International Women’s Month is the perfect time to draw attention to the many women who have been overlooked throughout history in favour of their more privileged male counterparts. But one demographic who are frequently missing from these round-ups are disabled women.
Earlier this month, I was wondering where all of them were. As a disabled woman, should I believe there was no-one like me who managed to succeed in the past? Did we all simply not exist? Did we all spend our lives hidden away? Or were we just not being talked about?
It’s true, that to be a disabled woman in the distant and not-too distant past was even more of a struggle than it is today, with the double disenfranchisements of patriarchy and ableism in full-swing to contend with, which held women as being worth less than men, and disabled people as being less than human. And that’s even before we begin to consider the archaic medical systems, or the even greater struggles disabled Women of Colour faced in simply surviving in such a world, let alone thriving.
Imagine my surprise and delight, then, when my research revealed not just one or two, but hundreds of stories of disabled women from around the world, who not only led fulfilling lives, but were instrumental in shaping the times they lived in.
In Part One of this series, I’ve brought together six incredible disabled women who helped shape the 19th and 20th centuries.
