Leadership for change: pathways to activism for African women with disability

Abstract

In African countries, women with disability encounter severe discrimination as their devalued status as women intersects with negative and hostile community attitudes toward disability. Women with disability who are engaged as leaders in the disability movement play a vital role in addressing this discrimination. Through in-depth interviews, this study examined barriers and pathways to leadership encountered by women with disability from Tanzania, Ghana, and Kenya who were active within the disability movement. By dismantling and reshaping stigmatising attitudes the participants had been able to form a positive sense of self and gain the self-esteem needed to succeed as leaders. Publicly, they defied traditional gender roles by leveraging their privileged status as leaders; Leadership was often linked to educational attainment, and being educated legitimised and their achievements as women. Using an intersectional lens, this study sheds further light on the discrimination specific to African women with disability and the strategies that they employ to overcome them.

Points of interest

• African women with disability encounter severe forms of discrimination both due to their gender and due to their disability

• Women with disabilities who are engaged as leaders in the African disability movement play an important role in fighting this discrimination

• In this study, we identified how women with disability had overcome various barriers to become disability leaders

• We found that by resisting negative attitudes the women were able to develop the confidence they needed to become leaders

• The women also had to ensure that others accepted them as leaders. Being educated was one way in which they were able to convince others that they were competent as leaders.

Keywords:

• Women
• gender
• disability
• intersectionality
• Africa
• leadership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.