Gendering Disability. Women With Disability: An Italian Daily Living Framework

So far, disability has been explored under different points of view; many professionals can talk about disability and how to manage it. In general, even if not always, it is no more a personal issue to be hidden. However, how women with disability develop their everyday life and existence is still to be investigated deeply. After a short introduction about disability and gender in Italy, in this paper I will go through a focus group that I had with around ten people affected by multiple sclerosis with other two researchers. The method applied is the one shared and agreed, related to the focus groups methodology. The participants talked spontaneously about different domains; the topic was about how a woman thinks of her existence and the one of surrounding people, but how she thinks of the (non-) accessibility of public spaces and health services. Moreover, they described how they are constantly stared based on their dis-ability and treated as brain-damaged, just because of the wheelchair or due to a visible impairment. The results demonstrate that still gender and accessibility issues have to be raised in the gender research and in the public and political sphere, where even basic rights are difficult to be affirmed. The outcomes trace a framework of analysis of what should be performed and implemented for a real gender empowerment; this, in order to let women with disability being really women and really citizens, in a pervasive gender perspective.