Abstract
Drawing on identity and body politics, this study analyzes how the experience of oppression among women with disabilities relates to the deployment of their identities in organizing their activism. Through in-depth interviews with disabled women activists in Italy, the study illustrates how the systems of oppression they experience intertwine with identity deployment, the interpretation of their bodies as platforms to negotiate and confront discrimination, and their activism experiences. From our findings, different patterns of identity deployment emerged: opposing and resisting, empowering by doing, valuing introspection, and silencing oneself. These patterns intersect with power systems in wider society, local institutions and organizations, and the regime of equal opportunities. The body emerges as a battleground for confronting de-sexualization, infantilization, and medicalization, as well as an opportunity to illustrate individual fragilities and potential. This study contributes to the literature on identity and body politics through intersectionality by showing how differences emerge in the organization of activism and how they can be interpreted by connecting “the personal” with “the political.” Disability and gender intersect to reveal how minorities generate their identities and interpret dominant systems differently, depending on the multiple sources of oppression they encounter. Implications emerge in connecting our understanding of disability and gender in social movements with our comprehension of the organization of activism.
Introduction
Women with disabilities encounter multiple sources of oppression when confronting systems of power and privilege embedded throughout society. They are marginalized and must resist assumptions about their gender and judgments of “functionality/dis-functionality,” which are primarily shaped by dominating patriarchal and ableist norms (Evans, 2019; Meekosha, 2002; Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000). The complexity of this oppression, its intersectional nature, and its embodiment in lived experiences of marginalization exemplify broader subjugating phenomena in contemporary societies (Mollow, 2004; Siebers, 2017; Wehrle, 2021). In this light, understanding how women with disabilities build their political identities and organize their activism is crucial to grasp the role of identity politics, body politics, and the political value of bodies in confronting oppression (Alcoff, 2000; Bernstein, 2008; Evans, 2019; Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 1996; Owens, 2015; Tilly, 2002).
To grasp how women with disabilities shape their identities to organize their political engagement, we draw on identity politics (Bernstein, 2002, 2008; Bernstein and Olsen, 2009; Tilly, 2002) and body politics literature (Alamgir et al., 2022; Brown and Gershon, 2017; Harcourt, 2009), approaching both through the lens of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 2013; Evans, 2022; Luiz and Terziev, 2022). Identity politics encompass the actions around identity that individuals in social movements undertake to renegotiate, confront, and resist the meanings and interpretations imposed by societal institutions and regulatory norms (Olsen, 2006). Body politics conceives the body as the primary site for negotiating, resisting, and collaborating within power relations (Kooistra, 2008). The consideration of the body further sharpens the focus of identity politics on the lived, contextual experience of discrimination and participation in activism organization.
Identity politics have analyzed the internal features of social movements and their institutional environments to explain how identities emerge within the movements themselves. Critics of identity politics have emphasized that this approach often frames differences within groups more as threats than as opportunities to build internal coalitions. According to this perspective, specificities and differences are assumed to be divisive, and minorities are seen more as suffering from oppression than as enacting their agency (Bernstein, 2005). This dynamic is particularly evident for minorities such as women with disabilities, who are highly diverse in their experiences of marginalization (Evans, 2022; Thomson, 2006; Wendell, 2006).
These gaps in identity politics can be addressed by strengthening the connection between “the personal” and “the political” in understanding identity deployment processes within social movements. Political identities have often been seen as more exclusionary than empowering, and their emergence has been framed as a top-down, deterministic process, largely relying on discourse and language as practices constituting identities themselves (Buchter, 2022; Butler, 1990, 1993; Wehrle, 2021). Body politics contribute to completing identity politics by reintroducing the contextual, socially embedded, lived experience of discrimination as the ground for organizing resistance and collaboration within activism organization (Hughes and Paterson, 2006; Owens, 2015).
Our goal in this study is to investigate how personal and political stances are related when examining the emergence of political identities within movements of women with disabilities (Hughes et al., 2006; Meekosha, 2002). In this regard, the issue of body politics is crucial: for women with disabilities, the experience of discrimination is deeply embodied. Their physical safety and appearance, sexual life, orientation, reproductive choices, and access to both virtual and physical spaces are constantly at stake and under threat (Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 1996; Siebers, 2013).
This connection between identity politics and body politics can be achieved, from both a theoretical and activism standpoint, by analyzing identities and bodies through the contribution of intersectionality (Choo and Ferree, 2010; Luiz and Terziev, 2022). Intersectionality offers a lens to understand individuals through the multiple and layered experiences of oppression related to their complex identities (Crenshaw, 2013; Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016). It clarifies how identity politics and body politics must be integrated: the embodiment of both gender and disability in the political identity of women with disabilities constitutes a further and specific source of both oppression and liberation for this group (Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000).
We consider Italy, and the social movement of women with disabilities within it, as particularly appropriate for our analysis. Over the past 20 years, this group has evolved at the crossroads between the disability rights movement and feminism, engaging with diverse issues and interacting with various strata of Italian society to promote accessibility, acknowledgment, safety, empowerment, and individualized recognition for women with disabilities (Barbuto et al., 2007; Crippi, 2024; Malaguti, 2009, 2011; Schianchi, 2014; Vela and Barbara, 2020).
Thus, our research questions are: How do women with disabilities deploy their identities to organize their activism in light of their contextual experiences of discrimination? How do the politics of their bodies contribute to the emergence of their political identities?
We address these questions by analyzing 32 interviews with Italian disabled women activists operating within two associations of women with disabilities. Our results contribute to addressing the gaps in the identity politics literature by illustrating how different political identities can emerge within minority movements based on the diverse experiences of power that activists confront (Zanoni et al., 2017). We emphasize the connection between personal experiences and the organization of political engagement, focusing on the political valence of activists’ bodies and their capacity to challenge the view of political identities as exclusionary processes that limit individual agency (Hughes and Paterson, 2006; Jammaers and Williams, 2023; Owens, 2015).
On the one hand, our research facilitates the recognition of intra-group distinctions, which is essential to avoid exacerbating the marginalization imposed by oversimplified categorizations dictated by existing regulatory norms. On the other hand, integrating body politics into the discussion of political identity formation underscores the lived, phenomenological, bottom-up experiences of marginalization and liberation. Finally, the intersection between disability and gender illustrates how vulnerabilities can be both unique and shared, reinforcing the idea that all bodies matter in the organization of political engagement (Butler, 2002; Samuels, 2002; Wehrle, 2021).
