Damaging effects of social attitudes on women

A 1997 study reveals the damaging effects of social attitudes on women with disabilities.

"Previous research indicated that women with disabilities constitute our nation's most severely oppressed minority," said Dr. Margaret Nosek, principal investigator for the study and director of the Center for Research on Women with Disabilities at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. "Now we have more information about what factors increase their ability to beat the odds."

The four-year study involved more than 1,000 women, about half with and half without physical disabilities.

Among the findings:

· Women with disabilities had limited opportunities to establish romantic relationships. The large majority (87 per cent) of women had at least one romantic relationship or marriage. However, only 52 per cent were involved in a serious relationship at the time of the study, versus 64 per cent of women without disabilities.

· Self-esteem in women with disabilities was more strongly influenced by social and environmental factors than by the mere fact of having a disability. For women who were not working, or in a serious relationship, or who had experienced physical or sexual abuse, self-esteem was much lower especially among women with disabilities.

· Abuse was a serious problem for women with disabilities. They had even fewer options for escaping or resolving the abuse than women in general. About the same percentage (60) of women with and without disabilities had experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse, but women with disabilities experienced abuse for longer periods.

· Women with disabilities encountered serious barriers to receiving general and reproductive health care. Thirty-one per cent of the women with disabilities were refused care by private physicians because of their disability.

According to Nosek, who is a wheelchair user, few of these problems are directly related to disability. They are more a result of society's negative stereotypes about the abilities and potential of women with disabilities.

"Self-esteem seems to be the critical element," she said. "If you believe that you are a woman of value, you gain strength to forge your way through the most stubborn of barriers."

The Center for Research on Women with Disabilities study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…July 7/97