Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences

Subscribe To Newsletter

Feminists dye fountains red in anti-austerity protest

We joined Sisters Uncut for their Day of Mass Action Funeral March to protest the drastic, devastating cuts to domestic violence services. ‘We march in remembrance of all the services that have already been cut as a result of the government’s austerity measures, and all those we will lose if funding isn’t restored and ring-fenced.’

“Sisters Uncut held a funeral-themed protest in Soho Square at 12.00pm, to mourn domestic violence services that have had to close as a result of Osborne’s austerity measures. Members of the group wore funeral attire and black veils as they read out the names of all the women who have been killed as a result of domestic violence.

The protest was called in response to the government’s spending review, delivered this Wednesday. Further cuts to local council budgets were announced, which are set to prompt further closures of local domestic violence support services. In a statement released this week, the group describe Osborne’s “tampon tax” proposals as a “sticking plaster on a haemorrhage”.

After bringing traffic to a standstill on Charing Cross road, the march ended with a rally by the Trafalgar Square fountains, where hundreds of onlookers watched as the group shouted “They cut, we bleed” and listed their demands, including: no further cuts to domestic violence support services, and guaranteed funding for specialist support services that help black and minority ethnic (BME) women.

Since Osborne’s austerity measures in 2010, over 30 domestic violence support services have been forced to close. (1) The group are concerned that, as more services shut down, more women risk death at the hands of violent partners or ex-partners.

The event was attended by over 500 women, many of whom are domestic violence survivors and support workers. Their chants included “two women a week murdered” and “they cut, we bleed”. The march was timed in response to the government’s spending review on Wednesday 25th November, which coincided with the UN-sponsored International Day to End Violence Against Women.

Domestic violence support services are a lifeline for women fleeing domestic violence. Specialist services bear the brunt of these cuts, especially those that help black and minority ethnic (BME) women, LGBTQ+ people and disabled women. Disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic violence. “

We wrote a blog for them on disabled women and our experience of domestic violence. And decided that some of us would join them on the march at Soho Square – here are some of the photos.

More photos at the Sisters of Frida Flickr

Austerity puts disabled women at greater risk of domestic violence

This is first posted on the Sisters Uncut blog.

Disabled women are 2-3 times more likely to experience domestic violence, but have greater barriers to accessing services. Often they are not believed or their experiences as disabled women are not understood. Perpetrators exploit disabled women by financially abusing them, isolating them from friends and family, withholding vital care or medication, and using their impairments to apply the form of abuse

Austerity has robbed disabled women of independent living in a number of ways. The closure of the independent living fund, the introduction of ESA and the inappropriate work capability assessment, the change to PIP and Motability (for adapted vehicles) as there is an arbitrary change to mobility eligibility.

This is a systematic erosion of disabled people’s rights. An erosion so grave the UN is investigating.

Women are told they have to use nappies inspite of not being incontinent. Never mind the indignity. Never mind the health risk from sores, a risk that is not needed. Children are removed from disabled mothers as social services deem them not to be capable of parenthood. Disabled women wait in fear of the arbitrary sanctions from job centre and DWP letters informing them they no longer meet criteria for benefits.

This all feeds into vulnerability, isolation and dependency on possibly abusive partners.

The decimation of disabled people’s rights and independence, through the systematic removal of social security has had one particularly significant effect: disabled women are left at greater risk of domestic violence.

When it comes to state support for disabled women, social security is no ‘benefit’. In a world which denies disabled people access to education, employment, family life and public spaces this money is a small recognition of the barriers faced.

Disabled women experience a compound oppression. As at the same time their risk of violence increases, funding to domestic violence aid services is falling. This is despite an evidence need for MORE funding to ensure they are accessible and responsive to all disabled women . We need more specialist services and accessible helplines and information.

Without this support and funding, disabled women lose their independentt living, their social circles, civil rights, choice and control. Isolation, dependence and vulnerability are exacerbated by austerity.

Austerity sets up the conditions where disabled women are more than 2-3 times likely to experience domestic violence.

Destroy the Joint, sure, but feminism must include disability politics

This is reposted from The Conversation which uses a Creative Commons Attribution NoDerivatives licence and with kind permission from Kate Ellis. We think this fits in very well with what was voiced at the panel on disabled women at Feminism in London.

The sometimes uneasy relationship between feminist groups and disability activists was highlighted last weekend, when online Australian feminist group Destroy the Joint (DTJ) blocked and banned a number of high-profile Australian disability activists, claiming the women were in breach of their rules.

DTJ had called for submissions to the hashtag #beingawoman on its Facebook page, sparked by a Buzzfeed article featuring both lighthearted and serious tweets reflecting on modern womanhood.

Several disability activists began posting their experiences, only to be deleted for being “repetitive, circular and off topic”.

The comments that were deleted included the following:

My doctor told me to get a hysterectomy or change my tampon in my office because there was no accessible toilet nearby at my workplace #beingawoman

when people deny my sexuality because they think disabled people having sex is disgusting #beingawoman

DTJ banned the commenters from its Facebook page, for “spamming this post and page with a large number of obvious half truths and distortions”.

After a number of members and disability activists encouraged the group to reconsider its stance on intersectional feminism, DTJ issued an apology yesterday afternoon:

Dear Destroyers,

Let us begin with a belated and unreserved apology about the way we have handled the comment moderation in this instance [the #beingawoman incident]. We acknowledge we can always be more inclusive.

We are constantly discussing ways we can achieve this and no woman living with disability should be excluded from this page. Anyone who has been banned as a result of this will be unbanned. Please email jointdestroyer@gmail.com so we can be thorough about this.

It has always been our mission to include everyone and Counting Dead Women includes all women who have been killed as a result of gendered violence.