Theoretical background
Identity and body politics: An intersectional approach
Identity politics is a vast concept, interpreted in diverse ways both theoretically and practically by scholars and activists. In 1979, Anspach used the term to describe the political identity work undertaken by individuals with disabilities, aimed at reshaping personal and societal perceptions of disability (Anspach, 1979). In our study, we draw on research that interprets identity politics as the work minority movements undertake to re-evaluate and redefine the meanings and categories imposed on them by institutions and regulatory regimes. According to this approach, the identities of minority groups are recognized as invaluable tools for understanding and challenging systems of oppression, allowing these communities to take a leading role in their own struggles (Alcoff, 2000; Alcoff and Mohanty, 2006; Tilly, 2002).
Nonetheless, identity politics has been criticized for basing political claims on difference rather than unity: relying on identity can mean relying on categories that, on one hand, create sub-groups and, on the other, constrain individualities within oppressive norms (Aronowitz, 1992; Bernstein, 2008). Other critics point out that political identity work may end up reproducing the very categories created by systems of oppression, thus undermining the movement’s liberatory intent (Bernstein, 2008). The emergence of political identity has also been critiqued as a process that attempts to fix identity into rigid categories, negating individual freedom or agency and excluding more positive conceptions of collective identity (Butler, 2002; Owens, 2015; Wehrle, 2021).
This tension—between identity politics as a source of strength for social movements and as a potential threat to both unity and individuality—is crucial when considering the identity work undertaken by individuals with disabilities in organizing their activism. Disability takes many forms; its variety and fluidity can amplify its social impact, yet also pose risks in the struggle for recognition and liberation (Siebers, 2017).
In this regard, Bernstein’s concept of identity deployment (1997; 2005) offers a useful lens to understand how and why differences can coexist within a social movement, and how the interplay between difference and unity in minority groups—such as those related to disability—can shape the acknowledgment of diverse personal and political stances. Identity deployment is defined as “expressing identity such that the terrain of conflict becomes the individual person so that the values, categories, and practices of individuals become subject to debate” (Bernstein, 1997: 537). Within this framework, Bernstein identifies two forms of deployment, typically analyzed at the collective level: identity for critique, which challenges the values, norms, and customs of the dominant system; and identity for education, which contests dominant cultural perceptions of minority groups or strategically mobilizes identity to gain legitimacy, often by drawing on universally accepted themes.
While identity deployment provides a way to interpret internal differences within movements, it continues to frame these differences in terms of the institutional and organizational structures of the movements themselves (Bernstein and Olsen, 2009; Dugan, 2008; Kaminski and Taylor, 2008; Olsen, 2006; Olzak and Ryo, 2007). As such, identity politics tends to overlook the crucial connection between personal and political positions in shaping activists’ identity development.
By focusing on body politics, the connection between the personal and the political, the contextual and the general, the collective and the individual, can be explored both theoretically and politically. From the standpoint of activists, body politics involves confronting systems of power by working on identities through the body—communicating and asserting identities through bodily features and representations. From the perspective of regulatory norms, body politics reveals how activists’ bodies are controlled, regulated, and surveilled to strip individuals of their agency, while also serving as the very ground on which resistance, liberation, and participation are organized (Brown and Gershon, 2017).
Body politics suggests that individuals are not merely reactive: they actively participate in shaping norms. Focusing on the body foregrounds the lived experience of political identity formation (Kooistra, 2008). This focus enables a bottom-up approach to understanding how individuals seek coherence in their activism and situate their experiences contextually. The embodiment of both resistance and oppression always refers to specific circumstances, and in doing so, allows for the expression of all individual possibilities and disabilities.
At the same time, the lived, phenomenological experience of the body fosters the recognition of collective dimensions in political identity work (Doonan, 2021; Jammaers and Williams, 2023; Owens, 2015; Samuels, 2002). Engaging with the political significance of bodies is essential to understanding how a stable and coherent sense of unity is built. It is also vital to creating the conditions for challenging and reinterpreting existing norms and expressing individual identities (Wehrle, 2021).
It is through intersectionality that identity and body politics can be connected to explain how personal experiences of oppression and the deployment of political identities are linked within the organization of social movements, in response to contextual patterns of oppression. Intersectionality effectively integrates identity and body politics by creating a space to interpret differences as a source of strength rather than a threat to unity. It highlights the multiple forms of oppression individuals face within specific contexts, shaped by the complex interplay of various axes of marginalization.
As such, intersectionality provides the theoretical foundation to consider individuals within a multilayered social system, where structures of power and instances of marginalization are multiple and intertwined (Choo and Ferree, 2010; Zanoni et al., 2017). An intersectional lens reveals how socially marginalized groups are oppressed and how they resist diverse systems of power—systems that cannot be properly disentangled, debated, or challenged without this framework. From this perspective, heterogeneous and fragmented identities can be understood in light of the interaction between individuals and their social, historical, and political environments (Choo and Ferree, 2010; Luiz and Terziev, 2022).
By adopting this multidimensional view of individuals and their identities, intersectionality offers a powerful means of integrating identity and body politics. It helps explain how personal experiences of power and oppression can be transformed into political identities within activist groups. Intersectionality also recognizes and validates the diversity of power and oppression experienced within groups, providing a basis for understanding how embodied, individual experiences contribute to the development of political identity strategies.
This integration is particularly meaningful in the context of how women with disabilities develop and deploy their political identities, and organize their activism in response to experiences of marginalization. Disability and gender represent broad and evolving spectrums; overlooking the personal, lived dimensions of oppression risks undermining the understanding of the varied issues—both within these groups and across other marginalized communities—that disability and feminist movements seek to represent in the political discourse (Humphrey, 1999; Mauksch and Dey, 2024; Mollow, 2004; Napolitano and Sicca, 2024; Siebers, 2017).
In the following section, we turn to studies that explore identity and body politics in the social movements of women with disabilities (Jammaers and Williams, 2023; Kooistra, 2008; Siebers, 2013), to illustrate how these movements uniquely reflect on the identity strategies they adopt, particularly in light of the embodied nature of the discrimination they encounter.
Women with disabilities in social movements: The role of body politics
The role of body politics is particularly crucial to the development of the political identities of women with disabilities (Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000). Renewed attention to the body within disability movements stems from ongoing discussions about how the Social Model of Disability could be rethought to account for both the social and the material, embodied experiences of discrimination faced by people with disabilities (Hughes and Paterson, 2006).
