Disabled women and economic justice with Marissa Ditkowsky
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Qudsiya speaks with Marissa Ditkowsky, Disability Economic Justice counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families.
Marissa and Qudsiya talk about the need to advance economic justice for disabled women, and the resources disabled women need to survive and thrive: from consumer protection to access to employment, to reproductive healthcare. And, they talk about what the National Partnership is doing to help make that thriving a reality for disabled women across the US.
Listeners should check out the systems transformation guides that Marissa and her team have developed that set forth a vision for disabled women’s economic equality.
About the guest:
Marissa Ditkowsky is a multiply disabled activist and attorney. She serves as the Disability Economic Justice Counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families. She also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the American University Washington College of Law teaching disability rights. Prior to her time at the National Partnership, she was a Staff Attorney at Tzedek DC, a non-profit dedicated to safeguarding the legal rights and financial health of DC residents with low incomes dealing with debt and consumer issues. She led and formed Tzedek DC’s Disabilities Community Project.
Prior to joining Tzedek DC, Marissa served as a litigation fellow at the AARP Foundation, where she assisted with legal research on cases involving age discrimination, reverse mortgages, nursing facilities, elder abuse, and other issues facing Americans ages fifty and older. Marissa’s legal research on issues including disability rights, reproductive justice, and workers’ rights has been featured in publications such as the National Lawyers Guild Review; the Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the Law; and the UCLA Women’s Law Journal. Marissa is the founding volunteer executive director of the National Disabled Legal Professionals Association and a former leader of the National Disabled Law Students Association.
Marissa graduated magna cum laude from the American University Washington College of Law in 2019. She is an inaugural Capital Chai of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington awardee and a 2022 Brandeisians of the Last Decade (BOLD) 9 award recipient.
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