Silent Battles: Unveiling the dual struggles of Women with Disabilities in spaces of college education

In the Instagram live conducted by viklang shiksha, we had Ms Sweta Mantrii and Ms Gauri Gupta as our panelist. The session began as the founder, Ms Aarushi Gambhir began by introducing the panelist and then they began discussing the challenges faced by women with disabilities in their quest to access education. One of the issues that both our panelists touched upon is that when a person with disability, especially a woman goes onto enrol for higher education, they have to consider the accessibility of the place and most of these places are inaccessible, especially for women with disabilities. We also touched upon what happens to the child once they are admitted into a school or college, because while admissions are granted due to government mandates, inclusion often does not follow suite because teachers and peers seldom understand and are willing to cater to the needs of the child.

Ableism is the discrimination in favour of abled bodied individuals, but it also doubles down on the discrimination for women with disabilities as their existence is further put to question by the patriarchal nuances of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal, male dominated setup. Women with disabilities are often questioned, when they make the choice to educate themselves and earn for themselves, as it is assumed that they will have to be taken care of for the rest of their life. They are often questioned and told that no one would employ them and hence to make an effort to go and access college education is considered a futile endevor. Women with disabilities also experience heightened levels of exclusion and isolation as they are barred from having a social life, as they are seen with a stereotypical gaze, considered incapable of having fun while they also saw suffer from health issues as they are unable to access basic facilities, such as accessible washrooms outside their homes. Women with disabilities also face fatal health hazards such as UTIs and kidney stones to lack of adequate washrooms and they especially struggle while they are menstruating.

It is often said that people with disabilities enter schools and colleges through reservation and are not capable of accessing education on their own merit. This as well maybe an incredibly isolating factor as well because while disabled people are questioned on the grounds of meritocracy, the fact that they were busy surviving, while others were thriving is seldom acknowledged. The two women also had a few messages for women with disabilities. One of the most important one was that if you have the bandwidth and resources to go after your dreams, do it and don’t let anyone talk you out of living your dreams. They also encouraged younger women with disabilities to not be afraid of being vulnerable, ask for what they need and call out injustice against them as and when they deem fit.

The session ended on an inspiring note as these women left us in awe of their tenacity and kindness.