Disabled Women & Poverty Event Highlights
"Breaking Silence" & "Eradicating Poverty" by Alice Doyle
Disabled Women & Poverty: The Cost of Exclusion — “Breaking Silence” & “Eradicating Poverty” by Alice Doyle
As part of our reflections and highlights from our “Disabled Women & Poverty” event with Disabled Women Ireland, we are sharing “Breaking Silence” — the poem read by Alice Doyle (@theautisticpoetess) at the start of our event to open the discussion.
This piece encouraged our participants to share their stories and boldly name their experiences in a space with their peers where they would be heard and respected.
An Irish Sign Language (ISL) translation of the poem, audio and Word Doc Version of the poem is available below.
We have also shared a second poem created by Alice, inspired by the discussions from the event titled “Eradicating Poverty”.
An audio version of this poem is available below.
Follow Disabled Women Ireland here and keep up with their work on the DWI website.
This project was supported by the Department of Social Protection as part of the funding for the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2025.
Breaking Silence
By Alice Doyle
The universe honours brave.
Today, if you share who you are,
the costs of disability,
the costs of exclusion
or the barriers to your employment
for the first time,
the second or the tenth,
we will witness your courage
and hear your words.
Being who we are
in a an ever tightening
neuronormative world
is living courage.
There are so many people,
spaces and places that seek
to diminish our unique voices,
to control and define the boundaries
in which we exist,
the way in which we live,
to determine the limits of our needs,
the level of supports,
the finance available or lack thereof,
the levels of accessibility
that could enable us
or disable us to participate
fully and easily in all parts of life.
We are women.
We are disabled women
and non-binary people.
Our needs matter.
Our autonomy matters.
We can determine our own truth.
If or when we need support, we can ask.
Supports need to meet us where we are.
They need to be appropriate, timely,
available and easily accessible.
Let us name the supports we need.
Let us speak about
the cost of disability and gender,
about parenting, disability and gender
about enabling financial independence
for disabled women and non-binary people.
Let us share our lived experiences,
name the obstacles we meet,
the systemic barriers,
the infringements on our liberty,
the fences we must climb
or tear down just to be.
Let us name the everyday invisible sufferings,
the tasks that challenge us,
the barriers that fence us out
of employment and of full participation in life.
Let us name the words that harm us,
gaslight us and reduce our beings
to depersonalised, voiceless statistics.
For in silence, we suffer invisibly.
So, let us name the effects of poverty
and the opportunities for change.
For when named,
we see them more clearly.
And when seen,
a new beginning becomes possible,
change becomes imaginable
and a different future
can be envisioned for all.
ISL Interpretation of “Breaking Silence” by Alice Doyle
Audio Version of “Breaking Silence” by Alice Doyle
Word Doc Version of “Breaking Silence” by Alice Doyle
🔗 Find the Word Doc version of Breaking Silence here.
Eradicating Poverty
By Alice Doyle
To eradicate poverty, we must see it clearly,
understand what it is and how it happens in the context of
the cost of disability and gender,
the cost of parenting, disability and gender
and enabling financial independence
for disabled women and non-binary people.
Poverty and exclusion exist within the lines drawn by others.
These lines are often shaped by decisions made
by those who are not poor or, sometimes,
by those with no experience of disability.
Every choice, every plan, every decision made by others
without core experience and understanding of the lives
of disabled women and non-binary people
has the potential to cause more damage,
to raise the barriers to full participation in life
and to increase the unseen costs of exclusion.
I listened to the words you shared.
I see and experience the decisions made by others,
how they shape, separate and divide us,
how they limit our full access to life,
to care, to work and to facilities
and how they deny equality.
I see how within those lines,
our core truth and experience lie hidden.
How its shape is defined and languaged by others,
how its expression lacks a permission slip,
a witness or audience that fully hears
who and how we are and what we need.
These lines cause poverty.
Each line shapes differently,
each affects a chapter of a life
which bears the cost of exclusion.
