Hybrid identities? Trajectories of the Lives of Women with Acquired Disabilities

In the study of disability, an extremely important role is played by issues related to identity changes occurring under the influence of experiences which alter the current course of life and force the adoption of new roles and the adaptation of previously fulfilled roles. This is the nature of a disability acquired in adulthood. It is a turning point that transforms the identities of women who must redefine themselves and their places in a reality that is new to them. The main goal of the article will be to show the changes that affect the identities of women who, as a result of an accident, acquired disability in adulthood. The study is based on autobiographical narrative interviews. This method allowed me to reconstruct the trajectory of the lives of the respondents, showing the process-like nature of the identities they shape, which have undergone changes under the influence of the need to adapt to the conditions resulting from the acquired disability. Six women – diversified in terms of age, education, professional position, and family situation, all of which influenced their roles and social positions – were surveyed. Dorota Żuchowska-Skiba, PhD – AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Humanities. Research interests include the analysis of mass media, especially new media, together with the prospect of collective action taken in the social and virtual reality. Particular attention is paid to new forms of social activity and the public, civic, and political society in the era of the network for people with disabilities and other excluded or marginalized groups. Contact details:

In the relational (Nordic) approach, disability is presented as a phenomenon constructed in the interaction between physical, mental, and sensory deficits of people with disabilities and the barriers inherent in the socio-economic organization and the environment in which they function (Campbell 2009:95). It is a complex relationship between the limitations inherent in individuals and the expectations of society (Wendelborg and Tøssebro 2010:701-714). As a result, people with disabilities are excluded from society due to the mismatch between social expectations and their biological abilities (Tøssebro 2004;Goodley 2011:18). In such an approach, the position of people with disabilities depends both on the type and degree of disability as well as on the limitations and requirements imposed on them by society.
The complexity of contemporary societies and their diversity requires looking at the process of marginalization of people with disabilities from the intersectional perspective (Goodley 2011). This makes it possible to show the importance of multiple positionalities for the search for differences between social groups as well as for enabling the identification of mutually influencing factors that affect life and contribute to the existence of inequalities in contemporary societies (Goethals, De Schauwer, and Van Hove 2015). In this approach, individuals are devoted to multi-dimensional discrimination based on disability, gender, religion, income, age, cultural origin, family status, and many other factors that are interrelated and determine their position in society (Hancock 2007).
Previous studies show that women with a disability are experiencing double discrimination, i.e. based on both gender and disability (Brooks and Deegan 1981;Ferri and Gregg 1998:429;Moser 2006;Ciaputa, Król, and Warat 2014;Ciaputa et al. 2014;Deegan 2018). The situation of women with disabilities is worse than men's, both economically and socially (Nosek and Hughes 2003). Both genders experience discrimination based on disability, but men face fewer barriers to achieving life goals than women do, and have a better chance of achieving typically male roles (Asch and Fine 1988;Nosek and Hughes 2003:229-230). It all consists in the refusal to let women exercise certain gender roles -especially maternal and educational -due to the disability (Asch and Fine 1988:13;Finger 1991;Thomas 1997;Wołowicz-Ruszkowska 2013;Ciaputa et al. 2014).
This is the result of cultural expectations for women with disabilities, which often ignore or repress their sexuality, professional work, and motherhood, which excludes them from the traditional roles of wives, employees, and mothers (Finger 1992;Morris 1993; Barnes and Mercer 2008:74;McDonald, Keys, and Balcazar 2007). Bodily aspects showing women as asexual and physically unattractive were also important in the marginalization of women with disabilities (Begum 1992:81;Asch and Fine 1997;Milligan and Neufeldt 2001;Król 2018:88). As a consequence, negative social perceptions about women with disabilities reduced their self-esteem and contributed to their building negative definitions of their Selves (Walsh and Walsh 1989;Brooks and Matson 1982;Craig, Hancock, and Chang 1994;Nosek 1996;Barnwell and Kavanagh 1997).
This shows that the gender of people with disabilities is one of the important factors shaping the self-image of people with disabilities and emerging under the influence of the social perception of disability (see: Kumaniecka-Wiśniewska 2006:61;Thomas 1999:47). In this context, it becomes important to reveal the significance of gender for identities

