Questions of Competence: A Heuristic Inquiry of Women Graduate Students with Invisible Disabilities in Male-Dominated Academic Fields

Women graduate students with invisible disabilities experience significant barriers within postsecondary institutional contexts. This intersection of gender and invisible disability complicates these women’s postsecondary experiences, and this complexity further extends to male-dominated academic fields and perceptions of competence. The purpose of this qualitative heuristic inquiry was for me to better understand how women graduate students with invisible disabilities encounter and navigate ableist perceptions of their competence within male-dominated academic fields. I studied the phenomenon of competence through the lifeworld existentials of lived time, lived body, lived space, and lived human relations. Feminist disability studies served as the support for this study’s foundation. I identified five themes and nine subthemes that underscored the lived experiences of participants. Some of the themes and subthemes I identified in this study included the self-critic, breaking the cycle, patronizing patriarchy, surface-level support, and lock and key. These themes represented how women graduate students with invisible disabilities articulated the challenges to their competence, described the intersection of gender and disability, and described how their competence was challenged within academic spaces.