Lebanese women disability rights activists: War-time experiences

SynopsisDominant feminist scholarship in the West has tended to equate being Arab or Muslim with oppression and to negate the active histories of resistance of women in these societies. In addition, feminist and disability studies scholarship has largely omitted an exploration of the experiences of women with disabilities. This paper attempts to addresses these tendencies and gaps in the scholarship by presenting the findings of a case study adopting a critical disability research approach. The study explored the activism role and experiences of 14 women with disabilities and their allies working in various regions of Lebanon during situations of war. Relying on a feminist postcolonial analysis and focusing on the intersection of gender and disability in the experiences of the activists, several main themes emerged from the semi-structured interviews: awareness of oppression; mitigating the impact of oppression; and the balancing acts negotiating motherhood and activism.