The Social Model has been central to the rise of disability movements. It is based on the assumption that disability is produced by dominant ideologies of normality and functionality that shape contemporary societies (Hughes, 2009; Owens, 2015). In this sense, the Social Model stands in contrast to the Medical Model, which frames disability as an individualized, biologized, and essentialized condition. The Medical Model has contributed to placing the burden of disability on the individual and reducing disabled bodies to impairments (Owens, 2015).
More recently, within both disability movements and critical disability studies, there has been growing recognition of the specific constraints and possibilities that each body experiences. While the concept of impairment as a fixed biological condition continues to be challenged, there is also a renewed focus on reconnecting political, collective identities with personal, embodied experiences of both oppression and liberation (Hughes and Paterson, 2006; Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000).
Studies on identity politics concerning women with disabilities particularly benefit from the renewed focus on body politics within identity work (Brown and Gershon, 2017), and from considering the intersectional and embodied nature of the discrimination they face (Evans, 2022). The intersectional marginalization experienced by women with disabilities is lived and embodied through their physical existence (Meekosha, 2002). Discrimination targets their bodies: they are deemed “not performative” according to a work-based, capitalistic logic. Their bodies are scrutinized in the workplace for their ability to perform, to endure, and to remain resilient.
Although this scrutiny can also affect men, women with disabilities face a compounded discrimination—judged as having a body that does not “work” both as women and as people with disabilities. Their bodies are also seen as “not affective” according to heterosexual and patriarchal expectations. In domestic life, women with disabilities are monitored and judged in relation to their sexual desires, conduct, appearance, and reproductive rights. They are oppressed through notions of undesirability and a lack of attractiveness, shaped by societal obsessions with physical and emotional perfection.
Furthermore, their bodies are perceived as “not participative enough” in political life, due to traditional associations of activism with physical strength and endurance (Bobel, 2007; Evans, 2022; Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000). The bodies of women with disabilities have long been stereotyped, reflecting a conflation of disability and femininity: women are seen as “de-powered” men rather than autonomous, phenomenological beings. Disability, in turn, has often been framed solely as individualized impairment (Samuels, 2002).
At this intersection, women’s disabled bodies have been treated as objects of pity, their capacities pathologized or overlooked. For this reason, body politics becomes a crucial space through which women with disabilities articulate protest and exercise agency. Their experiences of subjugation and liberation are not abstract—they are fundamentally embodied (Evans, 2019; Hughes et al., 2005).
Body politics has offered women with disabilities the opportunity to claim rights and recognition for both visible and invisible disabilities. This involves challenging the dominant ableist perspective that tends to prioritize what is visible in the experience of discrimination, considering it more legitimate or easier to understand (Kooistra, 2008). Through their bodies, women with disabilities have sought recognition by engaging with the system of power using markers it can immediately interpret—such as the wheelchair. However, they have also organized their activism around less visible forms of discrimination. They work on their political identities to emphasize that the less apparent aspects of their embodiment should not be ignored in favor of broad, oppressive categories (Harrison and Michelson, 2017; Kooistra, 2008).
Despite the significance of body politics and the ongoing effort to link the personal with the political, analyses of movements led by women with disabilities have largely focused on how these movements have evolved internally and institutionally to address both gender- and disability-based oppression in their discourses (Evans, 2019, 2022; Hughes et al., 2005). Less attention has been paid to understanding how their claims are shaped by the lived experiences of power and discrimination encountered by activists themselves (for an exception: Meekosha, 2002).
By recognizing the political significance of activists’ bodies in the formation of their political identities, it becomes possible to extend beyond institutional analyses. This approach reveals how personal and political experiences, specific social contexts, and collective dynamics intersect in shaping identity and activism.
Contextual setting: Disability and feminist movements in Italy
The history of the disability and feminist movements in Italy reveals both differences and shared traits in their development, which are essential to understanding how women with disabilities have shaped their activism and constructed their political identities. The main divide between the two movements can be traced, on one hand, to the traditional feminist emphasis on participation as rooted in able-bodied experiences, and on the other, to the disability movement’s focus on collaborating with dominant institutions to secure equal access to healthcare, employment, and education (Crippi, 2024; Lussana, 2012; Schianchi, 2014).
For the feminist movement, this divide was grounded in its rejection of equality framed through collaboration with oppressors—namely, representatives of the dominant power structure. For the disability movement, it reflected a rejection of activism based on physical strength and endurance, and a pressing need to have the basic rights of people with disabilities recognized. Despite these differences, shared patterns in their evolution help explain why, by the late 1990s, women with disabilities in Italy began organizing their own independent groups.
The common ground developed by the two movements over time can be summarized in three key pillars: the understanding of discrimination and liberation as embodied experiences; an ongoing tension between collaborating with existing power structures under the principles of equality and equal opportunity, and affirming the uniqueness and self-awareness of each individual; and a collective struggle against both ableism and patriarchism (Barbuto et al., 2007; Malaguti, 2011).
The specificities of the Italian movement of women with disabilities reflect common traits shared with other international experiences in this field, particularly in their evolution from the 1970s to the present. In many countries, tensions also emerged between the feminist and disability sectors of the movement, especially in relation to their cultural models. While feminist activists often used both academic and popular channels to express their identities, disability activists tended to base their claims on the shared experience of discrimination.
Internationally, as in Italy, the movement has also struggled with the influence of dominant groups it sought to challenge—such as the continued presence of well-educated men within both gender- and disability-related spaces—highlighting internal contradictions in efforts toward liberation. Another point of convergence between the Italian and international contexts is the recent shift toward challenging dominant societal priorities in favor of the needs of marginalized groups. These include struggles for affirmative action, the right to participate fully in social, economic, and political life, the right to independent living, and control over reproductive choices (Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000; Reedy et al., 2023).
The history of the Italian disability movement must be understood in relation to the principles that shaped the Italian Welfare State until the late 1990s. During this period, the welfare system focused more on assisting minorities than on removing barriers to participation or promoting independence from dominant groups. This paternalistic and dependency-based approach emphasized broad minority categories. In the case of disability, this meant identifying individuals primarily through generalized disability classifications, often defined in relation to participation in the labor market—one of the key principles of the Italian Constitution (Ascoli, 2002).
