Introduction

One in five women experience sexual violence across their lifetime (Feder and Howarth, 2014). According to the Crime Survey England and Wales the risk for disabled women is twice as high (Office for National Statistics, 2019). This is likely an underestimate, due to considerable methodological and sampling challenges when it comes to including all disabled women (Hollomotz et al, 2023). Even within the restraints of the currently available statistical evidence, it follows that at least two in five disabled women experience sexual violence across their lifetime. Heightened risk occurs at the intersection of gender and disability: the risk for disabled women is more than five times that of disabled men (Office for National Statistics, 2019).

An under- explored related common occurrence is that many women do not realise they are experiencing sexual violence as the assault happens. Three decades ago Kelly and Radford (1990, p 39) reported that many women discounted and minimised their experiences by remarking that ‘nothing really happened’. Sixty per cent of Kelly's (1988) sample did not name sexual violence at the time of the assault. Women's normalisation of their experiences can be traced back further in time, for instance as evidenced in historic cases reported by De Beauvoir (2011). Accounts of normalisation and delayed naming continue to be reported in more recent research (Hlavka, 2014; Tarzia, 2021) and are circulated through social media (for example, #MeToo) and online forums (for example, The Everyday Sexism Project, 2023).

This chapter explores the in- depth accounts of disabled women who have experienced delayed naming of sexual violence through a materialist feminist and a social model of disability lens. It is understood that ‘all thought is fundamentally mediated by power relations that are social in nature and historically constituted’ (Lee and Carson, 2014, p 16). Drawing on some of the work already outlined in this volume, this chapter suggests that the struggles women face are not always located with the individual's decision- making in/ capacity. The feminist and social model approach adds an important dimension for thinking through the ideas of ‘vulnerability’, risk, agency, naming and how law frames and responds to these.