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Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
Published on: February 16, 2011
Medicine, gender, and disability: disabled women's health care encounters
1Department of Applied Social Science, Lancaster University, Cartmel College, United Kingdom. C.Thomas@lancaster.ac.uk
In this article I examine the intersection of gender and disability in the medical arena by considering disabled women's experiences of receiving health care in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the "social model of disability," I focus on the attitudes and practices of doctors. I use two sources of qualitative data: (i) 68 disabled women's narratives gathered in the United Kingdom in 1996-1997; (ii) interviews with 17 disabled women regarding their reproductive experiences in the United Kingdom. I suggest that disabled women health service users are at risk of experiencing oppressive medical practices because two forces of oppression appear to be frequently, and interactively, in play: patriarchy and disablism.
In this article I examine the intersection of gender and disability in the medical arena by considering disabled women's experiences of receiving health care in the United Kingdom. Drawing on the "social model of disability," I focus on the attitudes and practices of doctors. I use two sources of qualitative data: (i) 68 disabled women's narratives gathered in the United Kingdom in 1996-1997; (ii) interviews with 17 disabled women regarding their reproductive experiences in the United Kingdom. I suggest that disabled women health service users are at risk of experiencing oppressive medical practices because two forces of oppression appear to be frequently, and interactively, in play: patriarchy and disablism.
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