As a result, disability was conceptualized through rigid categories and managed by independent, often spontaneous local associations, composed largely of people with direct experience of disability. Within this framework, disability was treated as dysfunctionality to be compensated (Schianchi, 2014). These dynamics reflected the dominance of the Medical Model of disability in Italy. From the 1920s through the early 1980s, disability was understood in terms of physical impairment, as diagnosed medically. It was common practice to assess the “degree” of inability—particularly regarding work and social participation—in order to justify economic compensation or design targeted interventions.
It was only with the rise of the disability and minority rights movements in the UK and the US in the late 1960s that the Medical Model in Italy began to be challenged by the emerging Social Model (Schianchi, 2014). The shift toward viewing disability as a product of social structures—rather than an individualized, biologized condition—became more prominent in the 1990s. New legislation began to recognize the importance of addressing the person as a whole, emphasizing autonomy and independence in accessing social, economic, and political life.
In the 2000s, the adoption of the European Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Italy further strengthened the principles of autonomy, freedom, and independence for individuals with disabilities within political discourse. In light of this evolution, collective action by people with disabilities has increasingly focused on fighting for equal opportunities and universal accessibility—while also seeking recognition of the uniqueness of each individual’s disability experience (Schianchi, 2014).
Though at different times and in different ways, the feminist movement in Italy has also been marked by internal tensions. On one side, there was the recognition of women as a category whose equal opportunities and participation in society should be guaranteed. On the other, there was a strong emphasis on women’s difference, uniqueness, and specificity—values that, according to many activists, could not be pursued through collaboration with existing institutions, seen as symbols of oppressive power.
In the 1960s, the movement was driven by the search for the value of women’s difference, expressed through the practice of self-consciousness. Women’s collective action aimed to challenge patriarchal and capitalist structures by analyzing their lives and identities in separate spaces—believed to be the only way to free themselves from male control. This approach, however, led to contradictions within the movement during the 1970s. Groups such as the UDI (Unione Donne Italiane – Italian Women’s Union) began collaborating with institutions to promote equal opportunities through initiatives like state-funded daycare and workplace protections for mothers.
Yet, this institutional engagement was criticized by other feminist groups as reductive and discriminatory. They argued it reinforced traditional roles by positioning women primarily as caregivers, thereby conforming to dominant societal expectations. By the late 1970s, despite ongoing differences, various feminist groups united to advocate for legislation on abortion rights and the criminalization of rape. This alliance was driven by a shared need to combat the sexual control of women’s bodies—understood as a central mechanism of male dominance (Lussana, 2012).
The emergence of women with disabilities as a movement in Italy should be understood in light of this broader evolution, which is marked by several key tensions: the categorization of women with disabilities into broad groups versus the recognition of their individualities; collaboration with existing power structures to achieve greater equality versus rejection of those same systems as sources of oppression; and the centrality of the body in both disability and feminist debates—as a symbol of male and ableist oppression, widely assumed to represent gender and disability, rather than the person herself (Crippi, 2024; Griffo, 2015; Vela and Pintus, 2020).
In Italy, the recognition of the gender identity of disabled women began in the 1970s with initiatives within the UDI and gained greater visibility toward the end of the 1990s with the publication of the Manifesto delle donne disabili in Italia (The Charter of Italian Disabled Women). Despite internal divisions and opposing views within the feminist movement, disabled women began to organize collectively to advocate for their rights—emphasizing autonomy, the right to housing, and challenging life within institutions and families as barriers to education, employment, and social participation.
One early example of this activism was Progetto Sud, launched in 1976—a co-housing initiative in southern Italy entirely managed by people with disabilities, including a core group of disabled women (Coppedè, 1993). A more structured integration of gender and disability as interconnected dimensions of discrimination emerged between the late 1990s and early 2000s (Barbuto et al., 2007). This shift was supported by new legislation that began to prioritize the individuality of people with disabilities, moving away from identifying them solely through their condition or the services provided by the Welfare State.
The intersection of gender- and disability-based marginalization increasingly centered on the need to consider the interpersonal environments in which women with disabilities lived and worked—their emotional and professional lives, their embodied experiences of oppression, and the broader social and mental health contexts that shaped them.
This multi-faceted approach to activism has developed over the past 25 years in Italy and has shaped the formal emergence of women’s groups within the broader disability and feminist movements. These groups are grounded in a peer-to-peer consultation model, aiming to support younger disabled women through the guidance and example of senior members, while also offering psychological and emotional support.
In recent years, these groups have focused their activities around two integrated frameworks. These reflect the ongoing tension in both the feminist and disability movements between gaining recognition as collective categories and advocating for the acknowledgment of individual identities. The first framework centers on disabled women’s rights (Barbuto et al., 2007; Malaguti, 2011), addressing gender identity and the right to autonomy, healthcare, employment, education, motherhood, and sexuality—rights to be recognized within the legal and political systems.
The second framework emphasizes the individuality of each woman with disabilities and her understanding of an Independent Life—the ability to make fully autonomous decisions about her own life, not one defined or constrained by male- or ableist-dominated societal norms. This focus has also drawn attention to the personal, everyday experiences of abuse and violence that disabled women face in micro-interactions, which often result in violations of their bodies, privacy, and emotional and physical well-being.
In response, listening to and addressing sexual violence and physical and psychological abuse against women with disabilities has become a central concern for these groups in Italy (Crippi, 2024; Vela and Pintus, 2020).
Data collection and analysis
To address our research questions, we conducted 32 in-depth interviews. Of these, 18 were with disabled women activists (all with neuromuscular disabilities) and three with able-bodied women activists, all members of the women’s groups within two major Italian associations: UILDM (Unione Italiana Lotta Alla Distrofia Muscolare – The Italian Union to Fight Neuromuscular Diseases) and LEDHA (Lega per la Difesa Diritti per le Persone con Disabilità – The Association for the Rights of Disabled Individuals). An additional 11 interviews were carried out with prominent disabled women activists in Italy, selected as field experts due to the significance of their activist experience.
Table 1 presents their age, profession, and status—referring to both their association affiliations and their public visibility as activists. All interviewees were women, as our aim was to directly amplify the voices and experiences of women with disabilities who have personally lived and articulated their positions. This methodological choice is consistent with the principles of critical disability studies and intersectional feminist research, which seek to bring forward the often-overlooked experiences of individuals who directly confront oppression within specific social, physical, and political contexts (Saeidzadeh, 2023). Moreover, this approach aligns with our research questions, which explore how political identity work processes connect personal experiences of power with the organization of activism.
Interviewees’ age range, profession, and affiliation.
