Women and Disability

January 6, 2008
I. Socio-Legal Responses to Disability Historical Perspectives
Disability can be visible or invisible
There are special ramifications for women
o In the young: men are more likely to be disabled due to risk taking
o For the aged: women are more likely to be disabled (80% of aged women,
arthritis)
o TABS = Temporarily Able Bodied Persons
Up until the 1800s, there was a religious framework for disability and not a medical
one
o Disability was a retribution for sin and was stigmatized
o They werent ostracized from the community but rather lived within it
Up until the 19th Century there were provisions for the disabled
o Competency in managing property
o Competency in standing trial
o Actus reus & mens rea Crime had to occur but also had to understand that
committed a crime (insanity clauses)
o Anybody viewed to pose a danger can be involuntarily confined
Change in 1800s with the rise of medicine
o Doctors become interested in disabilities
o By the mid 1800s institutions were developed for the deaf, blind, psychotic,
etc
o Period of institutionalization:
Came from because of medicine: removed stigma for disabilities but defined
it as an illness and different from the norm
Came from industrialization: dont have time/room to take care of family
member with disability
Late 1800s Initial hope to provide cure for mental diseases did not occur
o Put patients in a tranquil environment
Today
o Insanity clause actually spend more time in facility than they would have in
jail
Intellectual Development
o Darwin: The fittest survive and thats how species evolve
o Was popularized and applied to humans: people who commit crimes, disabled,
poor are unfit
o Was applied to humans to look at health & wealth of a nation
o Led to the Eugenics movement public health programs were only for the fit
and the unfit were not allowed to reproduce in order to promote the
reproduction of the fittest only for the health of the population
o Hereditary Determinism was developed by Galton Studied elites and found
that across generations they all did well

o Galton concluded that character traits and fitness was transmitted from
generation to generation
o Unfit: poor, people who transgress social norms, unwed mothers, races
o Promoted white superiority
II. Institutionalization & Sterilization
Nazi Germany put Jews, socialists, communists, disabled, races, gays and lesbians
in jail
Sterilization
o In 28 states: The U.S passed involuntary sterilization laws
o In 2 provinces: Alberta (1928) and BC (1933) passed involuntary sterilization
laws
o Majority of sterilization happened to women
o Feebleminded were institutionalized and sterilized
People with a milder form of intellectual disability
Medical classification: moron
IQ testing: Usually people who were poor/racial got low scores (due to lack
of education) and were institutionalized
Was culturally biased
o Was used for social control of population not for medical treatment
III. Human Rights Legislation
Disability Rights Movement
o Came about because of:
Medical advances allowed people with disabilities to live longer
Vietnamese more returned a lot of soldiers with disabilities veterans
understood the barriers that disabled people were faced with when trying
to participate in society
Critique of shutting the disabled away in institutions
o Criticized accessibility looked at physical structures
o Disabled were also excluded from the workforce
Social Model of Disability
o Disabled need to minimize their impairment
o DRM criticized this and said that society is to blame because of barriers and
not giving them jobs
o Society need to accommodate people with disabilities and help them with
mobility
o Paradigm Shift Look at the attitudes of society and environment instead of
disabled people themselves
o Felt the rights didnt go far enough (Charter of Rights and Freedoms)
disabled person himself needs to fight to gain rights and it requires money and
resources
o There is a need for a broader legislation to push institutions to be more
proactive

1990 Americans with Disabilities Act

o Forced institutions to make their environment more accessible
2001/2004 Ontarians with Disabilities Act
o Still not effective because women still require support for mothering while at
home

IV. Film: The Sterilization of Leilani Muir

Was surgically sterilized
Notion that would improve human genes through controlled breeding
Measuring of human potential was very broad: poor, behavioural problems,
emotional problems, criminals
Lack of necessity for sterility
U.S. inverted the I.Q. testing to show heredity
H. H. Goddard wanted to give them to immigrants
Greatest danger of health to nation was the spread of defective genes
United Families (?) of Women Association
o Believed in threat of immigration
o Would improve breeding stock of province
Disabled could refuse to get sterilized but they would then be incarcerated
Most vulnerable were the poor, immigrants to being sterilized
In some cases went further than just sterilization
V. Notes
Stigma
Resources
Do not disclose disability
Physically disabled, human rights lawyer wanted to go to shop but couldnt fit
through, waited around the corner and asked friend to go in, manager said was
blocking entrance was verbally abused