40 OVER 40 Eleanor Lisney
#19
Eleanor Lisney
Cofounder of Sisters of Frida
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
This is Eleanor Lisney, co-founder of a wonderful organisation called Sisters of Frida. They describe themselves as an experimental collective of disabled women with the sole aim of raising the voices of disabled women and non-binary people.
They celebrate being from different ethnicities, cultures and nationalities, of different sexual orientations, of being mums, having partners and being single women. They celebrate creativeness which they say is born from their identities which in turn is all wrapped up in their disabilities. They hold meetings for disabled women to discuss ways to make real change for women just like them.
Elle contracted Polio when she was three and by the time she was in her twenties had started to use a wheelchair. She says her wheelchair is her lifeline and has afforded her her freedom.
Thank you Eleanor for being part of the 40 OVER 40 project.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
How did Sisters of Frida come about?
We were invited to speak for Million Women Rise about domestic violence and disabled women and off the back of that we realised that whilst there were disabled organisations and women’s organisations there wasn’t anything in between. It seemed that disabled women as a group didn’t have a voice.
We wanted our group to be intersectional and used Frida Khalo as our inspiration for the name. She was Mexican, bisexual, a communist and feminist and kind of encapsulated everything we wanted to represent.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
Eleanor joined other women organisations at CEDAW (The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women) at the UN which spells out women's rights to equality and non-discrimination. They also met with Ana Peláez Narváez, the only disabled woman on the committee and spoke on the needs of disabled women and the importance of being visible at spaces such as CEDAW.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
Sisters of Frida also contributed to The UN Committee on the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) report. The report was to ensure that violations of disabled women’s rights were given attention. A key theme to come out of the report was a call for government to recognise that disabled women and girls face multiple discrimination in access to healthcare and a recommendation for targeted, measurable and financed strategies to eliminate them.
Eleanor says:
Disabled women face multiple barriers every day and these barriers have to be highlighted if anything is to be done. For example, smear testing is impossible for many disabled women simply because the beds are not accessible. We need to make sure that the government are ready and able to help. We need every GP surgery and healthcare provider to recognise where the issues like this lie and address them head on.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
What's on the agenda for Sisters of Frida right now?
Right now we have some funding and have set up a new steering group of wonderful women with different skillsets to help the organisation make a real difference at a grassroots level. But we’re always looking for more women to get involved. The more disabled women we have on the roster the better we will be at understanding the array of different needs out there and how we can help.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
How have things changed over the years in terms of accessibility for disabled people?
There’s still a long way to go and it depends where you are and what country you’re in. The UK is a leader in accessibility and yet disabled people in the UK would probably disagree. Take public transport for example. So much of it is still not fully accessible, especially on the tube and even if there’s a lift it’s often not been maintained. And then there’s the issue of benefits. It doesn’t seem to matter what party is in government, benefits are always in danger of being cut. It's our job to make sure our specific needs as disabled women are constantly on the agenda, we need our voices heard.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
Eleanor has been campaigning for disabled rights for decades. When she lived in Coventry she was part of an organisation who secured funding to mystery shop restaurants in the West Midlands for their accessibility ahead of the 2012 Olympics (for which Eleanor was a torch bearer). They singled out 10 of the best independent restaurants for disabled visitors and graded them not only on physical accessibility but on staff attitudes towards disabled people too.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
Eleanor says:
Accessibility doesn't just mean you need a ramp to get into a building and an accessible toilet. It also means having a positive attitude towards the people themselves. It was important to us that we judged the restaurants on this as much as their facilities.
Eleanor Lisney
by Jenny Smith
How have things changed for you since turning 40?
Each phase in life is totally different. It was only after turning 40 that I moved to America and put myself through college and then moved to the UK to find work. I'd been a stay at home mum until then so I suddenly found myself looking for work and figuring out what kind of job I could do. I had to negotiate barriers and attitudes as to how people saw me as a disabled person along with the intersectional barriers too. It's hard to know if people reject you because you are a person of colour, or because you are disabled, or because you're a woman. I had to figure all that stuff out. Being older helped with all of that, you have more confidence to tackle that kind of stuff, but also less energy!
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
If you could go back and give your younger self some advice, what would it be?
As a disabled woman I always had this idea that nobody would love me. I wish I had been able to see that I was an attractive woman. The disability would often come first and cloud my judgement of myself. I wish people had told me that when I was younger, they would have really boosted my confidence and then who knows what adventures I might have had.
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
Eleanor Lisneyby Jenny Smith
Thank you Eleanor for being part of the 40 OVER 40 project.
Listen to my podcast, Dear Hormones here.