We began by interviewing the “highly visible” activists and members of the UILDM women’s group. We then expanded our sample using a snowball sampling strategy, with the UILDM activists recommending other members and suggesting disabled women who had joined the LEDHA women’s group within the past 2 years.
We consider the disabled women activists affiliated with UILDM and LEDHA to be an ideal sample for our investigation, given the wide range of causes, issues, and discussions they have engaged with over time. These activists have interacted with a variety of stakeholders—from local agencies to academic researchers and legal advocacy centers—creating both opportunities and challenges, and exposing them to multiple perspectives.
The interview protocol for the “highly visible” activists focused on several key areas: their biographical narratives of activism; their core attributes and values in relation to gender, disability, and activism; their personal experiences of intersectionality; and the causes and practices they support. These interviews were essential for understanding the broader context of activism among women with disabilities in Italy, offering insight into how they experience and negotiate their personal and political identities, and how their embodied experiences intersect with their social environments.
Based on this first stage, we refined our protocols for interviewing members of the women’s branches of UILDM and LEDHA. This refinement included a more detailed biographical inquiry into their activism and a deeper exploration of how gender and disability are experienced and interpreted. We invited participants to share specific instances—if any—of how they had encountered the intersection of gender and disability in their lives.
The 32 interviews were conducted by phone—except for one, which was held via video call at the request of the interviewee—by the first author. Each interview lasted an average of 50 minutes. They were conducted in Italian, recorded, transcribed, and amounted to 95 double-spaced pages (Times New Roman, size 12). Once transcribed, the interviews were translated into English by the two authors, who chose to assume the role of researcher-translators (Qun and Carey, 2024). The initial translation was carried out by the first author, who was more closely acquainted with the research context (Zdenek, 2018). The translated text was then reviewed by the second author; both authors are proficient in English, though not native speakers. Given the importance of accessibility, especially considering the theoretical and activist concerns addressed in the study, the final translation was reviewed by a native English speaker to ensure accuracy (Berman and Tyyskä, 2011; Qun and Carey, 2024).
The data collection phase was supported by an ongoing exchange of audio and written research notes between the two authors, both after each interview and during the process of reviewing the transcripts. These exchanges allowed for discussion of the interview process, content, and the emergence of preliminary codes. The data analysis was conducted collaboratively: both authors first read and analyzed the transcripts independently, then discussed them together, comparing the data with relevant literature to allow the codes to emerge inductively.
We acknowledge that the authors’ identities may have influenced the emergence of patterns and identities during the coding process. The embodiment and identity of the first author—young, female, white, middle-class, and disabled—may have interacted with those of the second author—middle-aged, female, white, middle-class, and able-bodied—in shaping the interpretation. Moreover, the first author’s emotional, personal, and educational background as a person with a sensory disability may have affected the interpretation of the interviewees’ memories and experiences.
However, these potential influences were addressed through continuous exchanges of research notes, regular phone calls, audio messages, and frequent discussions between the two authors. This collaborative process, along with the intensive iteration between data and literature, contributed to mitigating individual biases and strengthening the analytical rigor.
Our data analysis approach was based on comparing small units of data (e.g. episodes, practices, physical perceptions, feelings, reflections) to build broader categories and uncover relationships among them (e.g. qualifying experiences of oppression and identity deployment strategies; considering how gender and disabilities intersect in these experiences; Langley, 1999). The two authors gradually developed the different categories and their interconnections through the continuous comparison of smaller data units, identification of recurring themes and links, and constant dialog between emerging themes and theoretical frameworks (Gioia et al., 2012; Langley et al., 2013).
In the first stage of analysis, it became crucial to observe how the demand for acknowledging “individualities/specificities” and “categories/groups” alternated powerfully throughout the collected data. Another key observation was how frequently data units centered on the affective experiences of women with disabilities and how assumptions about their bodily appearance and sexual orientation shaped these experiences. In this context, fragments from activists who publicly exposed their bodies and shared their love lives proved especially revealing. These stories illustrated how activists used their bodies to assert their identities. From these reflections, key conceptual areas emerged, expressed through the following keywords and patterns: “fighting,” “opposing,” “ableism, patriarchism, heterosexuality”; “independence,” “empowerment,” “institutions”; “individuality,” “fragility,” “quality of life”; “beauty,” “love life,” “sexuality.”
In the second stage of coding, these areas became more nuanced and better articulated. Exemplary quotes were mapped to them and examined in light of features specific to the Italian context, allowing for the identification of resonances and differences across narratives. At this stage, it became evident how the initial codes could be linked to personal experiences of oppression that shaped activists’ strategies for constructing political identities. Insightful moments of analysis included, for example, how interviewees’ encounters with education systems led to collaborative, within-institution, education-oriented activism. Another example involved activists who deliberately adopted a silencing identity deployment strategy to avoid being dismissed, stereotyped as angry or pretentious, or misunderstood in their claims—opting instead to protect their educational and professional achievements (Brown and Gershon, 2017; Kooistra, 2008).
As a result, the second stage of analysis led to the grouping of identity deployment patterns under four classifications: “opposing and resisting,” “empowering by doing,” “valuing introspection,” and “silencing oneself.” These identity deployments reflect different experiences of confrontation with systems of power and the various ways in which activists organized their activism over time, with particular attention to the role of their bodies in these processes.
Table 2 summarizes the data analysis process, illustrating how fragments and quotes—where interviewees recalled episodes, thoughts, and feelings—were used to derive codes and, ultimately, the final themes of the research, which are detailed in the findings section.
Research process from quotes to major themes.
Findings
As follows, we illustrate how disabled women activists developed their political identities, shaped by personal experiences of oppression and liberation in their lived contexts. Our research process led us to identify patterns in how identities were deployed in response to various forms of discrimination, and to highlight how activists’ bodies were understood within these dynamics of identity formation.
Opposing and resisting: Gender and disability intersect to embody endurance
According to our analysis, the first typology of identity deployment at the intersection of gender and disability emerges through opposition and resistance. Disabled women activists challenge the unfairness and exclusion of Western society, dominated by the norms of the white, heterosexual, able-bodied man. This figure acts as a pervasive, discriminatory benchmark against which all forms of diversity are measured. Activists reflect on their identities as acts of confrontation with a broad institutional system shaped by patriarchal, ableist, capitalist, and homophobic values. They present themselves as militant and deeply engaged in social struggles. In this context, the body is experienced and narrated as a political platform—a site of resistance against widespread discrimination, which targets disabled women more than other social groups.
