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WOMEN AND DISABILITY Reviewed by Vivien Batke "There seems to be nowhere else one can find as much helpful information on Canadian feminist work," a satisfied customer wrote RFR/DRF a year or so ago. This issue supports that contention. It is an important issue in its own right. It brings before us a range of disabilities a surprisingly large segment of our population (world wide 10%) has to cope with and some of which we all stand in the shadow of; motor vehicle accidents, for example. The disabled are grouped in six categories; mobility, invisibility (e.g., epilepsy); visual, aural, developmental and psychiatric impediments. The issue is not a discussion of the disabilities as such, but it is a symposium of some of the varied human responses to the experience of disability. It includes the disabled's blunt assessment: "The major difficulty of integrating disabled people into the community is the reactions of people who do not understand their circumstances. Most disabled people find it is usually social attitudes which convert their impairments into disabilities. Adult society sets up different difficulties. They take the form of inadequate services and supports that could enable the disabled to lead useful and productive lives. Most disabled live on welfare; housing is expensive and difficult to find. Public transportation is either unavailable, or difficult to use. Transportation that is provided for the handicapped does not always provide help getting in and out of the home. It is often expensive and infrequent. The handicapped also have to sort out a bewildering array of uncoordinated, inefficient and uncertain support services. Most of these services enable the disabled to survive but not to get much out of life. "What would happiness be?" one severely handicapped woman was asked. "To have my apartment clean and tidy," she responded. Of course, if you must be handicapped, it is better to arrange that you are a man. Few of the disabled are gainfully employed, and more of the women who work, do so part time (89% compared to 70% for the men). Part-time, disabled, male workers are paid much more than women, as is the case in the larger sector. Saddest of all, when husbands are disabled the marriage break-up rate is 50%, and when wives are disabled the marriage break-up rate is 99%. We are becoming more aware of the handicapped (defined by the United Nations as a person who "is unable to do all the things which a person of that age and sex can normally be expected to do"). The 1981 International Year of the Disabled helped, and now the disabled, too, are organizing. As Joanne Doucette in her contribution, "Breaking the Links of Lies," puts it: "The starting point, as women's liberation in the 1970's rediscovered, is reclaiming our own voice, as individuals, as groups…" They want to counteract what the poet Jill Weiss spoke of as, "the women who fall off the face of the earth and no one notices or cares." The goals are to overcome poverty and loneliness, and to raise further awareness of their plight. This issue of RFR/DRF sets out to help the handicapped express that voice and does so splendidly. Handicapped women especially appeal to the women's movement to include them in as we have included so many other groups of disadvantaged women. "Recognize us as sisters and instead of putting barriers in front of us, open the doors and welcome us in," is the plea one woman voices. That p lea is the other reason this issue is important. "We wish to speak for all women, to leave no group unrepresented." We can all respond to Jill Weiss when she writes: "shot down from a/pedestal of/ Women and Disability makes vividly clear the dimensions
of disability and what society can do to modify and ameliorate its effects.
Sometimes these involve quite simple and easily provided changes, if we but
think of them and recognize the need for them. This volume can help us all do
that. It provides much needed education.
Vivien Batke is retired and is now an attentive observer of the Women's movement. |
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