Disability, Mothers, and Organization

This book highlights women’s role in the disability rights movement by exploring how mothers of disabled children are propelled into activist roles when they encounter policies and restrictions that interfere with their capacity to perform what they believe is expected of them to be good mothers.

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This book examines how and why mothers with disabled children became activists. Leading campaigns to close institutions and secure human rights, these women learned to mother as activists, struggling in their homes and communities against the debilitating and demoralizing effects of exclusion. Activist mothers recognized the importance of becoming advocates for change beyond their own families and contributed to building an organization to place their issues on a more public scale. In highlighting this under-examined movement, this book contributes to the scholarship on Disability Studies, Women's Students, Sociology, and Social Movement Studies.