CFP: Women's Worlds 2008 (Madrid, July 2008)

Mundos de Mujeres/Women's Worlds 2008http://www.mmww08.org

This major international event will bring together people from all over the world - researchers, specialist, activist and major international public figures to discuss the key issues that impact women. A key goal is to fight against social injustices and gender inequalities. The 2008 interdisciplinary Congress has selected three concepts: frontiers, dares and advancements to address a spectrum of themes and issues that can help us understand the world we live in.

Kindly consider submitting an abstract for the following sessions:

Session 1 - Panel Title: Citizenship, policy and inclusion for women with disabilities

Women with disabilities have, until recently, remained a silenced and virtually invisible minority group. Historically, at least in the West, such women were frequently institutionalized, medicalized, eugenicized and marginalized. During the latter half of the 20th century, however, liberal-humanist movements and medical advances led to significant changes in the lives of women with disabilities. The 'last civil rights movement' of disability rights has led in many countries to anti-discrimination and human rights legislation that specifically includes disability. This in turn has given rise to policies and programmes aimed to include people with disabilities more fully into their societies. Additionally, medical advances and paradigmatic shifts in models of disability have resulted in increasing numbers of people living longer and more fulfilled lives in their communities. For many women with disabilities, this has meant that motherhood, sexual rights, employment equity, educational opportunities, and personal autonomy are rights and expectations grounded in probability rather than fantasy. Nevertheless, women with disabilities in all countries continue to face heightened gendered challenges in many areas of their lives. Women with disabilities are more likely than other women to encounter poor access to appropriate and inclusive education, lack of employment or underemployment, poverty and inadequate housing, vulnerability to violence and abuse, limits to their sexual and reproductive freedom, and lack of social and institutional support for 'natural' gendered roles, such as being a lover, partner, careerist, mother, citizen.

This session invites papers that are focused on women with disabilities and the disjunctures between civil rights discourse/ liberal-humanist practice and women's lived realities. Papers should address the barriers, challenges and triumphs women with disabilities encounter in attaining equity. Possible issues to consider would be disabled women's challenges in obtaining recognition, support and inclusion in terms of; citizenship, mothering, sexuality, education, employment, freedom from poverty, community inclusion, and freedom from violence.

If you are interested in participating in these panels, please submit your paper abstract (approximately 200 hundred words) by email to the organizer: Dr. Claudia Malacridaclaudia.malacrida@uleth.ca

The deadline for submitting your paper abstract is: September 30th 2007.

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Session 2 - Panel Title: In/visible: Indivisible?Women with disabilities have, until recently, remained a silenced and virtually invisible minority group. Historically, at least in the West, such women were frequently institutionalized, medicalized, eugenicized and marginalized. During the latter half of the 20th century, however, liberal-humanist movements and medical advances led to significant changes in the lives of women with disabilities. The 'last civil rights movement' of disability rights has led to anti- discrimination and human rights legislation that specifically include disability. This in turn has given rise to policies and programmes aimed to include people with disabilities more fully into their societies. Additionally, medical advances and paradigmatic shifts in models of disability have resulted in increasing numbers of people living longer, more fulfilled lives intheir communities. For many women with disabilities, this has meant that motherhood, sexual rights, employment equity, educational opportunities, and personal autonomy are rights and expectations grounded in probability rather than fantasy. Nevertheless, women with invisible disabilities are often conceptualized as being one of the last frontiers for the disability rights movement, which privileges physical and visible disabilities. Thus, women with invisible disabilities find themselves in a borderland.

This session invites theoretical and empirical papers that address how recent attempts to traffic the concept of 'difference' across the borders of the disability rights' movement in Canada (most specifically recent attempts to reform mental health legislation) and at the recent U.N. convention on the rights of people of disabilities have met with resistance to countenancing how invisible disabilities are to be figured into rights'-based struggles.

If you are interested in participating in these panels, please submit your paper abstract (approximately 200 hundred words) by email to the organizer: Dr. Leslie Roman (leslie.roman@ubc.ca ).

The deadline for submitting your paper abstract is: September 30th 2007.