Who am I? Women with learning difficulties (re)constructing their self-identity

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. © 2002 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.