Women with disabilities were significantly more likely than those without disabilities to stay in a bad marriage for fear of losing custody of their children. Self-esteem in women with physical disabilities is more strongly influenced by social and environmental factors than by the fact of having a disability. Whether the woman had a severe disability or a mild disability, incurred disability earlier or later in life, or had ever been in special education didn't make much difference in self-esteem. Women who were working, who were in a serious romantic relationship, or who had never experienced physical or sexual abuse reported high self-esteem, whether or not they had a disability. Among women who were not working, not in a serious romantic relationship, or who had experienced physical or sexual abuse, the women with disabilities had much lower self-esteem than the women without disabilities.
Abuse is a very serious problem for women with disabilities.
They have even fewer options for escaping or resolving the abuse than women in general. Women with disabilities face serious barriers to accessing existing programs to help women remove violence from their lives. Ninety-four percent of the women with disabilities had had sexual activity with a partner in their lifetime. Forty-one percent of the women with disabilities believed that they did not have adequate information about how their disability affects their sexual functioning. Women with disabilities reported significantly lower levels of sexual activity, sexual response, and satisfaction with their sex lives.