Women's Issues: Articles

Abilities Magazine Archive

Women and Wellness
Health Services and Women with Disabilities

By Gail Lush, Fran Odette

Over the past 30 years, women's health advocates have been working hard to obtain publicly funded health services for women, but a significant number of women still face barriers when they try to ...
63 Summer, 2005

Battling Bullying
A Toolkit for Children with Disabilities

By Lisa Richardson

Not all children with disabilities are bullied, but for those who are, it can be a source of heartache and distress. Bullying is an issue that requires the engagement of everyone in a community. This ...
62 Spring, 2005

Women Enabling Health Services
A National Workshop for Urban Women with Disabilities

By Gail Lush

While health services and programs have tended to focus on biological aspects of Canadian’s health needs, there is increasing recognition of how a range of social and economic factors affect our ...
62 Spring, 2005

Strategies for Staying Safe
Defend Yourself from Crime

By Anna Quon

While it may be true that people with disabilities get targeted for abuse and crime more often than the general population, you should not feel helpless. There are many practical strategies you can ...
60 Fall, 2004

Disability, Genetics and Caregiving
Women’s Health Researchers Address Public Policy

By Miriam Hawkins

Public health and social policy can have dramatic implications for people with disabilities, their families and communities. Identifying key issues and optimizing the health system’s response to them ...
59 Summer, 2004

Barbara Turnbull Receives YWCA Women of Distinction Award

On May 29, journalist and activist Barbara Turnbull of Toronto will be presented with the YWCA of Greater Toronto Women of Distinction Award in Social Action. Barbara, who was shot and paralyzed ...
51 Summer, 2002

Dick Sobsey Receives American Spirit Award

Dr. Dick Sobsey, director of the J.P. Das Developmental Disabilities Centre at the University of Alberta, has been selected to receive the Joseph Werner American Spirit Award. New York humanitarian ...
50 Spring, 2002

The Person Within
Preventing the Abuse of Children and Youth with Disabilities

By Marc Gushue

Abuse of persons with disabilities occurs every day, in every part of Canada. While a good many of these acts of abuse are crimes, few are ever reported to the police. When these crimes are committed ...
50 Spring, 2002

Up in Arms
Why Gun Control is Critical for Canada

By Barbara Turnbull

Many Canadians assume the fight for gun control has been won, but opposition to the Firearms Act is unrelenting. Meanwhile, thousands of people in this country have died or have disabilities because ...
48 Fall, 2001

Violence Prevention
New Resource Guide for Women is in Your Community

Women with disabilities have an increased risk of abuse. However, the number of violence prevention resources available to support women is steadily growing, and more and more of these are accessible ...
47 Summer, 2001

Being in Control -- Freedom from Abuse
CAILC Introduces Website Development Initiative

The Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres (CAILC) is pleased to announce a project that will provide much-needed information and resources to women with disabilities who may be ...
43 Summer, 2000

Ending the Cycle of Abuse
The Victimization of Canadians with Intellectual Disabilities

By Marc Gushue

Imagine the pain, fear and confusion that is felt by victims of violent crime who have intellectual disabilities. These individuals may not understand the circumstances which precipitate the violent ...
43 Summer, 2000

Preventing Violence Against People With Disabilities

This is the third in a series of four articles that discuss the issues of crime prevention and persons with disabilities. The first two articles examined the Community Mobilization Program of the ...
41 Winter, 1999

Community Crime Prevention
Focusing on High Risk Groups

In our article in the Summer 1999 issue of ABILITIES, we discussed the Community Mobilization Program (CMP) of the National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention. CMP was designed by ...
40 Fall, 1999

Aftermath
Domestic Abuse Leaves Destruction in Its Wake

By Catherine Frazee, Patricia Seeley

"[We are] mortally wounded, but not about to expire. We will get back on our feet... Our capacity for suffering and pain was never before put to such a hard test." - Honduras President ...
39 Summer, 1999

