Needed: More women with disabilities in high level policy engagements

Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter is a proverb that reminds us of the importance of perspective, voice, and representation. As women with disabilities, or broadly as people with disabilities, we have the privilege now, to tell our stories, to frame them in a way that returns dignity to our lives. Because often, this perspective is missing.

In this piece, Mildred Omino reflects on why more women with disabilities must occupy high level policy engagements. Please read on.  

‘When more people are used to our presence, especially in high policy events, maybe, just maybe, they will stop making ableist remarks masked as complements.’ 

‘You are so eloquent!’

I was a speaker in a policy event that brought together key stakeholders in public and private sectors. I made pretty powerful remarks. My lived experience growing up as a disabled girl has brought with it many lessons. I have had to turn around experiences that were not so good, to work for me, even more important now that I occupy spaces where I am able to influence policy. 

It hasn’t always been easy. As such, when I am in spaces that I can influence policy and practice, my contributions apart from being shaped by my lived realities, I believe are pretty powerful – as any professional in the room. 

It therefore came as a confusing shock when this gentleman came over to congratulate me during tea break, for ‘being fluent, and eloquent, and speaking good English.’ 

Don’t get me wrong, it is fine to be complemented, and to accept the complements. But do some complements sometimes feel off? To speak good English, to be fluent and eloquent, to me, should be secondary. Primary would be, ‘what about the content intrigued you?’ ‘Were there aspects in my remarks that were particularly intriguing? That you agree with? That you disagree with? 

Could I have been overthinking? 

Maybe not. If I may take you back to this policy space that I was in. There wasn’t much representation of people with disabilities, as much as it should be to ensure that policy design and implementation fully incorporate their perspectives. Least of all, not many women with disabilities. And I wondered whether the gentleman who was congratulating me may never have interacted with people with disabilities at policy level and so was excited to find one who could actually ‘speak so eloquently’.

Maybe the gentleman had no idea that people with disabilities can actually speak for themselves. And maybe if they do, that they can be eloquent enough. Could this be the driving force behind the low representation of persons with disabilities in policy tables?

'Highly intellectual discourse' 

It reminded me of another policy engagement space where we considered the place of disabled people in research and innovation. One contributor said that research and innovation is a highly intellectual discourse (as to subtly dismiss that disabled people couldn’t engage in highly intellectual discourses!). After a heated debate, another contributor gave an example of a space design exercise involving an individual with disability and another without disability. 

In his conclusion, he indicated that the two designs would be significantly different as the disabled designer is highly likely to prioritize accessibility in the design, something that the non-disabled space designer might easily overlook. This exercise was critical as it showed the importance of having perspectives of disabled individuals in the research cycle from the design to implementation. 

It is also important at this point also to mention that there is this assumption that perspectives of people with disabilities are only meant to shape research. But this is not enough. It must be acknowledged that people with disabilities are also intellectuals in their own right.

The thing about ableism

Many people have internalized negative attitudes towards disability, and it is not made easier by being in communities where even the ‘disabled’ identity is often erased because people think it is a negative term. But we must re-think disability pride. We are powerful in all ways, in our disabled identity. 

I, like many of my disabled comrades in the disability community have often carried an extra ‘teacher’ tag where we teach people that it is ok to be disabled. It is an identity that we must embrace. What we need to erase are the many barriers that we face in our communities. 

Whereas then I take the complement that I spoke good English and was eloquent, I must remind us, that more and more of us (disabled women) must occupy these policy spaces. They can easily become lonely, ableist and intimidating. Pushing an agenda means that we must also put in more effort to address ableism (in addition to the agenda at hand) which becomes quite exhausting. 

In my little ways, I keep finding ways and opportunities to support young disabled girls to be in these spaces. The future must remain bright for our disabled champions.