Abstract
The issue of (re)constructing one's self‐identity is an important, sociologically relevant issue of today. Qualitative interviews with women with learning difficulties have been done in order to further the understanding of the meaning of gender and disability, and what this means with regard to one's sense of self. Based on the lives realities of the participants, the analysis concludes that the social background and present situation of the elderly women make it difficult for these to have some control in their everyday lives. Among the participants, there are those who have an ambivalent approach to, and indeed oppose, the ascribed identity as learning disabled. This way of striving to reconstruct one's identity can be understood as a means of rejecting the oppressive situation of being rendered invisible and at the same time marked out as different, i.e. as a means of empowerment.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15017410209510783 | Journal eISSN: 1745-3011
Language: English
Page range: 58 - 79
Published on: Jul 1, 2002
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
© 2002 Karin Barron, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.