Disability and Gender in Physically Impaired Cameroonian Women

Abstract

Women with disabilities who are subjected to the "double jeopardy" of disability prejudice and sexism experience attitudes toward women and their movements that are different from the general run, according to the research perspectives of feminism and disability studies. This paper will organize the issues of both fields and then use the case of women with disabilities living in urban and rural Cameroon to analyze how gender roles in the community affect their livelihoods and care relationships. We will focus on the "double jeopardy" caused by the "intersectionality" of being a woman and a person with disability, while highlighting the contradictions that feminist disability studies have been caught up in. Finally, this paper will present a way of "coexistence" in which diverse people live together in the community and the community tries to include them as members of society rather than exclude them, accepting the fact that some individuals are unmarried women with disabilities and in precarious positions.