Synchronous Oppression: How Ableism and Mysoginior Combine to Put Black Disabled Women at Risk

By Priscah Norwood

Abstract:

The paper explores the intersection of racism and ableism, by focusing on the experiences of Black women with disabilities. It argues that Black disabled women are more at risks of sexual violence due to their intersecting identities. The idea of intersectionality highlights how multiple identities (race, gender, disability) combine to create unique experiences of discrimination.

Both ableism and racism are rooted in white supremacist ideals that undervalue those who do not conform to white, able-bodied norms. Black women with disabilities are especially vulnerable to sexual violence due to a combination of misogynoir and the societal minimizing of disabled bodies. While disabled individuals are often desexualized and infantilized, Black women are hypersexualized, creating conflicting and harmful stereotypes that combine to put Black disabled women at risk for sexual violence.

According to the Center for Disability Rights, ableism is “a set of beliefs or practices that devalue and discriminate against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities and often rests on the assumption that disabled people need to be ‘fixed’ in one form or the other” (Smith, n.d.). Racism is defined as believing that one is superior or inferior due to their perceived race (Racist Definition & Meaning, 2024). The intersection of race and disability creates a reality where black women who are disabled are often victims of sexual violence and are not given adequate justice due to their identity. It is becoming more and more accepted in society that the concept of a personal or perceived identity allows for a unique experience for individuals. Intersectionality is a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw which acknowledges the fact that people hold multiple identities that intersect to create a unique perspective that creates a unique experience for everyone (Intersectionality – FYS 101 – Research Guides at Syracuse University Libraries, 2024).

Everyone holds multiple identities and it is the combination of the perceived identities that society bestows on some people more power than others. This power not only affects how one can climb the social ladder, but also the risk factors for sexual violence. This creates a situation where their intersection of identities puts Black women who identify as disabled at the risk for sexual violence. It is widely acknowledged that women make up most of the sexual violence survivors (Sexual Assault Statistics, n.d.) but many of those women are Black (Thompson et al., 2012,). This sexism and racism are a combination better known as misogynoir, a term coined by Moya Bailey, meaning the aversion or prejudice against Black women (Misogynoir Definition & Meaning, n.d.). Bailey explains that misogynoir encompasses the oppression that Black women face because of their gender and race (Bailey, 2021, pg. 1). Despite the newness of the term, misogynoir has roots that trace back to slavery. These roots can be seen all throughout digital media and affect the way that Black women are viewed and treated (Bailey, 2021). Examples of this can be seen all throughout the media, especially today in women’s sports. Oftentimes Black women are demonized and harrassed for showing similar emotions as their white counterparts. In both fiction and nonfiction media, Black women are often painted in a hypersexual light and seen to fit the “Jezabel” persona.

Historically, Black people have had lack of access to opportunity, justice, healthcare, and bodily autonomy and people living with disabilities have had a similar history. Black people being seen as lesser simply due to their skin color created a space where it was disabling to be Black.

The idea that a Black person should be “fixed” of their blackness by associating themselves closer to whiteness is not only racist, but also ableist. The idea of ableism comes from white supremacist ideals which include that anyone who is not the ideal (white or able bodied), should be looked down on and feared/pitied (Hayden et al., 2020). Hayden et al. writes about the idea of the “sick role” and how it relates to the way people with chronic illnesses are seen (Hayden et al., 2020). Talcot Parsons states that the worst symptom of chronic illness is the lack of economic productivity (Hayden et al., 2020). Meaning that when a person’s disability reduces their ability to contribute economically, they are less valuable. A similar belief has been pushed on Black people since slavery, where Black people were considered more or less valuable depending on their ability to work. These ideals show that historically both Black people and people with disabilities are only seen as valuable when they contribute to the white ableist agenda.

Due to ableism, people living with a disability are often desexualized and are denied their bodily and sexual autonomy(Santos, 2017). The phenomenon of this is defined as infantilization, meaning to reduce to an infantile state (INFANTILIZE Definition & Meaning, n.d.). The association with the word infant is significant because society does not see infants as sexual. It is understood that children and adolescents should be given the proper tools to live as an adult for people living with disabilities, the experience is not the same. Due to the lack of personhood given to those living with disabilities, they are often not given the tools needed for adulthood. For example, teens living with disabilities aren’t given adequate sex education like their able-bodied peers(Santos, 2017). On the other hand, black women have been historically seen as hypersexualized creatures and are often victims of adultification no matter the age.

