Victimized again? intersectionality and injustice in disabled women’s lives after hate crime and rape
Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part A
ISBN: 978-1-78350-110-6
Publication date: 15 October 2013
Abstract
Background
Disabled women are reported to be between twice and five times more likely to experience sexual violence than non-disabled women or disabled men; when these are hate crimes they compound harms for both victims and communities.
Purpose
This user-led research explores how disabled and Deaf victims and Survivors most effectively resist the harm and injustice they experience after experiencing disablist hate crime involving rape.
Design/methodology/approach
Feminist standpoint methods are employed with reciprocity as central. This small-scale peer research was undertaken with University ethics and supervision over a five year period. Subjects (n=522) consisted of disabled and Deaf victims and Survivors in North of England.
Findings
The intersectional nature of violence against disabled women unsettles constructed macro binaries of public/private space violence and the location of disabled women as inherently vulnerable. Findings demonstrate how seizing collective identity can usefully resist re-victimization, tackle the harms after disablist hate crime involving rape and resist the homogenization of both women and disabled people.
Practical implications
The chapter outlines inequalities in disabled people’s human rights and recommends service and policy improvements, as well as informing methods for conducting ethical research.
Originality/value
This is perhaps the first user-led, social model based feminist standpoint research to explore the collective resistance to harm after experiencing disablist hate crime involving rape. It crossed impairment boundaries and included community living, segregated institutions and women who rely on perpetrators for personal assistance. It offers new evidence of how disabled and Deaf victims and Survivors can collectively unsettle the harms of disablist hate crime and rape and achieve justice and safety on a micro level.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
This chapter is dedicated to Professor Sue Wise, a ground-breaking feminist and a diligent supervisor, on her retirement from Lancaster University.
The author would also like to thank Paul Iganski, Akwugo Emejulu, Helen Charnley and Alan Roulstone who have been wise and patient academic supervisors and editors during the pilots and project work discussed in this chapter. Susie is indebted to editors Vasilikie Demos and Marcia Texler Segal for their thoughtful, supportive comments and advice on the drafts of this chapter. She is also grateful to her colleagues Mike, Tom, Caroline, Laura, Kate, Dave and volunteers at Vision Sense, the user-led organization of disabled people through which this work was conducted. She also wishes to thank Billy and all at Better Days, Gateshead Visual Impairment Forum members, Verity Joyce from Communicate and Empower and Emma Roebuck from Gay Advice Darlington, for their wonderful partnerships in this project. Funding for this work was granted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Northern Rock Foundation (Safety and Justice Programme), Northumbria Police, Gateshead Council and the Annette Lawson Charitable Trust; the author appreciates this valuable support and the advice of Cullagh Warnock and Caroline Airs. Most importantly, time, recommendations and contributions from the Steering Group, disabled and Deaf participants, victims, Survivors, their families and the Trans women who helped us negotiate the mental health and criminal justice systems has been invaluable. Fond thoughts are of our disabled allies, role models and friends who have lost their lives too early and during this project – Nasa Begum, Lindsay Carter, Gemma Hayter, Christine Lakinski, Francesca Hardwick, Brent Martin, Nick Danagher and Stuart Hall; without you our work would have no meaning – we miss you. We hope that we can contribute to improving safety and justice in your memory and that you have Freedom, Now.
The names of the participants in the chapter are pseudonyms they chose themselves – all information has been anonymized.
Citation
Balderston, S. (2013), "Victimized again? intersectionality and injustice in disabled women’s lives after hate crime and rape", Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence: Part A (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 18A), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 17-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-2126(2013)000018A005
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited