Experiences and expectations of interpersonal relationships: Women with impairment in Myanmar

This study investigated the lives and hopes of Myanmar women with physical disabilities in interpersonal relationship with family, immediate community, friends and intimate partners, in the context of multiple gender stereotypes and stigmatization of people with physical and other impairments and disabilities. In Myanmar, the experiences and expectations of women with impairment in interpersonal relationship are marked by cultural practices and norms of gender, sexuality and the body, as well as poverty, and weak institutional support and rule of law. Therefore, this research aims to contribute to activities of relevant policies makers and intervening agencies in order to emphasize the need for actions in support of women with physical impairment, their protection from violence, and promotions of their rights. The study explores the voices of 18 respondents with physical impairment and a number of their family members, people who care for them, people involved in their training and education, and includes perspectives of two organizations tasked with improving the rights women with disability, and providing legal aids. The study has found that dominant norms of gender, sexuality and disability are crucially forming women’s hopes, expectations and experiences. Considered a-sexual and ugly by community, women often doubt that they will have satisfactory intimate and sexual relationships, and still have very clear idea what is for them ‘true love’ and what kind of relationship with men they want. Protected by the family and considered unable to care for themselves, women also see themselves as week and dependent. Still, while dependency on others is part of their lives, many of them hope for independent life, for education, jobs and families of their own. At the same time, violence, neglect and harassment are regular part of their lives, be it in the family, in the community or wider society. This research found out that even women deal in many different ways with sufferings and differences in their coping strategies can often be linked to their education and class. Those with more education and economic resources are often more able to pursue violators through courts and legal trials. Those from poor, especially rural families, often have nobody to turn to for help and suffer in silence. Most of the women – regardless of their background - simply take various forms of sexual harassment as normal.