviews with 17 disabled women regarding their reproductive experiences in the United Kingdom. I suggest that disabled women health service users are at risk of experiencing oppressive medical practices because two forces of oppression appear to be frequently, and interactively, in play: patriarchy and disablism.

The Work of Disabled Women Seeking Reproductive Health Care

Traditionally, the needs of disabled people have been under the specialty known as physical medicine and rehabilitation. The compartmentalization of disabled people to this specialty rather than primary care is topic of a criticism by disability activists who claim this as evidence that doctors avoid those whom they cannot cure and reject disability as everyday part of life (Gillet al. 1994). Attention to disabled women's health has been gradually expanding and improving. However, the split between physical medicine and rehabilitation and general primary care has created some gaps for women with disabilities, perhaps most especially regarding obstretic and reproductive health care. This is a study that examines the reproductive health care experiences of disabled women living in the San Francisco Bay Area. These experiences cover areas of sexuality, pregnancy, contraception, pelvic exams, and medical technology (e.g., mammography). The aim of the study is to gather information on this population's experiences with health care professionals, specifically professionals who provide care regarding reproductive and sexual health. How do disabled women navigate through the health care system as they search for care that “fits”?

Gender and membership of the mainstream

The relationship between gender and membership of the educational mainstream in the UK is discussed by examining social practices in four particular areas: first, the allocation of resources for learning support; second, the assessment procedures which identify students as in need of additional support; third, the experiences of disabled women, whose gender seems either to compound negative discrimination or to be denied altogether; and fourth, the way in which beliefs about women's work impede the educational progress of female students and professionals. It is argued that positive discrimination is a necessary, nonviolent strategy for redressing the balance of gender inequality in the education system in the UK and a range of concrete examples is given of ways in which educational settings could be transformed to make room for girls and women. It is concluded that a tradition of gender‐blindness, stemming partly from the domination of a psychological approach, has nevertheless cemented gender‐role stereotypes and masculine hierarchies and that their erosion requires a rejection of the current ideology of individual competition in favour of a more social and unpredictable educational world

The right to be different: Implications for child protection

This paper traces the historical emphasis of defining the disabled child or adult as ‘abnormal’—to be made ‘normal’! Such an emphasis disempowers the child, who comes to believe that his or her difference is as ‘bad’, ‘unacceptable’, and readily allows him or her to be viewed as ‘useless’. Such disabilist attitudes have fostered the belief that child protection services would not be relevant for this child population. The experiences of disabled women are explored, and clear messages emerge that can help us consider the environment of disabilism and the effects of this on disabled children. It helps us to see that, even before the disabled child is abused, his or her experience is one of oppression.

Disabled Women and the Feminist Agenda

Traditionally, there has been a tendency to view disabled people as one homogenous group with no gender distinctions. The reality of being a disabled woman and having a physical disability has to a large extent been overlooked by both the disability and feminist movements. However, there is little doubt that the dual oppression of sexism and handicapism places disabled women in an extremely marginalized position. Writing as an Asian disabled woman I want to open up a debate about the position of disabled women and demand that a concerted effort is made to ensure that our needs, wishes and aspirations are incorporated in all feminist debates. I will argue that the experiences of disabled women must be seen as an integral part of the social, economic and political structures which serve to control our daily lives. I recognize that disabled women cannot be treated as a unitary group: factors such as types of disability, race, sexuality and class will influence our individual experiences and these may differ from the experiences of other disabled women. However, it is essential that we use our common experiences to develop a political analysis which creates bonds and forges positive strengths. By drawing together literature on disability and gender, I intend to demonstrate that the concerns of disabled women strike at the core of