Inequalities in African Women and Disability Studies Essay (Critical Writing)

Healthcare Crisis and Sexual Violence in African Females

The roots of the healthcare crisis and violence in African-descended young women are inequalities and racial disparities among people. The problem is that African women are subjected to a higher risk of sexual abuse and illnesses than females of other nationalities.¹ Many factors expose African women to becoming victims of their own lives, and it is essential to look at these reasons to understand why it happens.

There is a disturbing tendency for infecting HIV/AIDS in African-descended young females. It might happen due to insufficient knowledge about women’s health and overall poor educational background. Moreover, this problem may arise because of poor living conditions in African countries. Besides the high risk of infecting HIV/AIDS and following illnesses, African females face the problem of Gender-Based Violence. One in four women in the U.S. is a victim of sexual abuse. Gender-Based violence is an issue concerning partner violence; it is about unwanted or forced sexual relations.² It often results in infections such as HIV because of the absence of sexual protection. It is also essential that women aged 15-24 are twice likely to receive HIV as males of the same age.

More disturbing is that African women are subjected to HIV more than women of other races. They are at a 60 percent higher risk of infection.³Moreover, unequal racial treatment becomes one more reason why African women are involved in sexual abuse. What is more, African-descended females often cannot seek medical help because of language barriers, poverty, and poor education. These factors facilitate the expansion of severe diseases and restrict women from receiving timely clinical aid.

Overall, the situation in which African women are involved causes a poor healthcare background. African-descended females are not able to appeal to medical organizations for help. Moreover, HIV/AIDS are incurable diseases that expensive medicines might slow down. Violence, poverty, language, and education become barriers that limit African women from getting help and improving their health. There is also a tendency to infect HIV/AIDS in African women more than in females of other ethnicities. These issues cause a severe crisis in health care, subject females to a high risk of infection.

Disability and Racial Inequality

Due to established stereotypes, disability is often referred to equal to race inequalities. It is connected with people’s prejudices about personas of other skin colors. For some reason, some members of society equate disability to race; racial otherness becomes a sign of mental deficiency.⁴ Indeed, disability studies that started about 30 years ago strive to investigate the connection between racism and disabilities. It is necessary to examine why people equate these two definitions and assimilate other people into challenged ones.

It is also crucial to understand that modern society still has not achieved complete equality between races. Race may remain a dominant prejudice for comparing people of other nationalities to mentally challenged personalities. Due to the white superiority that existed centuries ago, some people remained a bunch of stereotypes about minority groups, considering them other and inferior to white group members.

Disability studies in the United States started in the twentieth century to investigate the reasons for inequality. Accordingly, they define several types of disability, including mental and physical, which are initially different. They created a particular minority framework that highlights racial discrimination as a boundary limiting chances of challenged people.⁵ Moreover, disability studies strive to establish equality among challenged and prejudiced-experienced people. Followers of these studies aim to stop equating ethnicity, race, and origin to disability.

Bibliography

Colombini, Manuela, et al. “Exploring the Feasibility and Acceptability of Integrating Screening for Gender-Based Violence into HIV Counselling and Testing for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Tanzania and South Africa.”BMC Public Health, no. 21 (2021): 2-11.

Dreyer, Jaco et al. Practicing Ubuntu: Practical Theological Perspectives on Injustice, Personhood and Human Dignity. Germany: LIT Verlag, 2017.

Fears, Barbara A. “Race, Disability and COVID-19: A DisCrit Analysis of Theological Education.”Religions, no. 12 (2021): 2-9.

Frederick, Angela and Shifrer, Dara. “Race and Disability: From Analogy to Intersectionality.”Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, no. 5 (2019): 200-214.

Footnotes

1. Jaco Dreyer et al., Practicing Ubuntu, (Germany: LIT Verlag, 2017), 218.
2. Manuela Colombini et al., “Exploring the Feasibility and Acceptability”, BMC Public Health, no. 21 (2021): 3.
3. Jaco Dreyer et al., Practicing Ubuntu, 219.
4. Barbara A. Fears, “Race, Disability and COVID-19” Religions, no. 12 (2021): 2.
5. Angela Frederick and Dara Shifrer, “Race and Disability: From Analogy to Intersectionality”, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, no. 5 (2019): 202.