Gender neutral? Womens experience of disability

Abstract

Gender neutral? argues that social relations of oppression that impact upon disabled women are not gender neutral. Disabled women are oppressed by virtue of the fact that they are disabled women. For them, the normal stereotypes of womanhood, namely sexual expression, attractiveness to men, and motherhood, do not apply. Nor do they have the same rights as disabled men. In that sense, disabled women are oppressed through gendered relations of disability and held to be lesser women and human beings. They are also deemed passive and dependent on others. This article challenges these stereotypes and asserts that disabled women have their own agency, and have demanded their own human rights including reproductive rights and the right to sexual expression. Additionally, they are as varied a group as any other in society both individually and collectively. Focusing on their strengths and resilience, the paper concludes that the world is a richer place when disabled women are recognised for the diverse and valuable group that they are. Moreover, disabled women as individuals and as a group have a substantial contribution to make to society.