5 Disabled Women To Celebrate On International Women's Day 2023
On March 8, it’s International Women’s Day, a focal point in the women's rights movement, bringing attention to gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence and abuse against women.
This year's theme is Embrace Equity because equal opportunities are no longer enough. Equity better recognises that we don’t all need the same in order to succeed and this is vitally important for the disabled rights movement too.
So to celebrate, I wanted to highlight some of the incredible disabled women and non-binary folk who I try to celebrate each and every day.
Victoria Jenkins
Founder, Unhidden
Victoria Jenkins spent decades working as a garment technologist for a number of high-street brands, then when she became disabled in her 20s, she realised that fashion did not include disabled people.
She started Unhidden after a hospital meeting with a cancer patient that changed the path of her life. This is the narrative of Unhidden. She is a multi-award-winning adaptive designer, disability advocate, author, and speaker.
SIC have been proud sponsors of Unhidden at London Fashion Week for two years running, and this year our CEO Rachael stepped in as the event’s Show Manager.
We know Unhidden is going to be very much unhidden in 2023 and we are so here for it!
Sandie Roberts
Speaker, Disability Advocate, Content Creator and Model
Sandie is a wheelchair user, who uses her online platform to create fashion guides for wheelchair users. She’s a true style icon and was recently seen rolling the runway at Victoria’s Unhidden show and modelling for Unhidden on the latest series of BBC’s Dragons’ Den.
Sandie recently used her voice to speak out about disabled fetishism having experienced sexual harassment online for around 18 months. An experience that no one should ever go through.
If you ever experience or see inappropriate messages or comments, keep reporting them if you can - as together we can make a stand. And if you’re not already engaging with disabled creatives like Sandie, make sure that you like, comment, and share their content.
Sandie is one of the teachers on our Learning Hub 2.0, where she’ll be sharing her career journey, so watch this space.
Dr Zoe Watson
Founder, Wellgood Wellbeing
Dr Zoe Watson isn’t just a powerhouse GP, neurodivergent thinker, and friend of SIC, she’s also the founder of multiple startups, including Wellgood Wellbeing, a bulls*t-free wellbeing website.
This isn’t about kale smoothies and yoga wear, this is about movement (in any form), laughter as medicine, and maybe a bit of breathwork too.
If you were looking really carefully at the Unhidden fashion show in February, you’d see designer Victoria Jenkins wearing one of Zoe’s custom f*ck ableism necklaces. She really is multitalented!
Miranda McCarthy
Founder, Adaptive Yoga Live and Wavelength VR
You might have seen Miranda on SIC’s site before. In fact, we did a Career Spotlight with her in June, and also placed one of our trainees with her previously.
Miranda has lived with chronic pain her whole life, and finds fulfilment in sharing her pain management methods, and devoting her time to designing alternative pain diagnosis systems.
As a multi-talented entrepreneur, we’re predicting big things for Miranda this year!
Sukhjeen Kaur
Founder, Chronically Brown
You’ll be seeing a lot more of Sukhjeen on the SIC site in the coming months, as she’s joined us as one of our teachers for our Learning Hub 2.0.
Sukhjeen founded Chronically Brown, an organisation that is dedicated to empowering South Asians with invisible and visible disabilities, and the home of the #DesiAbled campaign.
While building Chronically Brown she was also completing her degree.
Want to learn more about building an online community from incredible founders like Sukhjeen? Make sure you’ve signed up to our mailing list for early access to Learning Hub 2.0.
And An Extra Added Bonus…
The SIC Team
Did you know that SIC is led by a team of disabled and chronically ill shes and theys?
I (Alice Hargreaves, SIC’s COO, (she/her) am so incredibly proud of what we have built in the last two years. From delivering consulting services to businesses in the US and UK on the same day, to creating probably the best panel for Disability History Month, we’re always finding new and exciting ways to close the disability employment gap.
My co-founder Rachael Mole (she/they) recently spoke out about the disability tax that many of us are facing during the cost of living crisis and found themselves on the BBC (twice!), ITV and featured in the Metro.
And finally, Annie Chadwick (she/her), our Creative Lead. Annie actually trained with us right at the very start of our operations in 2021, when it came to making our first hire it was impossible not to hire her. She spends 12 hours a week with us developing the work we do in the theatre industry and we hope one day, we’ll convince her to stick with us full-time.
Feeling inspired by these game-changers? I encourage you to follow them, support their enterprises and celebrate them the other 364 days of the year.
Are you a business leader that’s found the above article pretty damn cool? You can find all of our business services over at www.sicofficial.co.uk.
