“I was never ruled by this limitation”: the moral obligations of care among women with disabilities on the impoverished neighborhoods of João Pessoa (Brazil)

Abstract

The article analyzes the experience of women with physical disabilities who find themselves in the position of simultaneously being both care beneficiaries and caregivers. Based on interviews conducted with 14 women, aged between 26 and 50, living in peripheral neighborhoods in the metropolitan region of João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil. Its objective is to demonstrate: 1) how, in a context marked by poverty and the impossibility of access to care markets, these women become responsible for most of the home and family care; and 2) the production of a moral grammar of overcoming that ends up reinforcing the logics of exploitation and erasing their needs and rights to receive care. In this sense, the discussion points to the role of moral obligations in normalizing the tensions between class, gender, and disability.

Keywords:
gender; interdependency; poverty; moral values