Sexual violence against women with learning disabilities

Feminist researchers and activists have been criticized by women with physical disabilities for having often overlooked their experiences and contributions (Morris, 1991, 1996). If this is true for physical disability, it is doubly true for learning disabilities,(1) where outside of the small and specialist field of learning disability work, feminists and feminisms have traditionally not made reference to the experiences of women with learning disabilities, nor sought to make events, materials or ideas accessible to them (McCarthy, 1996). Over the past seven years I have been working in learning disability services focusing on sexuality issues with women (see for example McCarthy, 1993, 1994, 1996) as well as carrying out more recent academic research (McCarthy, 1997; McCarthy and Thompson, 1997). The observations and commentary in this article are based on that experience.