Adultification is defined as treating a child like an adult, often in a way that is problematic (ADULTIFICATION Definition | Cambridge English Dictionary, n.d.). This comes up constantly in the justice system when Black girls are disproportionately punished in educational settings and in the juvenile justice systems (Murray, n.d.). A survey showed that Black girls were seen as more knowledgeable about sex than White girls of the same age (Murray, n.d.). Black women are unable to outgrow this ideology and are seen as hypersexual into adulthood. Gyampo writes, “A white woman’s dignity has always been seen as something that needed to be protected, while Black women aren’t protected…the mistreatment of their bodies is warranted” (Gyampo, 2021). When hypersexualization and infantilization combine, it creates a space for someone who has been given very little sexual education due to their disability status and someone who has been hypersexualized since childhood due to the color of their skin and their gender. It is not coincidental that there are high rates of sexual violence among those living with a disability and black women (Sexual Assault Statistics, n.d.). This is even more concerning due to the lack of justice that these identities get when violence is enacted on them. Despite this, there is a lack of research done on this specific group of people.

One can hypothesize that the struggles of this group have to do with issues of the way that both identities are viewed. Because sexualization has such strong ties to a body meeting a sexual ideal, it is a clear reasoning for the lack of sexualization of people who are disabled. There is a clear idea of the type of body/mind that can be sexual (which ties to white supremacy) which doesn’t line up with the way people living with disabilities are viewed. Additionally, because reproduction is such a big part of being sexual, society is uncomfortable with people who are disabled having children who may disabled as well. In a similar sense, black people have historically been seen as having an almost animalistic sense of sexuality that has made people more comfortable with using them as sexual objects especially when compared to their white counterparts. During slavery, sexual violence was used as a way for white slave owners to take advantage of black women and strip them of their bodily autonomy. Even though there is such a strong history of hypersexualizing black women, there are clear objections to reproduction through sterilizing. Meaning, people are comfortable with the lack of sexuality among people living with disabilities because it ensures that they will not reproduce. Racism and ableism go hand in hand, and it is impossible to solve one issue without addressing the other. Both issues share a common root, white supremacy, and common consequences that affect people’s bodily autonomy and access to justice when harm is enacted towards them. It is important to enact comprehensive sexual education in schools for everyone, regardless of their level of ability. In these lessons it is imperative that lessons revolve around consent and how identities play a part in consent. The CDC article,Mobilizing Men and Boys as Alliesto, is written in hopes to increase favorable attitudes towards women and girls (Basile et al., 2016). This would potentially reduce the number of sexual violence victims; however, this solution fails to consider the statistics that show marginalized communities i.e. Black women and disabled people are disproportionately victims of sexual violence. It would be beneficial for the CDC to create a new list of recommendations to prevent sexual violence that includes the nuances of race and disability. I would recommend that the CDC consider the cultural nuances that add to the culture of violence against Black disabled women. Additionally, it is important to challenge the stereotypes about Black women and people living with disabilities that are pushed in the media to allow for marginalized identities to be awarded the same complex characteristics in media that White people have been given for so long (Bailey, 2021, pg. 2).

References

ADULTIFICATION definition | Cambridge English Dictionary. (n.d.). Cambridge Dictionary. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/adultification

Bailey, M. (2021). Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’s Digital Resistance. New York

University Press.

Basile, K. C., DeGue, S., Jones, K., Freire, K., Dills, J., Smith, S. G., & Raiford, J. L. (2016). Sexual Violence Prevention Resource for Action. CDC. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from https://www.cdc.gov/sexual-violence/communication-resources/SV-Prevention-Resource

_508.pdf

Gyampo, A. (2021, October 22). The Hypersexualization of Black People. RISD Museum. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from

https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/projects-publications/articles/hypersexualization-blackpeople

Hayden, A., Klabusich, K., Montague, P., Cohn, M., Conley, J., Bader, E. J., Zhang, S.,

Goodman, A., & Moushabeck, M. (2020, September 15). Ableism and White Supremacy Are Intertwined — We Must Confront Them Together. Truthout. Retrieved May 22, 2024, from https://truthout.org/articles/ableism-and-white-supremacy-are-intertwined-we-must-confr ont-them-together/

https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/fys101/intersectionality

INFANTILIZE Definition & Meaning. (n.d.). Dictionary.com. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/infantilize

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13). Research Guides. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from

Misogynoir Definition & Meaning. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster. Retrieved May 22, 2024, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misogynoir

Murray, P. (n.d.). Girlhoood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood. The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from https://genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/girlhoo d-interrupted.pdf

Oliver, K., & Abdullahi, O. (2019, September 17). What it means to be black, disabled women navigating sex – gal-dem. Gal-Dem. Retrieved May 23, 2024, from https://gal-dem.com/what-it-means-to-be-black-disabled-women-navigating-sex/

Racist Definition & Meaning. (2024, May 11). Merriam-Webster. Retrieved May 22, 2024, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racist