While it was a disappointing weekend for those of us who identify as both disabled and feminist, the gaffe has prompted a reflection on the ways disability politics are essential to feminist politics.

Intersectional feminism

Disability is a feminist issue and the silencing of disabled voices and experiences does not further the feminist cause. While the women posting on DTJ may have experienced gendered oppression, such as domestic violence, they are simultaneously affected by ableism.

American law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw described the ways minority groups experience multiple and overlapping oppression as intersectionality in 1989.

Women with Disabilities Australia recognises that, for women with disabilities, the effects of gendered oppression are compounded. As Sue Salthouse and Carolyn Frohmader explained in a 2004 presentation for the group:

Low levels of education relegate women with disabilities to lower echelons of society, limit their access to information and their ability to interpret it, limit their life choices and limit their ability to achieve financial and living independence.

Women with disabilities are also more likely to suffer domestic violence and sexual assault.

Feminist blogger and activist Clementine Ford told me via Facebook that this is the reason why disability politics must be included in feminism:

It is vital for feminism to focus on the impact of sexual violence, but how can we do that properly if we don’t acknowledge that 90% of women with an intellectual disability have experienced sexual assault?

Reproductive rights are core to feminism, yet they cannot be discussed without also hearing from the women whose impairments have led to doctors and carers deciding – without their permission – they must be sterilised in order to prevent the physical aftermath of sexual violence becoming a “problem”.

Just today, I read an article about two parents with cerebral palsy who have been “allowed” to keep their child. The dehumanisation of women with disabilities is appalling, but even worse is the way these issues are marginalised even within feminism.

Disability politics marginalised within feminism

In Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory (2002), Rosemarie Garland Thomson explains how both women and people with disabilities are considered “deviant and inferior” within cultural discourse and subsequently excluded from participation in public and economic life.

Other disability theorists suggest the reason women with disabilities have been excluded from mainstream feminist circles is because they are a reminder of vulnerability and lack of control, identities feminists have traditionally sought to reject.

Whereas disability was once thought of as an individual’s medical problem to overcome, following the work of disability activists such as the late Stella Young we are increasingly coming to recognise disability as a problem related to inaccessibility and negative attitudes. Disability, like gender, is a social construct.

We are all women

Back in 1988, disability theorist Susan Wendell called for a “feminist theory of disability” as a way to move forward in both disability politics and feminist theory. Wendell argued the oppression of disabled people is closely linked to the cultural oppression of the body. She believed a feminist theory of disability would “[liberate] both disabled and able-bodied people”.

Disability activist Samantha Connor, who was the first to be banned on DTJ for contravening its commenting guidelines, continues to see the importance of mainstream feminism in breaking down power imbalances for people with disabilities. As Connor explained to me:

We are all women, and the issues we face are issues faced by mainstream feminism, not by individuals or minority collectives.

The incident illustrates an important truth: being aware of intersectional oppression in 2015 should not be an optional “extra”, but fundamental to any social justice movement.

Correction: a previous version of this article contained a paragraph stating that criticism had also been also been levelled at DTJ over allegedly failing to include women with disabilities in their regular count of women who have died as a result of domestic violence or abuse. While that criticism exists, it is not substantiated.

Kate Ellis

Dr Katie Ellis is a Senior Research Fellow in the Internet Studies Department at Curtin University. She holds an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award studying disability and digital television. She has worked with people with disabilities in the community, government, and in academia and has published widely in the area of disability, television, and digital and networked media, extending across both issues of representation and active possibilities for social inclusion. Her most recent book with Gerard Goggin is ‘Disability and the Media’

Zara Todd : Have you always been disabled?

If I had a pound for every time someone asked me this question or a less polite version such as what’s wrong with you? Have you always been like this? Were you born in a wheelchair? I would be a millionaire.

Now I know people are curious about disability (even if I don’t really get why) but do we really need a superhero like origin story can’t we just exist? While I generally humour the disability questions, providing people are politely I’m not going to lie it is irritating.

However recently Ive begun to realise all of these ‘origin’ questions are intensely personal and potentially traumatic. While seemingly most of the questions have yes or no answers in reality the conversation doesn’t stop there. For the majority of disabled people it’s either unclear when we acquired our impairments or the result of a traumatic experience. Meaning the answer to ‘have you always been disabled?’ becomes no or I don’t know. These answers invariably lead to more questions or an expectation of an explanation. I was trying to think of similarly personal question and the best I could come up with was why did you get divorced? Whilst some would ask the majority would let the affected party direct the conversation.

Despite having my impairments as long as I can remember and therefore the questions about my impairment for almost as long, until recently I didn’t really feel like I had any option but to answer. In part feeling compelled to answer questions about my impairment comes from growing up in systems which depend on that information to judge my eligibility for support combined with me being the first ‘severely’ disabled person in many of the environments I’ve accessed. However I now question how that information being disclosed to all and sundry has aided me. Yes as someone with support some people need to know what support I need but is do impairment labels or my history communicate my needs… Not fully.

I suspect it has taken longer for me to take ownership of my right not to disclose my ‘origin’ story because I’m a woman as often the refusal to disclose information is often seen as being aggressive regardless of how polite the denial.

I’m not against talking about impairment or disability in fact if we talked about them more maybe the novelty factor would wear off, however I believe that disabled people should have control over their own story and who they disclose it to.

Surely there are much more interesting conversations to be had.

——————————————————————————–

Zara Todd has been involved in young peoples and disability rights since she was 12 and has worked both in the UK and internationally trying to increase the voice of young disabled people.

Zara is currently chair of Inclusion London, a Deaf and disabled people’s organisation supporting Deaf and Disabled people’s organisation in London. She is an active member of the European Network on Independent Living running several trainings for young disabled people from across Europe.

She can be contacted at @toddles23