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Why are disabled women so underrepresented in American politics?

Why are disabled women so underrepresented in American politics?

Sen. Tammy Duckworth is one of only three women among the 13 Disabled officials in the federal government.

Stefani Reynolds - Pool/Getty Images
Saxena, a former research intern for RepresentWomen, is a master of public policy candidate at Georgetown University. DeMarco, a former administration and development intern for RepresentWomen, is a student at the University of Maryland studying communication.

Authors' note: Some Disabled people use a capital D to denote community, the way one might write "Black person" or "Deaf person." In this article, we do the same where appropriate, so "Disabled" denotes a connection to the community, and "disabled" is simply an adjective.

Today, 25 percent of American adults experience some type of disability, and the Disabled community continues to grow. Research has shown the number of eligible Disabled voters increased by more than 10 percent between 2008 and 2016. Over the past few decades, the United States has passed many legislative bills supporting equitable voter access and signed the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Despite this, the number of disabled politicians is a staggeringly low 10 percent of sampled U.S. elected officials.

Women with disabilities are even more invisible. Although the CDC has found disability is more prevalent among women than men, Disabled women experience roughly double the rate of electoral underrepresentation than their male counterparts. Why?

RepresentWomen's latest report answers that question and identifies numerous structural barriers that prevent Disabled people from participating in U.S. politics.

A 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office found that 60 percent of the 178 assessed polling locations had one or more barriers for Disabled voters. Meaning that, while the number of eligible Disabled voters is on the rise, they can't exercise their right to vote due to issues like the absence of a wheelchair ramp, an elevator or poll workers trained on accessible voting materials. This has serious negative impacts on their electoral representation.

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High unemployment within the Disabled community (82.1 percent in 2020) and low socioeconomic status are a significant barrier for Disabled candidates. The high cost of U.S. political campaigns can often dissuade Disabled people from considering a run for office in the first place. Political parties even use these financial constraints to justify inaccessibility rather than remove the institutional roadblocks that Disabled candidates face. As a result, Disabled candidates can become alienated from their political parties. They will often have to cover accessibility costs themselves, which forces them to rely on informal support, opt out of key events or both.

Disabled women face additional and unique obstacles tied to their "intersectional disempowerment," a term coined by Dr. Kimeberlé Crenshaw meaning Disabled women face discrimination related to their disability and gender-related hurdles such as competency bias, distorted media coverage and the male incumbency advantage. Many also experience more layers of difficulties related to their intersectional identities, such as race-related barriers. Then, it becomes less surprising that of the 13 Disabled officials in the federal government, only three are women.

So, how can we improve elected representation for the Disabled community and, more specifically, Disabled women? Our report believes that political parties are critical gatekeepers to elected office, but their inadequate engagement with Disabled voters and candidates has contributed to the underrepresentation of the Disabled community. To reduce the persistent turnout gap between disabled and non-disabled voters, political underrepresentation of the Disabled community, and the gender gap within that underrepresentation, our report suggests a myriad of action items for political parties to adopt, such as accessibility funds and recruitment quotas.

Disabled voters, candidates and officials deserve an equal right to political representation — let's move beyond promising equity and focus on enacting it.

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Our question about the price of freedom received a light response. We asked:

What price have you, your friends or your family paid for the freedom we enjoy? And what price would you willingly pay?

It was a question born out of the horror of images from Ukraine. We hope that the news about the Jan. 6 commission and Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination was so riveting that this question was overlooked. We considered another possibility that the images were so traumatic, that our readers didn’t want to consider the question for themselves. We saw the price Ukrainians paid.

One response came from a veteran who noted that being willing to pay the ultimate price for one’s country and surviving was a gift that was repaid over and over throughout his life. “I know exactly what it is like to accept that you are a dead man,” he said. What most closely mirrored my own experience was a respondent who noted her lack of payment in blood, sweat or tears, yet chose to volunteer in helping others exercise their freedom.

Personally, my price includes service to our nation, too. The price I paid was the loss of my former life, which included a husband, a home and a seemingly secure job to enter the political fray with a message of partisan healing and hope for the future. This work isn’t risking my life, but it’s the price I’ve paid.

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Given the earnest question we asked, and the meager responses, I am also left wondering if we think at all about the price of freedom? Or have we all become so entitled to our freedom that we fail to defend freedom for others? Or was the question poorly timed?

I read another respondent’s words as an indicator of his pacifism. And another veteran who simply stated his years of service. And that was it. Four responses to a question that lives in my heart every day. We look forward to hearing Your Take on other topics. Feel free to share questions to which you’d like to respond.

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