How Disabled Women In the Workplace Can Negotiate Their Needs
Written By Theresa Klepper
Today, less women with disabilities have jobs, but studies show that greater flexibility can aid in furthering equity in the workplace. This is important because women with disabilities’ experiences remain hidden if organizational shifts are not made. If organizations create more accessibility, they have the power to preserve an embodied feminine wisdom of disability.
According to the United States Department of Labor’s and the Office of Disability Employment Policy’s recent report, women with disabilities are the lowest employed in the United States. This report, which gathered data from 2019 to 2022, seeks to identify labor force participation by gender and disability/ability (Rosenblum et. al., 2023). This report adds to past concerns of inequity in the workplace.
When organizations ask themselves how they can be more accessible, the hope is that they open themselves up to the perspectives of employees with disabilities. Yet, many organizations struggle with this question even though the answer is simple. Be even more open to negotiations about accommodations.
Here, I outline some of the primary challenges women with disabilities face in today’s workplace, adding context to a complex issue. And offer tips for organizational leaders on how to open the doors to more women.
Challenges: Context Matters
Many women with disabilities feel disadvantaged before they even reach the negotiation table. The lack of work opportunity and situated context hinder accommodation negotiations. This context includes difficulty in getting a job and a greater need for support systems that come with it, like health care. Therefore, there is a high dependency and higher risk if she were to lose the job. Caught in a position of less means or options and higher dependency on the role, her communication may be restricted (Coleman et. al., 2012). This context coupled with societal backlash and repercussions women receive when speaking up for their selves (Amanatullah et. al., 2010) negatively impacts negotiations for accommodations.
Unsupportive organizational structure further complicates the communication for accommodations. In her Towards a Feminist Theory of Disability, Susan Wendell states, “disabled women struggle with both the oppressions of being women in male-dominated societies and the oppressions of being disabled in societies dominated by the able-bodied” (Wendell, 1989, p. 105). This means that when negotiating their needs at work, women with disabilities are facing compounded suppressive structures.
Furthermore, the typical day of a person with a disability likely looks very different than an abled person. Some of this schedule provides hints at where they can fall through corporate cracks. For example, it’s expensive and time-consuming to have a disability: medications, various therapies, regular doctor visits, specialist visits, alternative modalities, surgeries, and more. Travel time to and from, time spent in these services, and fatigue from the upkeep of all of this in addition to navigating spaces that are inaccessible are the norm - and they are also an addition to the expected daily work demands.
If corporate spaces are not identifying ways to specifically mitigate these challenges, they will have limited opportunity for growth. The fact that less women with disabilities are employed means that there is less representation of them. A corporate space may think they are accessible yet without the vital input of these women, they won’t know just how many people they’re leaving out. As women with disabilities fall to the unemployed bucket, their concerns are not heard, and their experiences remain unknown. The system of ableism continues without friction to the status quo.
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Negotiating a Path Forward
Being More Inclusive As An Organization
While people with disabilities have been excluded or underrepresented in the workforce, due to preconceived notions or stigma about capabilities, we’ve seen an increase in conversation and activism around accessibility. The learning curve for many business owners and managers is still steep. Fraught with misunderstanding, many employers feel uncertain about how to be more accessible to people with disabilities. Here are a few ways organizations can reframe their conversations around accessibility.
1. Flexibility At Work
Workplace flexibility can support employee’s ambitions, and offers employes the ability to deal with unexpected situations. It’s been shown in study after study that men and women with more flexible work options feel more productive and less burnt out across the board. Another major benefit is that flexible work options have the power to create more inclusion. From 2020 to 2022, more women with disabilities became employed due to expanded work environments. The report highlights that remote work options have helped bring more these women into the labor force.
2. The Ripple Effect
Updating an organizational system to include more women with disabilities will have a ripple effect by impacting the gender and pay gap as well as ableist and male-dominated systems. Equipped with this knowledge, make it a point to spread awareness about disability. Disability-aware systems and workplaces are making a difference by impacting the existing disparities. As women with disabilities are uplifted and included, they will close gaps and liberate all as they liberate the disabled body.
3. Open Lines of Communication
Workplaces, remember to create a variety of informal and formal avenues for communication. The situated context and societal repercussions hinder communication even when there are avenues. It is important to bring awareness to this and account for it as you are asking for feedback. Also, it is important to make changes as concerns are raised which demonstrates it is safe to share feedback and the changes your organization makes can pave the way for more people with disabilities to be employed. Be flexible and, overall, embody a growth mind state and desire to learn.