Santos, A. L. (2017, April 19). Yes, we fuck! Challenging the misfit sexual body through disabled women’s narratives. Disability and sexuality: Desires and pleasures, 21(3). Sage

Journals. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716688680

Sexual Assault Statistics. (n.d.). National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC). Retrieved

May 22, 2024, from https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics

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May 22, 2024, from https://cdrnys.org/blog/uncategorized/ableism/

Thompson, N. J., McGee, R. E., & Mays, D. (2012, August). Race, Ethnicity, Substance Use, and Unwanted Sexual Intercourse among Adolescent Females in the United States.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Priscah Norwood

Priscah Norwood was born and raised in Fort Wayne and now resides in Indianapolis. She attends Indiana University Indianapolis and will graduate in May 2025. She enjoys learning, music, and a good movie.

Priscah is wearing a black and white sweater with red braids standing against a white backdrop.

Image Description: Priscah is wearing a black and white sweater with red braids standing against a white backdrop.

The Ableist Lens?

Created by Stacye Robinson

Image Description: A drawing of a woman with short red hair and wearing black glasses. Only her face above the mouth is seen. We don't see her wheelchair. However, we know she is sitting in a wheelchair because we see a headrest behind her head.

Image Description: A drawing of a woman with short red hair and wearing black glasses. Only her face above the mouth is seen. We don’t see her wheelchair. However, we know she is sitting in a wheelchair because we see a headrest behind her head.

ABOUT THE DRAWING:

This piece done in colored pencil and acrylic ink is loosely based on a photograph. The title The Ableist Lens? is meant to pose the question to the viewer about whether minimizing our wheelchairs or devices truly emphasizes beauty the mouth and eyes of the subject are obscured to show that excluding that part of ourselves by default minimizes us as people.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stacye Robison

Stacye Robinson lives in Indianapolis. with her husband Ryne and cat Calvin. she is committed to gentle activism in accordance with her Christian faith.

Stacye Robinson is waiting by a bus stop on Mass Ave seated in her black wheelchair in a green bubble coat and black leggings she has short brown hair and brown eyes.

Image Description: Stacye Robinson is waiting by a bus stop on Mass Ave seated in her black wheelchair in a green bubble coat and black leggings she has short brown hair and brown eyes.

Masking Pains

G. Rice


 Image Description: digital drawing of a cartoonish person standing in a grey and plain landscape, looking up at the viewer with a hand extended forward, offering a hand shake. The person is wearing a polo shirt and long pants along with a mask showing a smiling face, all the same color as the background. The person is vibrant blue, their arms, hair, and exhausted eyes visible.

 

“Masking Pains” is about the difficulty in trying to get employment and housing when you’re forced to hide your symptoms as best you can in interviewing processes.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: G. Rice

 

I’m 23 years old and have been drawing digitally for around a decade now. I started drawing regularly after discovering anime at 12 but my current art and writing is more inspired by the humour and surrealism of the 90s and 00s cartoons I grew up on. I’m a very big fan of horror in multiple mediums (games, art, writing, movies, etc.) and am part of goth, punk, and metal head subcultures which have influenced the style and content of my art.

Structural Ableism by Lee Goldberg

a person standing before hurdles
A person standing before hurdles.
Lee Goldberg’s Structural Ableism Essay Audio [transcript below]

I have several non-apparent disabilities which makes me more apt to experience Systemic Ableism because when people don’t see my disabilities they assume that I can do whatever society wants or what other non-disabled people in society can do. It is like judging the book by its cover only the cover looks normal when it isn’t.

The definition of Systemic Ableism is also known as institutional ableism which includes the physical barriers, policies, laws, regulations, and practices that exclude people with disabilities from full participation and equal opportunity.

I can give you examples that I have personally experienced and still currently experiencing of Systemic Ableism from the policies and regulations, the exclusionary practices, and the physical barriers angle.

The physical barriers that I am currently dealing with involves the use of facemasks by other people during the pandemic. Their facemasks prevent me from being able to understand what someone else is trying to say to me. I depend on lip reading as I am deaf. No one is willing to lower their facemasks just below their chin for the few seconds that it takes them to say a few sentences nor are the healthcare organizations are willing to provide their staff who deal with the public with clear facemasks.

My primary care doctor’s office is one of the worst offenders, and they are part of the Mass General Brigham medical organization in Boston. I stay with them because I have a really awesome primary care doctor and I would be dealing with this issue no matter where I go. I can’t tell you how rude people are when I carry around my deaf sign that says, “I’m deaf please remove your facemask so I can lip read, Thank You.” People come from around the world to get medical care at the Mass General Brigham. Their IT dept will not allow their own health care providers to have the ability to toggle their work Zoom accounts that they use for telemedicine visits which allows them to enable the closed captioning option. The healthcare providers have to go through the process of booking a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation Services) person when there is already a shortage of CART people.

