Women with Disabilities: Two Handicaps Plus

ABSTRACT

In the USA, women with disabilities participate less in social relations, educational institutions, and the labor force than expected on the basis of male/female and male non-disabled/disabled disparities. The resulting isolation appears to be linked with attributional, nurturance and attractiveness norms within the American socio-cultural system as well as to self-image and role selection components of the women's self-concepts. Participation, the socio-cultural system, and the self-concepts are viewed schematically as elements in a triangular relationship of circular causation.