Gender and Disability

Today we had an invited lecture by Dr Anita Ghai, a well-known disability activist and scholar who teaches psychology at the Jesus and Mary College of the University of Delhi.
She talked on Gender and Disability generally, giving a perspective on the topic which will be dealt with in greater detail on two following lectures on April 3rd and April 5th.
Gender and disability is an important part of the course and Dr Ghai made a very special effort in today's talk by talking about her own experiences as a woman and a disabled person. In this way, she gave a very good demonstration of reflexivity in research, which, as I had mentioned in earlier classes, is a hallmark of many social science disciplines and especially of disability studies and also gender studies. Please recall the discussion I had in class about the difference between "life history" and "life story" and how these are valid methods of research. Anita herself mentioned how the epistemic location for her is herself, knowledge begins from there.
During her talk she touched upon issues of sexuality, marriage, sexual abuse, adoption and related themes and gave an account of each through examples, sometimes personal and sometimes as part of her own research, and showed the connection between gender and disability and how the study of the latter can enrich the former.
Especially important were the anecdotes and personal experiences that Anita talked about today in relation to the above themes (marriage, sexuality, adoption).
We also had some very important views expressed by students in the class, especially Rakesh, who almost brought us to tears when he related his experience at the village recently.
I am looking forward to the two following talks by Anita.