True equality begins with financial freedom, choice and autonomy.
These lines can create their own structure and shape,
can determine their own future,
pick their pen, choose their ink,
when to write and when to stop.
We, however, have had to choose what we can afford,
while others limit what we can access.
Choice is often a luxury that lies outside our lines.
The lens through which we see and experience
our world is limited by poverty.
Let us name the additional costs
that disabled women and non-binary people
face compared with non-disabled people.
The additional costs of housing, gender related medical care,
transport, education, heating, PA support
and of trying to stay safe.
The further costs of older age, of living alone,
of paying for everyday household tasks to be done.
The mental and physical health effects of isolation,
of neither being listened to nor seen
and of experiencing digital exclusion.
Let us name the impacts of disability and gender.
That disability and gender are fundamental
to how we experience inequality.
How because of gendered expectations of behaviour,
disabled women don’t want to be seen as the problem.
That how we live as women is affected by sexism and misogyny
and how intersectional marginalisations result in
further discrimination, disadvantage and oppression.
Let us name the costs of disability and gender.
The personal, financial, social, mental and physical health costs
of trying to be believed about our lived experience of our own bodies.
The strain and exhaustion of medical gaslighting
and misogyny in disability and health services
and of not being taken seriously.
The costs of accessing gender related care,
of accessing diagnosis and the lack of financial support
for essential equipment, medical care and
alternative therapies that support us.
The emotional, physical and financial costs of reproductive healthcare
and of maternity, endometriosis and menopause care
and how these are dismissed more for disabled people.
The costs and impact of diagnostic overshadowing,
diagnostic delays and how they reduce our health outcomes.
The physical and mental toll on disabled people
resulting from the lack of trauma informed services.
The costs of sexual violence and the impact of not being believed.
Let us name the gendered challenges to earning money.
The lack of PA support that could allow us
to participate fully in society and in work.
The lack of appropriate access to educational opportunities
that would grow us, and enable us to earn more.
The lack of reasonable accommodations for work and the risk
of speaking up to ask for better, especially in a new job.
The impact of multiple medical appointments on work and education.
The limited available employment market for disabled people,
particularly those with childcare responsibilities.
The lack of employment opportunities for people with dynamic disabilities.
The effect on our future income and pensions
by being in and out of the workplace.
The gender pay gap and disability pay gap.
Workplace discrimination against mental health diagnoses.
It is against the law to discriminate, but they still do.
That access to work can be caused by discrimination, not by disability.
Embodied ableism and the lack of acceptance of lifelong disability.
Let us name the gendered challenges to accessing disability benefits.
The lack of recognition of the costs of disability when assessing means.
Means testing of spousal income.
The time, energy, health and financial costs
of navigating exhausting systems and processes
to access disability supports and benefits.
That when you are disabled and have assets,
your access to support is limited or none at all.
Let us name the other forms of poverty that affect
disabled women and non-binary people.
How lack of personal assistance, inadequate financial, educational
and healthcare supports create social, cultural and civil poverty,
limit full participation in life, work, politics and advocacy and, thereby,
reduces the visibility of disabled women and non-binary people
and creates further barriers to effecting much needed change.
Let us name what needs to change.
We need person-centred, flexible services that facilitate remote access
and dedicated disability people in services, education and employment.
Disability knowledge needs to be embedded in practice.
Collaboration and co-creation with disabled people is key.
Improved employability services that support disabled people
to find and keep better paid jobs.
Implement cost of disability payments and eliminate mean testing.
Support access to childcare, and work flexibility.
We were not silent.
We were not invisible here.
We were seen.
We were heard and we were listened to.
We named the costs and effects of poverty,
the barriers to accessing quality employment and education
and what needs to change.
Now that they are named, we see them more clearly
and when seen, it allows us to ask for better
for disabled women and non-binary people.
May this be a new beginning where better is expected
so that a healthier, more inclusive and financially sustainable future
can be envisioned for all.
Audio Version of “Eradicating Poverty” by Alice Doyle
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