Overcoming Struggle
Deaf women continue to seek equality alongside their hearing counterparts. As supporters of suffrage and the Title IX law prohibiting discrimination, deaf women have urged deaf men to see them as equals.
When Deaf women were barred from admission to Gallaudet and other colleges, they campaigned loudly for access; in more recent years, they have begun joining fields such as science and mathematics rather than being content with traditionally female-dominated fields such as education and the humanities.
Deaf women are already members of two marginalized groups, yet many also have other intersectional identities. These identities are celebrated at a variety of events, including the Deaf Lesbian festival and the Miss Black Deaf America pageant, each of which is held biennially.
The pageant is sponsored by the National Black Deaf Advocates (NBDA), which arose from the first Black Deaf Caucus, hosted during the NAD conference in 1980. The first Deaf African-American female attorney in the United States, Claudia Gordon, won the MBDA pageant in 1990 and in 2013 became the first deaf person appointed to a White House position.
The National Fraternal Society of the Deaf (NFSD) was founded in 1901 to provide insurance to deaf consumers.
Although women asked to join as early as 1912, their only option was to get insurance through their husband's membership.
A women's auxiliary was formed, but its role was limited to planning social events. Deaf women seeking their own insurance could not acquire it through NFSD until 1954, when Gertrude Slattery Elkins, '46, became the first woman insured by "The Frat."
