To what extent are people with disabilities fully included in economic, political, and social life? People with disabilities have faced a long history of exclusion, stigma, and discrimination, but have made impressive gains in the past several decades. These gains include the passage of major civil rights legislation and the adoption of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This book provides an overview of the progress and continuing disparities faced by people with disabilities around the world, reviewing hundreds of studies and presenting new evidence from analysis of surveys and interviews with disability leaders. It shows the connections among economic, political, and social inclusion, and how the experience of disability can vary by gender, race, and ethnicity. It uses a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on theoretical models and research in economics, political science, psychology, disability studies, law, and sociology.

Disability and gender, terms that have previously seemed so clear-cut, are becoming increasingly complex in light of new politics and scholarship. These words now suggest complicated sets of practices and ways of being. Contributors to this innovative collection explore the intersection of gender and disability in the arts, consumer culture, healing, the personal and private realms, and the appearance of disability in the public sphere-both in public fantasies and in public activism. Beginning as separate enterprises that followed activist and scholarly paths, gender and disability studies have reached a point where they can move beyond their boundaries for a common landscape to inspire new areas of inquiry. Whether from a perspective in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, or arts, the shared subject matter of gender and disability studies-the body, social and cultural hierarchy, identity, discrimination and inequality, representation, and political activism-insistently calls for deeper conversation. This volume provides fresh findings not only about the discrimination practiced against women and people with disabilities, but also about the productive parallelism between these two categories.

To what extent are people with disabilities fully included in economic, political and social life? People with disabilities have faced a long history of exclusion, stigma and discrimination, but have made impressive gains in the past several decades. These gains include the passage of major civil rights legislation and the adoption of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This book provides an overview of the progress and continuing disparities faced by people with disabilities around the world, reviewing hundreds of studies and presenting new evidence from analysis of surveys and interviews with disability leaders. It shows the connections among economic, political and social inclusion, and how the experience of disability can vary by gender, race and ethnicity. It uses a multidisciplinary approach, drawing on theoretical models and research in economics, political science, psychology, disability studies, law and sociology.