Uneasy intersections: critical understandings of gender and disability in global development

Abstract

Using the lens of intersectionality in development policy and programming can help policy-makers and practitioners account for the unacknowledged biases and structural power relationships that contribute to the exclusion of women with disabilities and other marginalised groups from development initiatives. Using Canada’s maternal health initiatives as a case study, we adopt an intersectional lens to make visible how legacies of forced sterilisation and tensions around prenatal testing have shaped Canada’s perceptions of women with disabilities at home, and argue that these same biased perceptions and discourses have shaped global development policy and programming that excludes women with disabilities.

Keywords:

• Intersectionality
• gender
• feminist disability studies
• maternal health
• Canadian development policy
• inclusion

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback to strengthen this article.

Notes

1. Moser and Moser, “Gender Mainstreaming,” 11.

2. Ibid., 12.

3. Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead, “Gender Myths,” 1, 2; and Woodford-Berger, “Gender Mainstreaming,” 65.

4. Cornwall, Harrison, and Whitehead, “Gender Myths,” 7; Moser and Moser, “Gender Mainstreaming,” 15; and Standing, “Gender, Myth,” 85.

5. Woodford-Berger, “Gender Mainstreaming,” 65, 70.

6. Meekosha, “Decolonising Disability,” 678.

7. Grech, “Recolonising Debates,” 88; and UN Enable, Convention on the Rights, preamble.

8. Oliver, The Politics of Disablement.

9. Ibid.

10. Stienstra, “Lost”.

11. Grech, “Recolonising Debates,” 88; and Yeo, “Disability, Poverty,” 74–7.

12. Yeo, “Disability, Poverty,” 75.

13. Grech, “Recolonising Debates,” 88; and Meekosha, “Decolonising Disability,” 671–2; and Berghs, “Radicalising Disability,” 747.

14. Shettle, Women with Disabilities, 23.

15. Ibid., 23–4.

16. Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall, “Toward a Field,” 795.

17. Hankivsky, Intersectionality 101, 2.

18. Ibid., 10.

19. Hankivsky, “Rethinking Care Ethics,” 261.

20. Hankivsky, Intersectionality 101, 10.

21. Parken, ‘Multi-strand Approach’, 85.

22. Hankivsky, Intersectionality 101, 10.

23. Grech, “Recolonising Debates,” 94–5.

24. Wehbi, Elin, and El-Lahib, “Neo-colonial Discourse,” 406–8.

25. Grekul, “Sterilization in Alberta,” 248–50.

26. “From Suffrage,” 108.

27. Moss, Stam and Kattevilder, “From Suffrage,” 110; and Boyer, First Nations, 15.

28. Grekul, “Sterilization in Alberta,” 248.

29. Moss, Stam and Kattevilder, “From Suffrage,” 109.

30. Ibid., 111.

31. Grekul, “Sterilization in Alberta,” 256.

32. Logan, “Settler Colonialism,” 440.

33. Soldatic and Meekosha, “Disability and Neoliberal State,” 195.

34. Malacrida “Mothering and Disability,” 392–3.

35. Ibid., 391.

36. Ibid., 394–5.

37. Ibid., 393.

38. Saxton, “Disability Rights,” 85.

39. Solberg, “Prenatal Screening,” 186.

40. Ibid., 187.

41. Soldatic and Meekosha, “Disability and Neoliberal State,” 196.

42. Saxton, “Disability Rights,” 88; and Wehbi, Elin, and El-Lahib, “Neo-colonial Discourse,” 416.

43. Black, “Between Indifference,” 260.

44. GOC, Canada’s Leadership.

45. GOC, Canada’s Ongoing Leadership.

46. GAC, Government of Canada.

47. Swiss, “Gender, Security,” 140–2.

48. Black, “Between Indifference,” 261.

49. Tiessen, “Walking Wombs,” 2, 17.

50. Soldatic and Meekosha, “Disability and Neoliberal State,” 196–8.

51. “Neo-colonial discourse,” 410–5.

52. Black, “Muskoka Initiative,” 240.

53. WHO, Promoting Sexual, 10.

54. GAC, Gender Analysis.

55. UN Enable, Convention on the Rights, Articles 25, 32.

56. GAC, Maternal.

57. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bD3SJlpyEI.

58. Morrison and Casper, “Intersections of Disability”.

59. GAC, Maternal.

60. Ayazi et al., “Disability,” 10.

61. GAC, Maternal.

62. Smith et al., “Barriers to Accessing,” 123.

63. Tiessen, “Walking Wombs,” 7, 12.

64. Smith et al., “Barriers to Accessing,” 124.

65. Malacrida, “Performing Motherhood,” 104.

66. Malacrida, “Mothering and Disability,” 394.

67. Tilley et al., “Silence,” 416.

68. WHO, Promoting Sexual, 10.

69. Malacrida, “Performing Motherhood,” 103.

70. Ibid., 106.

71. See Hankivsky et al., “Intersectionality-based Policy Analysis”.

72. Ibid., 35.