Disability, Femininity and Activism: Negotiating Gendered Vulnerability in Pakistan
Author: Taskeen Mansoor
Affiliation: PhD Scholar, Department of Anthropology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
In a norm-based culture like Pakistan, the question of how physically disabled women perform gender and femininity remains largely unaddressed. Disabled women are rarely conceived of as potential wives or mothers within cultural imaginaries, and their specific reproductive and psychosocial concerns remain invisible to the medical community. Moving beyond medicalized narratives of disability that emphasize cure or a return to “normalcy,” this study examines how disabled women employ “disability expertise” to negotiate ableism, disablism and the performance of femininity in everyday life.
Purposive and snowball sampling was used to recruit 14 physically disabled women from urban middle-class families in central and southern Punjab, Pakistan. All participants self-identified as disability activists and were either founders of, or employed by, Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs). Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted, and thematic analysis was applied. Findings reveal three prominent themes: (1) navigating visibility as a disabled female body in public and private spaces; (2) asserting femininity through domesticity; and (3) marriageability and motherhood as disabled women. It can be argued that physically disabled women, particularly those involved in disability activism, experience a conditional gender socialization owing to perceived physical limitations of disability, and appear to navigate a liminal space to craft and exhibit new forms of ‘disabled’ femininities.
I argue that social psychiatry must recognize disability as a cross-cutting theme in mental health discourse. Disabled women’s lived experiences, as activists, wives, and mothers, offer critical insights for social psychiatry by revealing the psychosocial consequences of navigating gender and disability simultaneously. By engaging with the resilience and agency of disabled women, mental health professionals can move toward inclusive frameworks that validate alternative femininities, and address overlooked health concerns.
Taskeen Mansoor
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