Writes Hera, Content Writer, Citizen Diplomat Blog Tales
It’s called multi-discrimination and it’s the combination of gender inequalities and social barriers. A mix that causes a multiplier effect, making women with physical challenges more discriminated against than anyone else.
We interviewed some of them and discovered the beauty of strong, varied humanity, full of goals and professional satisfaction despite everything and everyone.
The doctors told me she has SMA and can’t be a mother
I have type 2 of spinal muscular atrophy, better known as SMA, a motor disability condition I’ve had from birth.
My life was marked by social deprivation and discrimination. I schooled away from other children and there was no way to attend the high school I liked because it is full of barriers.
Women and girls with disabilities are discriminated against both on grounds of disability and gender issues.
They are often deprived of fundamental rights and freedoms, and this prevents their participation in social and political life. They are almost never treated with dignity, respect, and are much more disadvantaged than men with disabilities.
Today, I am married and have two children, but if I have a family now, I owe it only to myself. When as a young lady, I told the doctors my desire to have a baby, they always tried to discourage me. They said it was not possible, that there was no way I could have or take care of a newborn alone.
After 15 years in the institute, I didn’t even feel like a woman
I lived for 15 years, from 10 to 25, in a care institution, because my family could not take care of me.
When I went out, I realized that I was always talking about others, never about myself. I had too much anger inside, I didn’t feel safe from any point of view.
My femininity had been annihilated; I didn’t even feel like a woman. I was able to study, and I had to start over, fighting every day against prejudices and discrimination.
But in the end, I did it. This is thanks to the collaboration of the rehabilitation center in my local community, of which I am one of the founders. They believed in my abilities and supported me a lot.
Holding back the couch in front of friends
I’m a woman with cystic fibrosis. I underwent a pulmonary transplant in 2008, at the age of 18, and subsequently, in 2018, had chronic conditions which led, in addition to a decrease in lung function, to other diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and kidney failure.
For us young people with cystic fibrosis, it is sometimes impossible to hold back the cough in front of others, play sports in a group or hide the repercussions that the disease has on our outward appearance.
The condition is more profound at the stage in which the image for a young woman is particularly important in interpersonal relationships. In my case, living through childhood and adolescence, keeping my study and work relationships without hiding my condition has spared me fears and the chattering behind my back.
Over the years, I have taken a scientific baccalaureate and a law degree, and I’m currently working as a clerk. But all this required a tremendous effort.
I could not completely avoid pitying looks when I went around the shops taking oxygen with me or when I had violent and prolonged coughing fits while I was with friends. I remember having lived that episode with pain and sorrow.
A phenomenon almost not investigated at all
The lack of data and statistics on discrimination affecting women and girls with disabilities makes it impossible to analyse their participation in social life and whether or not they have equal opportunities.
The collection and dissemination of data on this front must be improved, including in surveys and censuses aimed at the general population.
We often suffer from domestic and sexual violence, but also and above all live in a condition of marginalization, isolation, and even segregation. We are often forcibly subjected to abortion and other forms of fertility control.
In cases in which the surrounding society supports them, we are in any case regularly discriminated against in the world of work, in remuneration, in access to training and retraining, the right to property, credit, and any other economic resource.
Mom on wheels
Having graduated in digital communication, I work in a family-run clothing store and I’m the delegate for social inclusion policies in my municipality. I’m married and with a son, but I’m a mom on wheels. I like to call myself a sitting mom.
Thanks to the popularity achieved over the years on Instagram, I began to see my disease in another way.
When I discovered that I would no longer walk, I saw stories of people with disabilities who traveled, moved, excelled in sports, and overcame challenging barriers on the platform. Encouraged, I began to tell my everyday life story in my wheelchair and my everyday battles.
The results I have achieved have often aroused resentment from men
As with many other women, the results I have achieved have aroused the resentment of men, who consider these achievements were obtained more for my being a woman than for my actual personal qualities.
Women like me often do not report cases of abuse, inequality, or injustice out of fear as we want to safeguard our family and the workplace.
We can’t talk about discriminatory actions in the workplace out of modesty, out of fear of not being believed, out of the fear of starting over, to not be excluded and isolated from other women, and out of a sense of uselessness, often encouraged by the justice system.
Having a disability and being a woman, in my case, has certainly added a problem to my plight.
I, mother of a woman with autism
Women who have a form of autism are unable to speak in the first person to express their discomforts, either because they are mute or because they are unable to understand the emotions or abuse, they suffer outside the home, but often also in the family.
Many, even with normal physicality do not have the opportunity to express themselves with gestures or writing.
The only signs of discomfort that we can detect, if we pay attention, are in their behavior, which can be in the form of agitation, aggression, to self-harm.
We often blame their autism for these behaviors, instead of helping them with psychotropic drugs, which can be used for anxiety and agitation
These women have a future that often results in hospitalization in structures for people with disabilities, after their families may have become exhausted, old, or have passed away. And this is my greatest anguish.
Thinking about the future of my daughter Giulia, a physically beautiful and completely naive woman with autism. She could inevitably arouse the interest of some unfortunate caregiver who, indifferent to her fragility, could take advantage of her, as unfortunately we often read in the news.
Many autistic women like Giulia are often designated victims of abuse or bullying, because of their inability to be able to make social signals to express their situations. But how can Giulia ask for help in this case?
As a child, I tried to hide my disability
I’m 20 years old and was born without my left hand. Daughter of a Nigerian mother and Italian father, in elementary and middle school, I often clashed with the excessiveness of my peers, sometimes bordering on unfair treatment.
But I didn’t want to point out to people that I was missing something. I hid my disability. The paradox is that I have never had any problems with my condition. I never thought I was missing something, but I also didn’t want them to look at me with pity.
But around the age of 16, I thought that my life was going to be harder than that of others, both because I’m with a disability and as a woman.
However, in the end, I reached many important milestones: I have many friends, I attended the university, and I participated in para-badminton sport, which is giving me so much satisfaction, so much so that I finished fifth at the 2019 World Cup.
Editor’s Comment
Women with disabilities suffer from the phenomenon of ‘multi-discrimination’. Multiple discrimination is the condition of discrimination experienced by a person not only by a single factor but of two or more factors. The basis of discrimination can be on two or more of the following factors: gender, sexual orientation, race or ethnic origin, disability, age, religion, or personal beliefs.
The combination of these dynamics of exclusion which we have seen – gender disparities, inequalities, and barriers that prevent full participation in social life and the enjoyment of their rights and fundamental freedoms – causes a multiplier effect. It makes these women more discriminated against than men with disabilities. They’re more likely to become victims of violence, assaults, and injustice, especially in domestic, family, or care contexts. Surviving within this culture however takes a lot of strength and courage.
