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Watch Recording of Stephanie's Presentation

Stop Telling Me I’m Pretty for a Girl in a Wheelchair: How Your Words Contribute to Domestic Violence Against Women with Disabilities with Stephanie Woodward

Women with disabilities have a 40% greater chance of experiencing intimate partner violence than women without disabilities. Disabled people are three times as likely to be sexually assaulted in their lifetime than nondisabled people, and 50% of women who have been assaulted were assaulted more than ten times. Additionally, research shows that women with disabilities experience more frequent and more severe acts of violence. In her discussion, Disability Rights attorney and activist Stephanie Woodward explains how disabled women encounter many barriers to seeking support, including societal attitudes about disability contribute to the domestic violence and sexual assault that disabled women experience and how we, as a society, can and must change.

Bio: Stephanie Woodward is an attorney who is passionate about seeking justice for marginalized communities – and has an arrest record to show for it. As a Crime Victims Attorney, Stephanie provides civil legal assistance to help people during some of the most vulnerable times of their lives as they work to recover from crimes that they have experienced. As a survivor herself, Stephanie is intimately familiar with how offenders victimize people with disabilities and how people with disabilities can recover with the right assistance. Prior to being a Crime Victims Attorney, Stephanie served as the Director of Advocacy at a disability rights organization for five years where she built a team of fierce advocates who were all disabled and proud and who actively fought to advance the rights of the Disability Community on local, statewide, and national levels.

Stephanie is an organizer with ADAPT, a national grass-roots community that organizes to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom. Stephanie has been arrested multiple times while
advocating for Disability Rights. While Stephanie’s work spans across all areas of Disability Rights, she is particularly interested in deinstitutionalization, community living, ending violence against people with disabilities, and improving access in the community.

Stephanie attended Syracuse University College of Law where she earned her J.D. with a certificate in Disability Law and Policy and her M.S.Ed. in Disability Studies. As a proud disabled woman and civil rights activist, Stephanie is committed to making the law work for all oppressed people.

When: October 7, 2020 from 12:00-1:30 pm (PT)

This event is sponsored by the Coalition for Women Students