'Because they have all the power and I have none': state restructuring of income and employment supports and disabled women's lives in Ontario, Canada

We examine the connections between neo-liberal forms of state restructuring and intervention in disabled people's lives, looking in particular at how these have affected disabled women's experiences of an income support program, the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), in Ontario, Canada. We first outline why and how state programs have been re-designed and implemented in increasingly harsh ways as a result of such neo-liberal forms of state restructuring. Even groups formerly considered among the 'deserving poor' have found their access to social assistance diminished. We then argue that this is an outcome of state programs, policies and practices which are re-asserting and more deeply entrenching 'ableness' as a necessary condition of citizenship, inclusion and access to justice. Finally, we illustrate how disabled women's lives and well-being have been altered as a result of changes in the provision of these forms of state assistance using in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 10 women in Ontario.