If their IT dept would allow their medical providers the option of enabling the zoom closed captioning, this would eliminate the extra time and effort of getting a CART person. I emailed each of my healthcare providers that I see on Zoom with a Zoom closed captioning cheat sheet on how to enable the Zoom closed caption option. The answer I get from each of them is that the Mass General Brigham IT dept doesn’t allow them to toggle their work Zoom accounts. This is an example of a barrier and a policy version of systemic ableism that is happening now by a world class healthcare organization.

Another systemic ableism is a deaf issue I currently experience is the inability to move the closed captioning placement on my own TV screen when I am watching a TV show. I know that I am not alone about this issue because I have read the comments written online by other deaf people who are frustrated with the same thing. I want the ability to be able to move the placement of the captioning to any part of my TV screen. Currently, only the TV stations can decide on the closed captioning placement on all TV screens and some of them put it in the middle of the TV screen which blocks out the show that I’m trying to watch. It’s very annoying.

Another Systemic Ableism issue that really gets me upset is that the SSA (Social Security Administration) has a system of policies and regulations and continues their discriminatory practices within their SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) program to this current day. This discrimination practices discriminates between the blind and all of the rest of the disabilities in terms how much the 2 disability groups can earn per month before losing their monthly SSDI income. 

For many decades and still to this day, blind people can earn an extra $990+ per month when all of rest of the disabilities cannot before they lose their monthly SSDI income. This is called SGA also known as substantial gainful activity. I have asked benefits trainers, policy makers and advocates how come this SGA discrimination still exists to this day. The answer I get is because blind people had a really good lobby and they got congress in the 1970’s and early 1980’s to write and pass legal and regulatory policies allowing this to happen. 

This SGA discrimination is another example of the legal, regulatory and policy aspect of Systemic Ableism all combined within one action. This is a major reason why most nonblind people including myself who collect SSDI disability are condemned to a life of poverty and get penalized for trying to do part time work. I can’t work more than 20 hours per week due to my various non apparent disabilities. I have the skill sets that puts me above the current nonblind SSDI SGA level.

Finally, another federal program that is administered by the Federal government in partnership with the states is Medicaid. Most people who have disabilities have Medicaid only because they don’t have the required employment quarters to be eligible for SSDI and Medicare. Medicaid is ripe with Systemic Ableism built into the structure of its program and the way it is administered. It limits where one can go, what type of healthcare they can get and the lack of access to health care due to its extremely low reimbursement rates to healthcare providers. 

People with disabilities have trouble accessing specialized care related to their type of disability such as Mental Health or specialized care that is related to their physical disability such as Cerebral Palsy, etc. because the doctors or hospitals will not accept the extremely low Medicaid reimbursements rates. Doing the unpaid extra time and administrative work that many people on Medicaid needs, is not reimbursable by Medicaid. It takes extra time to see and care for a person with a disability.

People with disabilities are often limited to going to the lesser quality hospitals and doctors because of the Systemic Ableism that is built into the Medicaid program. This causes people with disabilities to get lesser quality and standard of physical medical and mental health care. This difference in the quality and access to care makes it extremely hard for people with disabilities to live their public and private lives and to participate in society. This impacts all the major diseases categories across the board for people with disabilities who have Medicaid only whether its cancer or diabetes etc.

I hope my presentation gives you some insight into what Systemic Ableism is and how it permeates throughout society and how its entrenched in our daily lives most people don’t even realize it. This is parallel to what the black people in our country are saying about systemic and institutional racial discrimination.

Thank You,

Lee Goldberg

You can email me at leegoldberg@rcn.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Lee Goldberg

This is a headshot of Lee’s orange cat Linus.

I am a staunch advocate for the mental health peer movement. I have been involved since the early 1990’s. I started out my advocacy days working with Pat Deegan helping bring mental health advocacy into an independent living program. Pat provided me with the foundational knowledge about mental health and introduced me to the early days of the peer advocacy movement. From there, I worked in mental health in different direct care roles ranging from employment services to outreach supported services as a Peer Specialist. I have worked in direct mental health care for 30 years while serving on many statewide committees advocating for changes in the way mental health services are provided in Massachusetts.

Since the pandemic I have left direct care and will be training as a Behavioral Health medical coder. I plan on advocating for certified peer specialists to have their own behavioral health codes so they can bill both the public and employer-based insurance. Currently in some states peer services can bill Medicaid but not in all, they also can’t bill Medicare or employer-based insurance which is why there are no peer services currently for people who have those insurances.

I live in an apartment adjacent to the city of Boston with my orange cat Linus. Linus is 9 years old, and he is the love of my life. I enjoy going to local festivals and having quiet dinners with my friends.