Study on disability identity development
Research on the identity of people with disabilities conducted by Kathy Charmaz (1995) has showed that disability often appears in human life unexpectedly -i.e. as a consequence of illness or accident -and results in the need for adaptation, which forces a change in life and the need to build a definition of oneself adjusted to the limitations of one's body. In this understanding, the identity of a person is a construct of mutually interacting individual and contextual variables resulting from situations that the individual had encountered (Simon 2004).
Therefore, identity might be subject to certain adaptations and changes in response to situational pressures experienced by individuals (Deaux 1993;2001;Oyserman 2004). This process takes place under the influence of assessments coming from the social environment; as a result, the individual changes the picture of themselves, which leads to a change in their identities (Dolch 2003:373). This points to the processual nature of identity, which is being constructed and reconstructed throughout the entire life of the individual (Jenkins 2005:3-4).
Anselm Strauss's concept (1959Strauss's concept ( , 2013 allows for looking at identity as a process in which it is subject to constant negotiations and changes resulting from interactions between the individual and their social environment (Strauss 1995;Konecki 2015:17).According to this concept, changes in identity are the consequence of critical incidents, referred to as "turning points," which means that a person -in the face of new facts or events -has to revise their views and opinions, and look at many matters in a new light in order to assess them (Strauss 1959:92). Biographical situations generate many critical incidents which influence significant changes in identity that is being realized during the analysis of the history of one's life (Strauss 1959:93). As a result, people are constantly composing and revising their autobiographies, and the changes taking place in the images created by social actors and their interpretation constitute "critical points" in the development of their identities (Carr 1986:76). As a consequence of this process, self-image might change under the influence of events significantly affecting the image of oneself (Hormuth 1990;Ethier and Deaux 1994). In critical situations, the existing identities can be challenged and new identities replace them (Deaux 2001).
This is the nature of the acquisition of a disability, which imposes critical reflection on one's life and causes changes in identity because of the need to include the disability in the image of oneself (Frank 1993;Charmaz 1995). The image of Self changes and so does the relationship between the individual and their environment, which is communicated in feedback relations (Piątek 2009). The existing identity must be supplemented with new aspects resulting from the need to define oneself and one's place and roles in society in relation to the disability. This causes identity hybridization. The concept of hybrid identities appears in the literature on the subject in relation to a situation where the individual "lives between different cultures" and experiences what has been referred to as "cultural hybridity" (Burke 2009:4), which is due to the decision to immigrate Dorota Żuchowska-Skiba and the need to live in another country (Stojkow and Żuchowska-Skiba 2018), or getting married or entering into a relationship with a person of a different nationality (Gonçalves 2013). This term can also be found in cultural studies and media. It appears as a consequence of mixing genres and reconciles contradictions by combining elements and eliminating inconsistencies (Szczęsna 2004:9). Because a similar process takes places in the case of people with acquired disabilities in relation to the identities they are building, it seems reasonable to use this concept in order to show the process of identity chang- The negative image of physical disability functioning in society affected the perception of their own bodies by women with disabilities, which translated into their lower self-esteem (Nosek and Hughes 2003;Taleporos and McCabe 2002). It also resulted in a higher sense of social isolation, which deepened the sense of exclusion . Research on the identities of women with physical disabilities shows that contextual, physical, social, and emotional dimensions of disability affect self-built images (Nosek and Hughes 2003;Hughes et al. 2003).

Trajectories of the fate of women with acquired disability -Research method
The primary goal of the research was to show the changes that affect the identities of women who acquired a disability as a result of an accident. In this case, the acquisition of the disability was a turning point that caused significant changes disrupting the orderly development path of the respondents.
The purpose of the analysis was to present the tra- To examine the identities of women with disabilities acquired in adulthood, I used biographical narrative interviews that allowed the respondents to recreate ways of understanding themselves and their own lives (see : Strauss 1959:96). The use of this research method allowed for the recreation of the processual logic of events and the resulting experiences that influenced the self-image of the respondents and, consequently, shaped their identities (Hermanns 1987:50). The interview was divided into three basic areas. The first one included changes in self-image in relation to one's own disabled body and the loss of  The study involved interviewing six women with motor disabilities, which they acquired as a result of an accident at least two years before the study. Five of the respondents used a wheelchair and one used a specialized walker or crutches. Two of the respondents lived in a large city, two in medium-sized cities, one in a small town, and one in the countryside. Four of the respondents had acquired secondary education, and two had obtained higher education. They had graduated before acquiring the disability. Before

