Attempting to find disabled women from history
I’ve been trying to learn about disabled women from history lately. History podcasts have been a huge part of my life the last few years. They’ve helped me through the bad pain days, and the days where I was too tired of brain fogged to read. I’m found so many wonderful podcasts, but I’ve struggled to find any history podcast that solely focuses on disabled history. There are some episodes here and there, and there are some amazing podcasts on current disability issues, but nothing focused solely on disabled people in history.
My Favorite History Podcasts:
What this means for my blog
I went to three different libraries near me to see if the lack of information on podcasts and the internet was a fluke. Each library had one book, “A Disability History of the United States.” An excellent book to be sure, but why just one book?
So I decided to contribute what I can to history. I’m not a podcaster or a writer by any means, so a blog will have to do. I’m combining my two passions-history and disabled rights and hope to write every Friday. Though if life gets too crazy, I may switch to every other. I still plan on writing my more typical blog posts and those will come out on Mondays, just not as regularly as they have in the past.
I’m purposely writing about disabled women who are no longer alive. There is actually great work that is already being done on disabled activists since the 1970’s-present times. I was able to find many biographies of current disability rights activists, which is fantastic.
What I intend to write about when I refer to “disabled women in history.”
Why not men? I might get there too, but there are quite a few disabled men already a part of history. Women, especially women of color, are left out of the narrative. Every time I google “disabled people in history” a list of white men appears. While their contributions are absolutely valuable, I’d like to bring attention to the historical women we didn’t know as disabled, or that were left out of history completely.
It’s already turning out to be harder than I anticipated. Even disabled women who were “successful” or “important” didn’t talk about their disability. It seems many women kept their disabilities in the background. It shouldn’t have surprised me since disabled people are often encouraged to do that even now, but I was hoping there would be more information out there.
Why disabled women have been left out of the narrative
My Mom was in her 20s when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes after going into a coma. Family members told my Dad that they shouldn’t tell anyone about it. They were so afraid that people would judge her for her illness. That was in the 1970s and I’m not confident that a lot has changed. Since I stopped hiding my disability I’ve become a pariah in my former community. Perhaps it makes sense that these badass women kept their disability on the down-low.
It’s even worse when you look further into history and see how many women were treated as “hysterical” for having health problems. Sedatives were offered in the place of treatment. Women with particularly horrible husbands and families could even be thrown into a mental institution even when there was no sign of mental illness. They couldn’t do anything about it because women were property.
Hopefully, I’ll uncover some amazing disabled women that most have never heard of. This is not an attempt to talk about people who “triumphed over disability” like many articles I’ve seen. It’s because we need to know our history and we need to know that disabled people are a part of it.
* Have you been able to find any information on disabled people in history? I’d love to hear in the comments.
Just one single book. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a single article about disabled women in history on the internet either, no blogs or mainstream pieces. I’ve seen things about chronically ill celebrities, white and black women making history like during the World Wars, but not disabled women in history. An interesting one – this needs attention!
I’ve taken a look at my local library online – all libraries are actually closed during the pandemic lockdown – and there’s nothing. Nada. The closest is “Modern HERstory profiles and celebrates seventy women and nonbinary champions of progressive social change in a bold, colorful, illustrated format for all ages”. That’s it.
Hey, I am a badass disabled woman, born with Ehlers-Danlos and refused to be what my parents thought I should be. Finished med school using a motorized scooter and became a specialist for all disabled. Our society could learn a lot about bringing out the full potential of every human.