Women--Developing countries--Social conditions

In highly industrialized as well as in developing countries, blind women constitute one of the poorest segments of the population. This thesis explores societies' attitudes towards blind women who are doubly disadvantaged, because of their disability and their gender. In many developing countries this dual discrimination affects women's access to prevention, treatment, education, rehabilitation, and employment. Disabled women are deprived of women's traditional roles of wife, home maker, and mother. This thesis also explores the cross-cultural network of local, national, and regional self-help committees blind women have begun to assemble in response to the worldwide interest in the rights of women and the disabled. The women who are active in these organizations recognize that in order to improve the status of blind women they will have to find ways to overcome the prejudices against the disabled in mainstream groups, and become an integral component of broader movements.