For instance, the interviewee shares her experience with maternity and adoption in the following quote. It refers to the fight for adoption rights for women with disabilities—a right widely ignored in Italy. This neglect is based on the assumption that motherhood is solely a caregiving role, and that a woman with disabilities cannot fulfill it, as she is presumed to need care herself (Crippi, 2024; Lussana, 2012).
Another battle which I consider very important and that constitutes the object of my new book is the right to motherhood. Institutions have told me continuously that, with my illness, I am not eligible for adoption. The orphanages are full of children who need just love, and because of my neuromuscular disease, I am not considered able to provide a child with love and affection. Nobody speaks of this issue, and everyone wants to ignore it: there is always a discussion about the opportunity for gay people to adopt, for single people, but never for women with disabilities (Woman #7)
From our findings, women with disabilities also center their embodied opposition on reclaiming the right to dress and wear makeup for their own pleasure. This challenges the discriminatory assumption that sexual desirability should exist only through the male gaze. From this perspective, gender and disability intersect to limit individuals’ freedom to choose their appearance. When a woman with disabilities presents a carefully curated look, it is seen as improper, and she is judged as arrogant or unrealistic.
The following fragment highlights the body’s central role in opposing the system, especially when access to healthcare and social protection is denied. This exclusion stems from society’s refusal to recognize the intersection of gender and disability. It is rooted in the assumption that disabled women’s bodies are ungendered, and therefore not considered in the planning of preventive or standard care—or seen as vulnerable to domestic and sexual violence.
I found many barriers when I went to the gynecologist, not only because of the absence of accessible medical equipment, but above all for the doctor’s difficulty to consider me as a woman with a sexual life (. . .) Most antiviolence centers are not accessible, and this happens because there is a cultural stereotype that disabled women do not suffer violence (Woman #19)
When exploring how this identity pattern emerges from personal experience, the activists’ political and social commitment to fighting widespread injustice often traces back to their families’ militant backgrounds. These families themselves faced deep oppression and marginalization: My desire to fight has been with me since I was a kid, when I turned 18 years old, and everyone begins to build their first political opinions. In high school, it was more a thought than an activity, but in college, my militant engagement exploded, and I started to attend all student associations. I have to say that I was influenced by my family’s environment: my father used to be the chair of the UILDM group in our town and, when speaking about my disability, he used to say, “My daughter, if you want society to change, you have to change it, engaging directly” (Woman #4)
Empowering by doing: Gender and disability intersect in the provision of functional services
Our analysis shows that disabled women activists also adopt a more collaborative identity, supporting other disabled women by providing services essential for an “Independent Life.” In this form, activism promotes female empowerment and access to housing, education, work, and healthcare. The systems of privilege and oppression this pattern responds to are rooted in local institutions—public agencies, healthcare offices, schools, and workplaces that shape daily life. Activists work within these structures to ensure disabled women receive the services they need and deserve, so they can be recognized as a group and fully participate in society. The physical, social, and medical barriers encountered in these settings are the sites of marginalization activists refer to when framing their identities as “service providers” and agents of empowerment. The following quote illustrates how activism is aimed at securing the right of women with disabilities to choose how and where they want to live.
If you look at the real problems, like the inaccessibility of places, and the fact that we cannot get into a bar and may we give up a nice night out or we go out and do not drink anything because we know we cannot go to the toilet, these are the important things (. . .) in the beginning I started being an activist for myself, my problems, then also here on campus I worked to have accessible transportation for disabled people, to get accessible toilets for women (. . .) then I joined the Union here and the Academic Senate, since I knew how to move, how to push things (Woman #12)
The discrimination linked to the emergence of political identity is deeply felt and embodied. It is described through the sense of exclusion caused by physical and psychological barriers that keep women “outside” their vision of a full life. The body becomes the site where power dynamics are experienced, while activists claim organizational skills and a practice-oriented approach as key strategies for asserting this identity pattern.
When examining how political identity emerges from personal experience, this pattern can be traced to the intersection of activists’ involvement in associations and their daily experiences of marginalization. These include moments while studying, attending medical appointments, or working directly within local and healthcare agencies, as illustrated in the following quote: Health issues immediately come to mind because there is an important problem with accessing reproductive and sexual healthcare services. Most examination tables are not accessible for disabled women, so there is the problem of moving the patient from the wheelchair to the table, and the doctor should ask permission to pick up the patient. We are always talking about the wheelchair, and we never talk about the architectural or cultural barriers we suffer from. I had to face these problems many times and in an unfriendly environment. . .. the architectural barriers and the lack of competent healthcare professionals make women with disabilities give up or postpone preventive screenings (Woman #22)
Valuing introspection, a paradoxical view: Gender and disability intersect to promote fragility and multi-tasking
A further identity deployment process emerged in our analysis, aiming to bring attention within disabled women’s groups to the importance of recognizing each person’s individuality and uniqueness. This process unfolds through two opposing patterns: one affirms the right to have the individual fragility of disabled women acknowledged and supported; the other asserts the right to a multi-tasking, energetic, and socially active life for those who seek it. Activists construct fragility and multi-tasking as parts of this identity to highlight the vast diversity in how individuals experience and embody both gender and disability. This framing also makes space for introspection as a vital lens through which to understand society and its inequalities.
Individual fragility, difficulties, and fatigue should not be hidden. Women with disabilities should be free to present a true self-image—lovable because it is unique. In this context, the interviewee shares her experience of deep physical and mental exhaustion, often concealed with shame by disabled women who have internalized ableist norms about proper behavior. This internalized ableism pressures them to take on multiple roles while hiding their fatigue and vulnerability.
Honestly, I often feel very tired, I wanted to lay down on the sofa, but I can’t; last week I went to Milan to work, and I felt destroyed for ten days. It is exactly for this reason that we have to improve accessibility, but the problem is that no one speaks about individual vulnerability and difficulty (Woman #5)
On the other hand, the following quote shows that emphasizing individuality is not only about celebrating fragility, but also about affirming the right to pursue a preferred lifestyle—even one aligned with dominant social norms. It reflects how disabled women feel burdened by stereotypes, as disability is often seen as a tragic condition that ruins quality of life. In contrast, the interviewee stresses the importance of claiming the right for disabled women to care for their appearance and femininity in a sensual way, and to nurture their interpersonal relationships.
