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COPYRIGHT 2002 Bridgewater State College
Abstract
This article presents an insider reflection on questions of violence and women with disabilities. We explore reasons for the systemic omission of women with disabilities from mainstream research and from services addressing non-disabled women's experiences. Several questions are postulated. Has segregation of women with disabilities from the mainstream rendered a large part of their experiences, including the experience of violence, invisible? Have misconceptions about the lives of women with disabilities contributed to exclusionary practices within the women's movement?
This article further submits that violence against women with disabilities assumes many forms, both individual and systemic. It explores several factors, among these how exclusion of disabled women from mainstream services, coupled with the lack of appropriate funding for their organisations, and the poverty lived by individual women with disabilities; renders more difficult the task of these organisations to respond to member needs. The inaction that allows the cycle of poverty and violence to continue in the individual and collective lives of women with disabilities furthers institutional, system-based violence.
Key words: Women with disabilities, systemic and individual violence.
Introduction
A premise of feminist standpoint theory asserts that the structure of society is based on the individual's status in the socio-political system. This individual status is determined by those in positions of power within the social hierarchy: historically, this refers to men and the non-disabled majority. In this social structure, the more layers of difference that distance one from those who determine norms, the further away one is positioned from measured social acceptability: "Systemic differences are determined by all of the individual's characteristics" (Light 1991: 5).
Due to the organisation of social structures and the day-to-day living which separates disabled[female] and non-disabled people, it is not surprising that non-disabled women have not always been aware of the life experiences lived by women with disabilities. For example, violence against women with disabilities assumes many forms, both individual and systemic. It can be covert or overt. This social separation has rendered a large part of the experiences of women with disabilities, including the experience of violence, invisible. Have misconceptions about the lives of women with disabilities contributed to exclusionary practices within the women's movement? How does sexism and ableism influence the resources allotted and distributed to resolve the problem of violence? Is there a correlation between the stresses of a sexist society and the increase in specific impairments among women after age 35? And how do those stresses change when intermixed with ableism?
A standpoint, ... carries with it contention that there are some perspectives on society from which, however well intentioned one may be, the real relations of humans with each other and with the natural world are not visible. (Hartsock, 1997, p.218).
In the second wave of feminism, the notion of diversity has emerged, and the idea of a single women's movement is being questioned. Women with disabilities are not the first to question their exclusion: black women, lesbians, women from lower economic backgrounds, Marxists, and socialist feminists were prominent in shaping a newer vision of the women's movement(s). In the latter part of the second wave of feminism, women with disabilities began to build "an adapted room of our own" on the periphery of the movement and to contribute to the re-visioning of feminism.
It is imperative that a new structure be created to eliminate violence and other forms of inequity, in order to do so, it is necessary to rethink the position(s) accorded to all women, including disabled women. Although these issues encompass a large scope, this article will explore some important critical questions about violence against disabled women, as well as question how women with disabilities can help the women's movement(s). We will discuss these questions using examples primarily from the women's movement in Canada, where a lack of appropriate funding has made it difficult for womenwith disabilities to be recognised as "objects of violence." Some of the shared experiences may have implication for the global women's movement.
How is Environmental Inequity Created?
Inequity occurs when the social structures, spaces, social norms, culture and the tools for interacting therein, are constructed without taking differences, and, therefore equity, into account. A singleton society built on the premise that everyone is the same, and that those who are not must either learn to live within the structure established for the majority or perish, is a society that creates inequity.
Predominant Values and Culture
A large part of what we have learned about disability comes from a non-disabled construction of disablement, which is similar to accepting a male construction of women's lives. A man's perception is not always produced in a deliberate attempt to oppress women, but men have nonetheless benefited from their dominant position.
From the notion of cultural hegemony introduced by Gramisci in Quaderni 1948-1951, we understand that those with less power--or no power--end up following dominant values and culture. They do so because of the ideological and practical prominence of the majority culture, and not necessarily willingly.
societa politica," organo di coercizione giuridica, ma come intreccio di societa politica e "societa civile," dove l'egemonia di un gruppo sociale si esercita attraverso le organizzazioni cosiddette private come Chiesa, sindacati, scuole e altri strumenti di direzione culturale. (Gerratana 1979) "political society," the organism of judicial coercion is a link to social and civil society, where the hegemony of a social group is exercised within organisations that are considered private, such as the church, trade-unions, schools, and other apparatuses that administer culture.(unofficial translation by M. Barile)
Discrimination, as experienced by persons with disabilities, consists of combined elements of paternalism, neglect, and exclusion. Historically,...
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