Bringing disabled women together, mobilising
and sharing through lived experiences

speakers : Michelle Daley, Zara Todd, Lucia Bellini, Kirsten Hearn, Eleanor Lisney and Ciara Doyle.

Filmed with thanks to Disability Action in Islington by Felix Gonzalez for the WOW party installation at the Southbank, London

Transcript

Michelle Daley

Ok my names Michelle Daley and I’m a member of Sisters of Frida and I’ve been involved in the Disabled People’s movement since early 2000

I think it’s important for us to kind of think about why is it as disabled women we have to keep justifying our existence

Why do we have to justify who we are?

Why do we have to say make a statement about yes I’m attractive?

I can be err attracted to others

I’m a woman and I’m the same as any other woman

I also think it’s important that we recognise the people that came before us err who fought for women rights

But also there are many important disabled women who fought for our rights as well

and I think that’s what makes me proud of who I am as a disabled woman knowing that there was someone before me who started that journey

And I think it’s for me to continue that and to say yes I am proud to be a disabled black woman

Thank you!

Zara Todd

So I’m Zara, I’m 28 and a proud disabled young woman um yeah that’s me!

Is that all you’d like to say about today?

Err my brains a bit frazzled!

I think that it’s really interesting bringing together a group of disabled women

because yes we have a lot of shared experiences but we also have a lot of things

that are very unique to us

And I think often it’s easy to get caught up in labels

And while we need spaces to explore our identity we don’t necessarily need to come

to the same conclusions

And what I think today’s been quite good at

What I think the event will be quite good at is getting a space where we can

acknowledge who we are

All of who we are and just go yeah fine

Thanks!

Lucia Bellini

My name’s Lucia Bellini and I’m part of Sisters of Frida

I’m really happy to be able to say that I’m a disabled woman

That I’m very proud to be a disabled woman

I’m independent, I work, I am able to challenge stereotypes

Um and I’m able to fight for equality of opportunity in society for disabled people in

general

I’m um I think that there needs to be a lot more publicity or disabled women need to be portrayed in a much more positive light in the media

Um we were talking earlier about disabled women doing the catwalk but made to look non disabled

And I think we should be proud of our identities, we should be proud to look different if we choose to

Err if we want to conform and wear make-up and err and we should also be allowed to choose to do that too

Err err I’m a bit fed up of people telling me asking me why I want to wear make-up

Why I’m interested in how I look if I’m blind

Err I also think that it’s time disabled women are seen as women and not different err

you know we heard about the fact that err women don’t understand that we want to go out on dates just like everybody else

That we can also have children if we choose to

That we can be in a relationship if we choose to

That we’re no different because we’re disabled

That we just have the extra challenges that we have to overcome

You have to overcome extra discrimination, discrimination because we’re female and

discrimination because we’re disabled as well as all the additional barriers we have and in physical access

So I think that um more that it would be really good if more women, disabled women, would be proud of being who they are

Of coming out as a disabled woman and um being angry enough to challenge the discrimination that they receive in our society

Kirsten Hearn

My name’s Kirsten

Um I wrote a song about the plight of disabled women and I’d like to share the lyrics

with you

“Think of a mag, yes any old mag

What’s on the cover?

What do you see?

Pretty young women posing and grinning

Slender and sexy but nothing like me

Indoctrination, objectification

Is this the way it’s supposed to be?

No one with blubber gets on the cover

No one who hasn’t got symmetry

SAS Sisters against Symmetry

SAS Sisters against Body Bigotry

They say that prosthetics don’t make good aesthetics

Our surgical corset should never be seen

With bits of us missing there’s no good us wishing

To grace the front cover of Vogue magazine

Indoctrination, objectification this is the way it has always been

You’ve got to be bold break out of the mould

We shape our image let’s learn to be mean

SAS Sisters against Symmetry

SAS Sisters against Body Bigotry

Cherish those humps, those nodules and bumps

Those wrinkles and bulges and bubbly bits

Nurture your spots, your baggy old bots, your stretch marks and scars and saggy old

Indoctrination, objectification

Symmetricality is the pits

Take it or leave it we don’t care one bit

Our bodies are ours including our clits!

SAS Sisters against Body Bigotry

SAS Sisters against Symmetry”

Ok right that’s better!

Um the key thing that I need to say about being a disabled woman and my

experience in the world is it’s a joyous thing

It’s an absolutely joyous thing to be a disabled woman

I am different in many ways

I have different ways of appreciating the world

And I’m not being Polyandrous about it

It actually is true that we live in a world that assumes that everybody is non-disabled

That everybody can hear, see, speak, walk, talk all the whole lot

And our world is designed in such a way just to allow those to be members of that

privileged club

And I feel really strongly that if we want a diverse community we have to embrace

and celebrate, support and glorify all those people who are different in that kind of

way

And so I do a lot of writing, a lot of speaking about the difference that is me as a disabled woman

And by celebrating those things that other people might find ugly or frightening and at the end of the day that’s where I want us to be as disabled women

But I don’t want us to lose the feeling of anger

We can embrace our pride

We can embrace our anger

And send it outwards to make changes in the world and at the end of the day

I believe that sanity comes to us in terms of being able to cope with the world if we

can also hope that what we do makes a difference

And I really hope that what we’re doing today is making that difference

Eleanor Lisney

I’m Eleanor Lisney

I’m a disabled woman and I’m proud of it

It took me a long time err to come out as a disabled woman even though I’ve had my impairment for a long time

I think for most of my youth I was in denial err about it and I wanted to be a normal person just like everybody else

However I am very happy to be with other women who

I find joy in having found other disabled women

Err it’s a sort of relief and a joy and um celebration to be able to talk with other

women about things that I’ve thought of for a long time and have been quiet about

And now it’s no longer time, it’s no longer time to be quiet

It’s time to um have a voice

Ciara Doyle

I’m Ciara, I am an academic and err a mother, a career woman and a disabled woman

Err I think today was really really powerful and important

Err the err the reason sorry I’m completely frazzled!

Ok err I think that today was extremely important err

I think that it doesn’t happen nearly enough

And needs to happen much more

That the feminist agenda comes to disability politics

And that disability politics is brought to the feminist agenda

Because I really think they need to work far more closely together

And I think that there are areas within feminism or disability where disabled women need to be in the lead

I think that we as women in particular in this society

We are judged very very much within our bodies and how our bodies function

Err within quite strictly set gender norms

And I think that disabled women in particular are living on the knife edge of this

because it’s not just men the Patriarchal system in general

But the Patriarchal system through the medical profession as its Police Force

That chooses to pathologies or identify when women’s bodies, emotions or minds

are working within what are perceived to be acceptable levels of normality

Or outside of those acceptable levels of normality which are then pathologised

Which then creates disability because women are told that they are abnormal

And must either accept a victimhood status

Or work hard to normalise themselves

Instead of being able to celebrate who we are and what we are

And so this why I believe these are very much gender issues as well as being very very much disabled issues

And it is of no surprise that the majority of people who develop disabilities are women

Err and that it is two issues that need to come together and spend far more time and

dialogue with each other

Which is exactly what we were doing today

Making a start on that

Thank you!