For me it is very important to contrast the narrative which confines the person with disabilities to the healthcare sector, because when people see a person with a disability, they think she goes in and out of the hospital. I, on the other hand, take care of myself, take care of being female, take care of the sensual and sexual aspects of my life; moreover, I care very much about interpersonal relationships (Woman #9)
The political significance of the body is again expressed through the embodiment of exclusion and the call for new ways to engage in social, political, and emotional life. The bodies of women with disabilities can be tired, beautiful, exhausted, and sexual. These narratives deserve space, allowing activists to strengthen recognition of diversity within the movement as a foundation for broader participation.
When exploring how this identity emerges from personal experience, one interviewee explains that activism means creating space for women with disabilities to share their unique stories—without imposing hierarchies among them.
We, people with disabilities, are conscious of having heterogeneous backgrounds, feelings and opinions; in fact, there isn’t a unitary movement that can impact our political and social power. There are many narratives of disabilities: I don’t think that my narrative is the right one; it is my personal experience that I try to tell without offending and hurting anyone. (Woman #28)
The system of oppression and marginalization addressed here is rooted in the belief that ensuring equal opportunities for disabled women is not universally seen as socially or politically valuable. For some in the movement, accessibility cannot be fully achieved through the idea of equal opportunities alone. This concept may feel inadequate—or simply not the right frame—for feeling recognized and accepted. The form of activism that intersects with personal experiences of marginalization often comes from those who have developed into role models and leaders within the movement.
Silencing oneself: Fear and incommunicability as the condition of gender and disability
Our analysis of disabled women activists’ identity deployment reveals an additional pattern, practiced “at the margins” of the opposing, empowering, and introspective narratives. The phrase “at the margins” indicates that this set of codes emerged alongside the others, but was expressed as complementary rather than central.
We named this pattern silencing oneself, as it involves censoring opposition, empowerment, and the celebration of individuality. It emerges when the fear of losing one’s identity and hard-won rights, combined with the sense that activist positions will not be understood or believed, becomes overwhelming.
In the following quote, the interviewee describes the difficulty of asking a relative or personal assistant to leave during a medical consultation. This challenge stems from the unequal power dynamic between caregiver and care recipient, and from the fear of making what are seen as “extra requests.” Out of concern for losing even basic access to healthcare, some women with disabilities may choose to stay silent. The interviewee explains how this emotional blackmail can lead them to accept a significant loss of personal freedom to avoid jeopardizing their care.
When I go to the doctor, it is not easy to find the strength and the determination to tell my companion to let me go alone. I am always afraid of being offensive or not being understood. In 2021 I took part in a conference in which it emerged that the violence against women with disabilities has to be explained also in the light of the fear women feel about expressing their wishes and needs. A woman does not say anything because she is afraid that the assistant will get angry and then leave her alone, and this would mean finding yourself in an even worse situation (Woman #3)
In this context, our findings illustrate to the difficulty of being believed, when issues such as gender-based violence are reported: to have both woman- and disability- identities is disassociated from the idea of suffering from domestic and sexual abuse. The following quotes reinforce this issue of the incommunicability of their own needs and stances. The interviewee traces it back to the assumption of docility, of the importance of “being satisfied with what you have” that Italian society has ascribed to women with disabilities.
People, particularly women with disabilities, often hesitate to assert their rights because they feel pressured to constantly be accommodating, to please the current politician, and to flatter various individuals; otherwise, they risk provoking anger. It’s as though there’s an ingrained sense of ancestral guilt, an underlying feeling of inferiority towards the interlocutor, and a fear of causing annoyance. There’s a pervasive fear of requesting more, almost as if every concession granted is viewed as a significant favor, contributing to a considerable challenge in being assertive (Woman #12)
This pattern echoes a growing concern within the Italian disabled women’s movement: the risk of women with disabilities having their privacy, intimacy, and basic rights violated—even within the family. The body becomes a site of domestic, sexual, and social judgment, marked by perceptions of dysfunction. Staying silent is often a strategy to preserve the limited accessibility and recognition that has been hard-won.
Discussion
This study explores identity politics (Aronowitz, 1992; Bernstein, 2005) and integrates it with body politics through an intersectional lens on social movements (Crenshaw, 2013; Evans, 2022; Heaney, 2020). Its aim is to understand how the political stances of women with disabilities are shaped by their experiences of oppression and the political significance of their bodies in identity formation. This paper contributes to understanding how specific, contextual experiences of power inform the types of political identities women with disabilities construct within their movements to organize activism.
Recognizing the link between the personal and the political is essential to avoid further marginalizing minorities through rigid categorizations imposed by existing regulatory norms, while also creating space for solidarity and unity (Bernstein and Olsen, 2009; Mauksch and Dey, 2024; Wehrle, 2021; Zanoni et al., 2017).
By integrating identity and body politics, this study contributes to debates on agency and bottom-up participation in political identity formation. Showing how bodies are the sites where both oppression and resistance are experienced allows all bodies to matter politically and helps reduce hierarchies among minorities (Butler, 1993, 2002; Jammaers and Williams, 2023; Samuels, 2002; Wehrle, 2021).
The movement of women with disabilities in Italy is the setting for this analysis. Disabled women activists operate within a context marked by multiple systems of marginalization and oppression that manifest across different layers of society (Crippi, 2024; Malaguti, 2011).
Theorizing from this context helps to understand how activists at the intersection of disability and gender construct their political identities. It also reveals how they reflect on varied experiences of oppression to deploy different identities—even within the same movement—as a means to organize their liberation (Davis, 2006; Siebers, 2013, 2017; Thomson, 2006; Wendell, 2006).
Disability and gender, positioned at the forefront of shared vulnerabilities (Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 2000; Samuels, 2002), offer a lens to theorize how different minorities can value the complexity of their experiences of discrimination while seeking common ground for building collective identities (Owens, 2015; Wilde and Fish, 2023).
Our findings illustrate how the body can be understood as a ground for analyzing power and organizing resistance—both when identities are deployed to foster unity and cohesion (opposing and resisting), and when they are used to celebrate difference (valuing introspection). In our analysis, the body becomes a space of reaction against the disciplining forces that the majority seeks to impose on women with disabilities.
Importantly, our findings do not portray the body solely as something controlled and regulated by movements or society Brown and Gershon (2017), but as a strategic tool through which activists center their identities and activism. Through the identity pattern of opposing and resisting, we show how the body is the ultimate ground for defending disabled women’s rights—against infantilization, de-sexualization, and violence.