Study results
The conducted research showed that in the bi- The sense of dependency that suddenly appeared was a factor that negatively affected the self-esteem of the respondents. Another respondent said: The worst thing was the feeling of powerlessness and total dependence on others. Until then, it had been I who organized everything: holidays, trips, school; and now I felt dependent on the help of others. I had the impression that I was no longer needed and I was As a result, they felt they had to be grateful for the kindness and help of others, but they felt rather lost and scared or furious about their disability. This meant that they often withdrew from relationships to avoid situations in which they felt emotional discomfort.
In the interviews, the women also said that the acquisition of the disability significantly influenced their perception of their own disabled bodies, which resulted in changes in the image of themselves and forced modifications in defining themselves. In the first months after the accident, they saw themselves only through the prism of disability, which negatively affected their self-esteem and sense of femininity. One of the women said: What had been indistinguishable before the accident, so common, now became a problem and suddenly became very valuable. Everything had to be re-eval- and T-shirt. It is hard to feel feminine in this situation.

(interview 2)
The respondents claimed that the feeling of physical unattractiveness had a negative impact on their relationships with their partners. As they were ashamed of their own bodies, dissatisfaction with their own appearance brought fear of intimate intercourse. In addition, due to disability, they were afraid of being active in this area. They also claimed that no one had informed them about the restrictions and they had not received any support from medical staff or numerous specialists with regard to changes that would occur in their experience of sexuality due to trauma. After some time, lasting from four to seven months, the women -alongside learning about their capabilities and limitations, and accepting changes in appearance -began the next stage of building their self-image and redefining their identities.

Stage 2: Compromises in constructed identities
At the second stage, the surveyed women correct- At this stage, the respondents tried to return to their previously fulfilled roles and the activities that they had undertaken before the accident. All of the respondents said that with time they had ceased to focus solely on their disability, and had begun to focus on tasks and goals covering other areas of everyday life, e.g. cooking, helping children at school, or looking for job opportunities. Social expectations prevented them from returning to activities performed before the accident. According to the women, the reconstruction of self-images at that time was related to the perception of disability in society and stereotypical images that excluded them from the roles they had previously fulfilled. At this stage, the respondents had to face the barriers inherent in society and culture, and re-build their identity in a collision with what was achievable for them not only in the physical but also in the social dimension.
All of the women said that the environment denied them many activities and needs, and hindered ac- I was convinced that no one saw me as a woman, but a person -or a sexless creature -in a wheelchair. According to the women, the type of problems they had to deal with changed at this stage; they were less and less often associated with disability and more and more often they were similar to those they had struggled with before acquiring the disability. All of the respondents said that once they had reconciled with their disability, they had gotten to know its consequences and had accepted their otherness, they could focus on expanding their capabilities and regaining independence wherever possible. One of the women said: The important issue of sexuality would also appear in the interviews. The respondents emphasized that they were seeking advice on sex life after the injury on their own. They did not want to give it up, but getting information and sexual rehabilitation was very difficult. The women said how they were most exposed to exclusion and discrimination in this area. They emphasized that even regular visits to the gynecologist now had a definitely different course than before the accident. One of the women said: Women in wheelchairs have typical female problems, e.g. inflammation or yeast infection, they need contraception and normal gynecological examinations.
Along with disability, it suddenly turned out that what was necessary before the accident-e.g. cervical smears every two years -was now completely unnecessary. As if a woman with a disability suddenly lost her organs that biologically make her a woman. (in- Another respondent said: The doctor did not even see the need for a gynecological examination, he limited himself to an interview.
I was married, yet in the eyes of the doctor I was not a woman who could normally live with her husband.

(interview 6)
According to the interviewees, this was not medically justifiable and resulted only from the stereotypical perception of women with motor disabilities as asexual.

Concluding Remarks
Research shows that the identities of women with acquired disabilities are hybrid. The constructed identities were still not fully defined and can be described as "incomplete" and "unclosed" (see the interviewees emphasized that one could "be Dorota Żuchowska-Skiba a woman despite disability, have a loved one and be loved" or said that "even a woman in a wheelchair can look good with the right clothes and makeup," or "despite the wheelchair I work and I am a woman, wife, and mother of two wonderful kids." This shows that, in their opinion, femininity was an element of identity that existed next to disability and was equally important to their self-image. The results of the analysis reveal that in the initial period after the injury this balance was disturbed and the perception of self as a person with a disability dominated all goals, activities, and actions. This also referred to caring for physical attractiveness and sex life, and fulfilling the roles of wife and mother, which at that time were pushed into the background. Only with time did femininity appear in the self-definitions of the respondents as an element of their identities that was equally important to disability, which allowed the wom-