The fight for visibility of diverse women with diverse disabilities throughout the three decades since the Beijing Conference

Overview

Women and girls with diverse disabilities have been largely neglected in the World Conference on Women (WCW) documents in the decades preceding the Fourth WCW in Beijing in 1995, which endorsed the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), and the subsequent five-yearly implementation reports up to and including the report for Beijing+30. Although the Beijing WCW and associated NGO Forum catalysed the development of a growing global movement of women with disabilities, the increased participation of women with disabilities has not resulted in a commensurate presentation in these core United Nations (UN) documents addressing the advancement of women. The term intersectionality is increasingly used by the UN and women’s groups, but it is often tokenistic, placing women with disabilities in a list referring to marginalised groups of women, such as Indigenous women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, and asexual (LGBTIQA+) people with disabilities. This obscures how the intersection of sexism and ableism not only compounds their inequality but also creates new forms of exclusion. This paper aims to identify issues at the intersection of sexism and ableism for women and girls with disabilities and further examines how Indigenous women and LGBTIQA+ women with disabilities face further intersectional discrimination. By identifying areas of progress as well as consistent barriers, the paper hopes to inform discussions about the inclusion of diverse women with disabilities within the women’s movement to ensure their voices are central across broader gender equality work. The paper is authored by an Indigenous woman with disabilities and a lesbian woman with disabilities who both attended the NGO Forum in 1995 and have continued to be active in the UN processes on the implementation of the BPfA including the Beijing+30.