Empowering Yourself As A Woman With a Disability
Unfortunately, women with disabilities are also much more likely than women overall to have considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers. With organizations are slowly becoming more open-minded, self-advocacy remains important. Although advocating for yourself can seem daunting, you don’t have to do it alone and becoming confident in your self-advocacy skills can help you express yourself more authentically.
1. Self-Advocate with Conflict Intelligence
Self-advocacy is counterintuitive to some of our conditioning as women. One way to soften this is to use Conflict Intelligence. Conflict Intelligence provides various strategies of engaging with your supervisor depending on the context. This theory divides context by collaborative vs. competitive, high vs low dependency, and the degree to which you care about the relationship (Coleman et. al., 2014). While strategic appeasement or unhappy tolerance may exacerbate a disability, seek for negotiated support and ask for help from external resources if you are in a highly competitive and low-power position.
In addition to mapping the context, one way to consider asking for and accepting accommodations is to know yourself. Reflect on your strengths and weaknesses regarding the accepting or requesting accommodation process. Then, identify your needs: what do you want to achieve and what do you need to be successful at it? Then move toward the intervention that will help you reach your goals. For example, evidence-based instruction to improve skills, accommodations, or modifications. The most important step is to make the ask with both self and other reflection.
2. Band Together
Join affinity groups. When you join with others you may find that you are not alone in
some of your experiences. This can lead to a sense of belonging and community thereby creating greater ease and joy in the workplace. If there is not an affinity group within your organization – perhaps you can be the one to start one! Or, look for groups outside of your organization that can help foster a sense of community and offer insights on what others are doing to promote greater accessibility measures within their organizations.
3. Find External Resources
Strong networks have methods of weaving in external resources to allow for a constant flow of new information. A healthy network is one that has bridges between multiple groups within the organization as well as links to external organizations. This allows you to stay in contact with the support systems you need.
Conclusion
In conclusion, context and systemic structure both matter when considering negotiating for accommodations. There are strategies to use to remain adaptive to the situation. The awareness of this may help you to keep your job or negotiate what you need during the hiring process. As difficult as it may seem, pressuring the organization to meet your needs ensures they aren’t deprived of the unique and amazing wisdom you have to share.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Theresa Klepper
There are many experiences of people with disabilities that are unheard, unseen and unknown. Theresa works to uncover and amplify those narratives by using participatory approaches. As an inclusion and belonging professional specializing in conflict analysis, her research focuses on covert processes and informal social dynamics impacting accessibility.
Theresa has a Master of Science in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution from Columbia University and received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, with a focus in Peace and Conflict Studies and Minor in Architecture.
She have presented research on corporate accessibility, organizational power, culture shifts and disability at Columbia University, George Mason University, Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution Graduate Symposium and upcoming in June the International Association for Conflict Management. She is currently generating a participatory research study for a research fellowship with Coordinated Management of Meaning Institute (CMMI).
One of Theresa’s greatest passions is human rights, especially disability rights both domestically and internationally. She aims to contribute to peace-building processes including inclusive public and private spaces. She currently works in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution MS program department at Columbia University and the Center for Accessibility and Disability Services at Barnard College. Earlier in my career, she spent over a decade as a business owner and is now looking forward to working as a consultant for organizational change toward corporate accessibility.
Connect with Teresa on LinkedIn or check out her website: www.disabilityeverywhere.com
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References
Amanatullah, E.T. & Morris, M.W. (2010). Negotiating Gender Roles: Gender differences in assertive negotiation are mediated by women’s fear of backlash and attenuated when negotiating on behalf of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 (2), 256-267.
Coleman, P. T., Kugler, K. G., Bui-Wrzosinska, L., Nowak, A., & Vallacher. R. (2012). Getting down to basics: A situated model of conflict in social relations. Negotiation Journal, 28(1), 7-43. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1571-9979.2011.00324.x
Coleman, P. T., & Ferguson, R. (2014). Making Conflict Work: Harnessing the Power of Disagreement. Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt.
Rosenblum, D., Costa, J., and Ruth, A. (2023). Women with Disabilities and the Labor Market. https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ODEP/pdf/Women_with_Disabilities_and_the_Labor_Market.pdf
Wendell, S. (1989) Toward a Feminist Theory of Disability. Hypatia, Vol. 4, No. 2, Feminist Ethics & Medicine, pp. 104-124.