WorkshopDisability and Gender Intersectionality: Dignity, Human Rights and Ethics
1. Organizing:
Group B03
Joint Sponsorship: Action Research Center for Human and Community Development, Graduate School of Human Development and Environment, Kobe University
2. Date:
Saturday, December 14th, 2024
3. Venue:
The large meeting room, 2nd floor, Ward A, Tsurukabuto 2nd Campus, Kobe University
4. Format:
Face to face only (Language: Japanese only)
5. Number of participants:
23 people
6. Overview and review:
In recent years, research and studies have been conducted on compounded discrimination against women with disabilities, and this is a significant achievement. Women with disabilities experience unique discrimination and oppression caused by the combination of two different partyhoods: disability and gender. Based on the idea of “intersectionality,” this workshop invited five female researchers specializing in philosophy and ethics, sociology, social welfare, social education, and disability studies, and from their respective perspectives, raised issues regarding the restoration of dignity and human rights of women with disabilities and matters necessary to establish ethics, then conceived of research and practice as dignity studies.
This workshop provided an opportunity to consider the limitations of the common notion of “respecting” a person when that person is “self-determined” and “self-responsible”. We understood from the presentations of the five speakers that we must go beyond such a framework in considering dignity, character, and ethics where disability and gender overlap. For example, in a case of inability to self-determine such as prenatal life or a case of self-determine on women with disabilities, we discussed that there are various ways in which their dignity can be violated or respected by the complex effects of the surrounding environment, values, and social structure.
First, Junko Komori (Gifu Kyoritsu University) gave a lecture titled “Keep Scooping Up Myself Sinking Into Complex Discrimination: Marriage, Childbirth, and Parenting of Women with Disabilities.” Komori, having with quadriplegia due to cerebral palsy, spoke about her experiences and struggles with eugenic protection laws and marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting for people with disabilities from the perspective of a woman who has a trunk disability and speech impediment. The study clarified that there are situations in which a woman with a disability’s own wishes regarding pregnancy and childbirth are not taken into account at all or are prevented by the one-sided assumptions (patternalism) of society or her surroundings. She then described how the pressures of “gender roles” and “self-responsibility” in child rearing make it even more difficult for women with disabilities to raise children, as they become trapped in their own lives and find it difficult to seek support.
Next, Yoh Tsuchiya (Faculty of Letters, Aichi University) gave a lecture titled “The Possibility of Opening Dialogue: On the Narrative of ‘Lifelessness'”. She suggested that “dialogue” using archives, rather than “dialogue” in which supporters themselves directly communicate with persons with disabilities, can avoid ‘blame’ and “asymmetry” toward each other, and that it is important for persons with disabilities to initiate their own narratives and dialogue about the episodes in the archives. She suggested that “dialogue” using archives, rather than “dialogue” in which supporters themselves directly communicate with persons with disabilities, can avoid “blame” or “asymmetry” toward each other, and that it is important for persons with disabilities to initiate their own narratives and dialogue about the episodes in the archives.
After a short break, Nariko Hashida (Faculty of Education, Chiba University) gave a lecture titled “Restoring the Dignity of Life: The Attempts of Disabled Women in Japan and the U.K. Regarding Prenatal Testing.” After introducing the case of the United Kingdom, he discussed Japan’s prenatal testing, pointing out that it makes the problems faced by society an individual’s choice and responsibility. She also clarified the situation in which the intersectionality of sexism and disability discrimination was understood. In particular, she raised the problem of prenatal diagnosis and preimplantation testing, which was an attempt by disabled women to regain the “dignity of life,” and the problem that there was so little awareness of this issue around them.
Megumi Matsunami (Faculty of Liberal Arts, Sciences and Global Education, Osaka Metropolitan University) followed with a lecture titled “The Significance of Making ‘Compound Discrimination’ a Subject: Experiences from Kyoto’s Ordinance Making Movement.” Introducing her own life history, she cited the existence of oppressive norms in society that are unfavorable to women rather than men, and the problem of women being conditioned in education to aspire to these norms. Through her activities as the executive director of the Kyoto ordinance to eliminate discrimination against persons with disabilities, Matsunami not only clarified the importance of including the perspectives of persons with disabilities, but also the overlap and differences in experiences among “persons with disabilities,” and considered how each individual’s experience affects the state of society.
Finally, Ayako Yasui (Kansai University/JSPS Research Fellow PD) gave a lecture titled “Considering Dignity in Care Relationships: Nussbaum’s ‘Dignity Based on Choice’ and Kitei’s ‘Dignity Based on Relationship'”. She cited the importance of organizing questions such as “What kind of being has human dignity?” and “How to treat them in order to respect their dignity?”. She then suggested that not only in Nussbaum’s theory, which determines “life worthy of human dignity” or “human life” by “the threshold level of each capability,” but also in Kitei’s theory, “human dignity” is tied to the “nature” of its existence and the “capability” of the caregiver.
After the five speakers finished their presentations, Haruka Hikasa (Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering in Health Systems, Okayama University), a co-investigator of Group B03, offered constructive comments and questions to each speaker. Dialogue and discussion among the speakers was emphasized, and participants on the floor were able to exchange ideas with each other. Considering the intersectionality of disability and gender will provide an opportunity for important suggestions in future dignity studies.
(Text by Minae Inahara)