All I Really Need
Safeguarding Children at Risk of Abuse

By Catherine Frazee, Patricia Seeley

All I really need is a song in my heart / Food in my belly, and love in my family / Yes all I really need is a song in my heart / And love in my family. - Children’s singalong song performed ...
38 Spring, 1999

Answering The Call
InfoAbility Provides Information and Referral

As the millennium approaches, the number of elderly persons in the world is rising steadily. The United Nations initiative to declare 1999 International Year of Older Persons reflects an increasing ...
38 Spring, 1999

Silver Linings
There is a Way Out of Senior Abuse

By Lisa Bendall

On one of last season’s episodes of "ER," a popular prime-time drama, an elderly man was brought to the hospital with obvious signs of neglect. The man, who had age-related disabilities, ...
37 Winter, 1998

Women Needed for Health Survey
New Research Project in Partnership with Women with Disabilities

By Fran Odette

Women’s health is an area of research that has gained more focus within the past 20 years. In many ways, it has become an area of specialty which recognizes that the treatments most often used ...
36 Fall, 1998

Solutions to Family Violence
A National Resource for All Canadians

By Stephanie Wilson

Family violence affects all of us. It is not something that only happens to strangers -- it happens in our families, our communities, and among our friends and our co-workers. The National ...
36 Fall, 1998

Accessing Services and Justice
Inter-Sectorial Workshops on Violence Against Women

The Roeher Institute and Education Wife Assault, at the request of the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship, Culture and Recreation, are organizing a number of workshops in Ontario over the next year. ...
36 Fall, 1998

A Voice... and a Choice
For Vulnerable Adults Across Ontario

What is InfoAbility? InfoAbility provides free, confidential, one-stop information and referral to vulnerable adults, their caregivers, family, friends and community professionals across Ontario. ...
36 Fall, 1998

Violence and Abuse Prevention in the Helping Relationship
Information, Ideas and Resources

What is abuse? Abuse is defined generally as anything which causes harm to the individual. Abuse can be physical, sexual, emotional/psychological/verbal, based on neglect, or financial. Physical ...
35 Summer, 1998

Saying No to Abuse
Strategies for Safer Services

By Susan Forster, Linda Davis-Bonar

Recently, a young man with a physical disability committed suicide. The man had acquired his disability as an adult, but had never accepted it; rather, he had internalized society’s negative ...
35 Summer, 1998

Violence Against Women with Disabilities
How to Escape Abuse

Women with disabilities must often depend on a variety of people to provide them with assistance in carrying out their everyday lives. These can include parents, husbands, boyfriends and other ...
35 Summer, 1998

Ralph Klein’s Bad "Political Sense" Day
The Rights that Were Almost Removed

By Mel Graham

Between 1928 and 1972, 2,844 child and adult Albertans were forcibly sterilized under legislation called the Sexual Sterilization Act. Leilani Muir was a former resident of Red Deer’s Provincial ...
35 Summer, 1998

Empowering Vulnerable Adults
Do You Know Somebody Who Needs Us?

In recent years, the mistreatment of vulnerable adults has emerged as a significant policy issue. The public is increasingly aware that vulnerable adults live in situations in which they may be ...
35 Summer, 1998

Safeguarding Your Self
Women-Centred Agencies Learning to Support Women with Disabilities

By Laura Kovacic

"Women have been beaten, had their wheelchairs taken away and their phones smashed, and have been locked in their rooms without access to the bathroom. We have had our medications taken away or ...
34 Spring, 1998

Passport to Empowerment
CAILC’s New Leadership Initiative for International Women

By Meenu Sikand-Taylor

Anyone working in the disability movement can readily identify the many systemic, attitudinal and physical barriers that hinder the full participation of people with disabilities in society. We have ...
34 Spring, 1998

One-Stop Information
New Service Provides Safety Net for Vulnerable Adults

Ontario’s estimated 300,000 vulnerable adults and their supporters are finding it a lot easier these days to get the resources they need, thanks to InfoAbility. This unique, bilingual, one-stop ...
34 Spring, 1998