Our study reveals how activists conceive the body as a safeguard for self-affirmation, positioning themselves as militants and fighters within a capitalist, male-dominated, ableist, and patriarchal Italian society. The body is experienced and interpreted as the site of struggle when women are exposed to historically and socially rooted oppressions—attacks on their physical appearance, reproductive and sexual lives, and safety.
Notably, the fact that disabled women’s bodies do not align with dominant standards of beauty shaped by the male gaze does not, in these findings, lead to concealment. Instead, our study shows that the body is used to express another kind of beauty—another appearance—serving as a tool of resistance and defense, rather than something to be hidden or altered.
These findings must also be understood in light of how the body is perceived in both the disability and feminist movements in Italy. For both, liberating the body from disciplining norms around motherhood, sexual orientation, autonomy, and physical and sexual safety remains a central site of struggle (Barbuto et al., 2007; Crippi, 2024; Lussana, 2012).
However, it is important to note that activists also refer to their bodies as spaces for negotiating power and marginalization—particularly when emphasizing the need to acknowledge differences within their group. This recognition includes the vulnerabilities each woman may feel when confronted with various oppressive, body-based norms (valuing introspection). These are norms that, for example, view women with disabilities—especially those with motor impairments—as tireless superheroes, or as women who have no right to be tired because they are presumed free from caregiving and work-related responsibilities.
In this identity deployment strategy, the body is again framed as a site of agency for activists—not merely as a space shaped by disciplining forces. Here, the political power of the body lies in its right to express both fragility and potential. It resists being erased by flat, homogenous narratives that oversimplify how women with disabilities seek to liberate themselves from experiences of subjugation.
These findings reflect the evolution and character of the Italian disability and feminist movements. The embodied discrimination both have long fought against reappears here, underscoring how the body is conceived as the foundation for asserting each woman’s uniqueness—and as a legitimate ground for organizing activism (Coppedè, 1993; Vela and Pintus, 2020).
Finally, it is worth noting how the body is experienced as the ground of lived oppression in both the empowerment and silencing patterns. Embodied discrimination in sexual, domestic, work, and social life is cited as the starting point for shaping a political identity. Yet, in these situations, activists claim legitimacy and recognition politically—either by emphasizing their organizational capabilities or by choosing to silence the body.
This study also contributes to broader discussions on how identity deployment can serve as a foundation for theorizing how activists construct their identities in response to the specific, multi-layered experiences of discrimination they have faced.
Women with disabilities shape their political identities through a range of approaches—from those rooted in critique (opposing and resisting) and education (empowering) to those that emphasize individuality (valuing introspection). These activists use identity as a strategy both to build unity and to highlight differences within the same movement. These tendencies reflect the wide variety of oppressive experiences activists have faced in their personal lives and in the broader Italian context (Crippi, 2024; Griffo, 2015; Schianchi, 2014; Vela and Pintus, 2020).
Our findings illustrate how identity deployments intended to confront (opposing and resisting) and gain legitimacy through actions and processes accepted by the majority (empowering by doing) can coexist within the same movement. Our results attribute the emergence of this empowerment-based identity pattern to activists’ accumulated experiences of discrimination during interactions with established institutions, particularly those where the equal opportunities agenda has found the most fertile ground in Italy for women with disabilities: schools, workplaces, and healthcare services. It is interesting to note that this identity strategy, focused on collaboration with dominant institutions, does not prevent activists from framing these same institutions as sites of oppression. Collaborating with existing institutions does not mean accepting an identity aligned with the ableist and discriminatory pressures experienced at school or upon entering hospitals; rather, it represents a way of re-enacting experiences of discrimination, this time in favor of women with disabilities.
This more “acceptable” approach to defining how the political identity of women with disabilities is deployed can also be observed in the proposed model of the multi-tasking, performative woman described in our third pattern (valuing introspection). In this case, collaboration with the system of privileges and the celebration of a multi-tasking woman, who is contentedly overwhelmed with work and family care, corresponds to a strategy of adherence to the prescriptions of a malestream society. This adherence is practiced by aligning with the models of appearance and behavior prescribed by established institutions (Bernstein, 2005).
When considering our findings on silencing, we believe the emergence of this pattern represents a valuable contribution to identity politics and intersectionality, helping us understand how body politics and the politics of visibility and communication can coexist with the politics of the unspeakable (Harcourt, 2009; Kooistra, 2008). This contribution is especially relevant in our context, given that at the intersection of disability and gender, oppression often remains difficult to communicate and understand (Evans, 2019, 2022; Meekosha, 2002; Meekosha and Jakubowicz, 1996). For women with disabilities in Italy, this incommunicability is rooted in the invisibility and incomprehensibility of their marginalization. A paternalistic, hypocritical assumption that women with disabilities should be “happy with what they have” coexists alongside other attitudes, partly shaped by welfare policies that dominated the country until the 1990s. Highlighting this pattern situates the oppression of women with disabilities within a broader framework of unspeakable marginalization (Jammaers and Williams, 2023; Kooistra, 2008; Napolitano and Sicca, 2024). Our study demonstrates that silencing originates in specific experiences where activists were deprived of recognition for previous achievements when advocating for additional issues. In this sense, silencing functions as an identity strategy to preserve the status quo and reject speaking through existing categories.
The purpose of our research was to emphasize differences in activists’ experiences and their connection to political intent, placing activists’ experiences of oppression and their agency in identity deployment at the center of the discussion. Focusing on the body as the site of both experienced discrimination and liberation allows this research to examine how activists’ political identities emerge within their contexts of power. It acknowledges their agency and unique contributions while identifying patterns that unite them around specific claims and pressing issues.
Conclusion
In terms of practical implications, our study provides a map, illustrating how disabled women interpret their reference contexts and embodied experiences as activists. Through this study, we highlight that reclaiming power, experiencing fatigue, and balancing collaboration with opposition are all patterns that institutions and social movements should consider when addressing disability. These patterns demonstrate alternative ways in which activists’ bodies serve as political grounds to negotiate, resist, or comply with power systems. We also show that oppression is experienced by disabled women activists at various societal levels. Therefore, just as the general values of a male, ableist, and Western-centric society require constant scrutiny, the same applies to how local institutions construct discourses around equal opportunities and how individuals reflect upon their unique contexts, histories, and senses of progression.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all the participants of this study, who offered their precious time and availability to this research.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
