Why Disability Rights are a Feminist Issue: Intersectionality, Policy, and Activism in the United Kingdom

This paper explores the intersection of disability rights and feminist movements in the United Kingdom, examining how disabled women, particularly women of colour, navigate exclusion within spaces that claim to advance equality. Drawing on Critical Disability Studies and intersectionality, it examines how gendered, racialised, and ableist power structures shape participation, leadership, and belonging. Using a qualitative interpretivist design, the study draws on semi-structured interviews with 12 UK-based disabled women working in advocacy, policy, and education. Thematic analysis identified four interlinked forms of marginalisation: epistemic exclusion in feminist spaces, the emotional labour of activism, institutional paternalism, and the silencing of disabled women’s expertise. Emotional labour - often invisible work of managing emotions, educating others, absorbing institutional discomfort, and sustaining relationships within advocacy and organisational contexts. This labour is disproportionately undertaken by disabled women and women of colour and remains largely uncompensated. Reflexive engagement situates the researcher as a disabled woman of colour, strengthening insight into intersecting privilege, marginalisation, and knowledge production. The paper argues that disability rights must be understood not only as access, but as a question of epistemic justice and feminist ethics. It concludes by calling for intersectional practice through leadership co-production, and recognition of disabled women as knowledge-holders.