Surviving the Change
Menopause and Women with Disabilities

By Lynne Swanson

Baby-boom women are discovering a new trend: menopause. Suddenly, hot flashes (also described as "power surges," "my own personal summer" and "becoming a red-hot mama") ...
34 Spring, 1998

Women’s Institute On Leadership and Disability
It’s Wild

"Keep on Moving Forward" was the theme song of the United Nations World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, in 1995, where hundreds of women with disabilities met from all over the ...
32 Fall, 1997

Doing a Cross-Canada Reality Check

The Reality Check campaign was conceived to raise awareness about abuse and disability, through the purchase of advertising space in The Globe and Mail. The campaign is a joint effort by Dick Sobsey, ...
32 Fall, 1997

Escaping Violence
In CAILC’S New Video "Double Jeopardy," Women With Disabilities Speak Out on Their E

By Michael Horne

The airing of "Double Jeopardy on "The Disability Network" on CBC marked CAILC’s first video production on violence issues, and further broadened our growing library of resources ...
27 Summer, 1996

Responding to Family Violence and Abuse
An Independent Living Approach

By Traci Walters

In March, 1995, the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres’ (CAILC) National Family Violence project came to a close. The focus of the project was to develop community-based ...
23 Summer, 1995

The Risk of Physical and Sexual Assault

Over one million women in Canada have a disability. Over two-thirds of these women -- about 670,000 -- have been physically or sexually assaulted before they reach puberty. This figure is twice as ...
22 Spring, 1995

Mothering
Women With Disabilities Have Much To Give To Their Children

By Ing Wong

It all started with a dream. That’s how Lucy Costa found out that she was pregnant. Lucy was watching television with her husband, Haydn Nyman, one evening in their Etobicoke home, when ...
22 Spring, 1995

From Victim to Survivor
Beyond the Cycle of Abuse

By Kim Miller

When I met Traci Walters in 1990, she was the Executive Director of the Niagara Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) in Welland, Ontario. Traci struck me as an articulate, approachable woman. ...
22 Spring, 1995

National Summer Training Institute on Abuse Prevention

By Deb Tomlinson

Prior to the commencement of the National Conference on Independent Living, 22 staff members from Independent Living Resource Centres (ILRCs) across Canada attended an intense and enriching five days ...
21 Winter, 1994

Abuse & Women’s Mental Health
Recognizing the Long-Term Effects

By Hélèna Katz

This article looks at violence and abuse and how it relates to women with disabilities. (Hélèna Katz is a freelance writer and public relations consultant with Katz Communications in Montreal.) ...
18 Spring, 1994

Neo-Nazis & Disability in Germany
Never Again?...Once Again!

By Margaret Tuteur

The following contains summaries of selected articles that appeared in German journals in 1992-93. REVIEWED BY MARGARET TUTEUR In 1939 I had a choice: I could leave the country of my birth and ...
16 Fall, 1993

Family Violence & Abuse
Independent Living Approach to Prevention

By Debra Tomlinson

People with disabilities experience an increased risk of being abused. Most incidents of abuse remain unreported, and most perpetrators are not charged or convicted. Even when the abuse is disclosed, ...
16 Fall, 1993

We are Who You are
Feminism and Disability

By Bonnie Sherr Klein

What happens when a successful feminist filmmaker (Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography), who is also a wife and mother, is struck by a catastrophic brain-stem stroke... It all begins in ...
14 Spring, 1993

The Health and Disabled Women Project

By Marni Norwich

Despite years of advocating for better health care for women with disabilities, Pat Israel is still unprepared for some of the stories she hears. Travelling around Ontario this past year talking to ...
13 Fall/Winter, 1992

Violence Against Women With Disabilities

By Shirley Masuda

DisAbled Women’s Network Canada (DAWN Canada) began work on the issue of violence against women with disabilities in 1988. Our work started with a preliminary study on the needs of women with ...
12 Summer, 1992