Take a look at our cultural backdrop, and you’ll see it; while in recent years coverage of disability issues and the disability rights movement has improved, there are huge gaps. Meanwhile, disabled women are so often forgotten during times of crisis; when it came to the murder of Sarah Everard, the Metropolitan Police advised women to run away from a suspicious police officer, and then flag down a bus. How can a disabled woman do that? This was just one key example of a cognitive dissonance that has only grown more noticeable as time goes on.
The Disabled Feminist is a newsletter to collect the writing of freelance journalist and author Lydia Wilkins. It considers the intersection of fourth wave feminism and the disability rights movement, drawing out common themes between the two - such as when it comes to accessing healthcare, reviewing inclusive feminist texts, interviews, and more.
The Disabled Feminist was a nickname given to her in December 2022 by Daily Mirror columnist Rachel Charlton Dailey over a typical Wattsapp voice note; it stuck, and has been in place ever since.
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About Lydia Wilkins
Lydia Wilkins is an award winning freelance journalist who specialises in disability and social inequality issues. Her work has appeared in a variety of places including The Independent, The Metro, Refinery 29, The Daily Mail, The Bookseller, Insider, and multiple other outlets. She is also the editor of Disability Review Magazine, the UK’s largest disability media title.
Her debut book, The Autism Friendly Cookbook, went viral on TikTok, won 2 awards at the international Gourmand awards, and is being turned into a pilot course in East Sussex where she lives - and which she will also be co-teaching. As a speaker, Lydia has worked with a range of organisations, such as Suffolk University, Bath SPA University, Naidex (the UK’s biggest annual disability conference), the Publishing For Everyone conference, and others. She is represented by the Impacting The Young agency.
Lydia is also an ambassador to AccessAble, the UK’s biggest provider of accessibility information, where she also edits their in-house newsletters. She is currently working on her second book, preliminary titled Criminally Misunderstood, and is seeking an agent.
