Gender and Disability: Women's Experiences in the Middle East - Softcover

Abu-Habib, Lina

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0855983639 ISBN 13: 9780855983635

Verlag: Oxfam Professional, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Women with disabilities face a double discrimination, both in terms of gender and also of their particular disability. For many women their most punishing disability is the attitude taken to them by society. This book examines the situation of women with various types of disability in the Middle Eastern context, and describes the evolution of Oxfam's perspective on working with disabled women. It provides a general overview of the concept of disability and includes several case studies from the Lebanon, Yemen, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Each chapter looks at specific aspects of the issue, and personal histories from disabled women and members of organizations for disabled people provide gripping testimony.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lina is a Programme Advisor for the Women Learning Partnership and the Global Fund for Women and is on the editorial board of Oxfam's journal, Gender and Development

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Gender and Disability

Women's Experiences in the Middle East

By Lina Abu-Habib

Oxfam Publishing

Copyright © 1997 Oxfam (UK and Ireland)
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-85598-363-5

Contents

Acknowledgements, v, 
1 Introduction, 1, 
2 Working with disabled women: reviewing our approach, 9, 
3 The case studies: Introduction, 26, 
4 Conclusion: making 'imperfect' women visible; strategies for the future, 73, 
Resources, 85, 

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

There is clearly a conflict between feminism's rhetoric of inclusion and failure to include disability. (Sherr 1992)

Shortly after Canadian feminist film-maker Bonnie Sherr suffered a stroke which left her disabled and wheelchair bound, she wrote that she felt abandoned by feminism. As articles in this book assert, in the Middle East, as in other parts of the world, such as India, for example, disabled women have not been fully integrated in either the disability movement or the women's movement.

Due attention and consideration needs to be given to the gender aspect of disability and how this serves as a main factor in determining the meaning and implication of disability, and its perception by the non-disabled world. When I asked a professional woman, who works for a major international development agency in the Middle East, about references for this introduction, she retorted spontaneously: 'so, now you're hunting for gender in disability also ... isn't this a superfluous academic exercise?' For me, this comment epitomises the failure of feminists, and activists in the disability movement, to make the links between gender and disability, as two aspects of social identity which lead to potential marginalisation from a society which is designed and run by able-bodied men.

The relatively few statistics which exist on disabled women provide unquestionable confirmation of a fact which is very obvious to gender and development workers who work with disabled women: it is necessary and relevant to research and work on issues of gender and disability, because disabled women are indeed worse off than their able-bodied sisters.

To give a few instances: women with disabilities are twice as prone to divorce, separation, and violence than able-bodied women (UNDP 1995). A higher prevalence of disability amongst boys has been noted in several studies from Yemen and Egypt (Dr. Azzah Ghanem, University of Sanaa', 1993 — Women with Disability in Egypt, unpublished paper presented to the ME seminar on 'The roles of the family in integrating disabled women into society', Amman, 1994). Researchers have attributed this to a concurrently higher mortality among girls because of lack of adequate care to disabled girls. Finally, in India, the Blind Men Association, a major rehabilitation association for blind and visually impaired persons in Ahmedabad, attributes the visibly higher rate of blindness amongst rural women to a similar cause: women with cataract and other eye diseases are far less likely than men to be transported to the city to have the necessary surgical operation and treatment (personal communication, BMA/Ahmedabad, July 1995).

A microcosm of development

Following arguments about the marginalisation of disabled people from development (Coleridge 1993), and how this is reminiscent of the marginalisation of Southern countries from economic wealth-creation, it could be argued that the situation of disabled women in 1996 can be seen as a microcosm of the problems of marginalisation of many groups of people from decision-making, social life, and economic development.

In 1995,1 was involved in a research project for Oxfam in the Middle East (Lebanon, Egypt, and Yemen) and India, which had as its objective to identify the interaction between gender and disability, in order to improve programme planning and policy making. When I started preparing for the research project, I found that it was extremely difficult to find any literature which looked simultaneously at women, gender issues, disability, and the Middle East. The dearth of studies and research on this subject, whilst general literature on disability in the region abounds, simultaneously shows the invisibility of disabled women in our communities, and a corresponding lack of interest in this topic on the part of local and international researchers.

The literature which has just recently started to appear on gender and disability is often characterised by stress on the 'double disability' of disabled women. Disabled women are indeed doubly marginalised by their communities, and by organisations at national and international level. At international level, this is reflected in the fact that in 1981, the UN Decade for the Disabled was launched, overlapping with the UN Decade for Women for its first four years. Yet neither Decade seems to have evoked much interest in the particular situation of women with disabilities.

Welfare, rights, and the disability movement

Just as men assume that they know what women want, so non-disabled assume that they know what disabled people want. (Hannaford, 1985)

Worldwide, men and women with disabilities have relatively better life-chances today than a decade or more ago. For one thing, disability has come out into the open. Disabled persons have fought the practice of incarceration in residential homes and hospitals, a 'treatment' which was legitimate not only in the Middle East but also in the Western world (Finkelstein, 1991).

There is a sense among the able-bodied that disabled people need their protection. Concern with the welfare of disabled people is seen as 'charitable'. Yet these breakthroughs can only partially be attributed to a change of heart on the part of the able-bodied decision-makers at national and international level. As Lambert puts it, 'my survival at every level depends on maintaining good relationships with able-bodied people' (Lambert 1989,39).

Achievements and successes in advocacy work on disability can be attributed in large measure to the efforts and perseverance of groups of disabled people. The disability movement is, in many countries of the Middle East, pro-active, strong, and involved in advocacy on the rights of the disabled. Disabled activists from various parts of the Middle East have become more vocal on essential issues such as rights for disabled persons, representation, and full integration and independence. Fifteen years ago, such initiatives were in their infancy. Even now, such successes remain small-scale in comparison to the need, and possible only when lobbying groups have gained strength and negotiating power, and receive the good-will and cooperation of the public.

If certain policy changes have in fact occurred, changes in discriminatory perceptions, attitudes, and behaviour have been far slower. Ensuring rights for the disabled does not in itself affect the prevailing patriarchal system, and therefore is not threatening. In addition, politicians can always postpone commitments by using the all-too-common excuses of financial constraints, conflicting priorities, and the fact that isolation and discrimination can only be attributed to mere ignorance.

Thus, the strong message from the non-disabled world remains that the lives of disabled persons are not necessarily worth living. Both men and women with disabilities are made to feel 'different'; they fail to conform to a traditionally and socially agreed norm of beauty and strength. Pity, condescension, embarrassment, or a mixture of the three, are the reactions most...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Oxfam Professional
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0855983639
• ISBN 13: 9780855983635
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 97
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar