The journey of Disabled women through UK Higher Education: using intersectionality to assess compounded inequality in a sexist and ableist system.

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Although there is a variety of research examining Disabled students' success and experienceat university, Kutscher and Tuckwiller (2019) note there is a lack of intersectionalexamination of disability and argue that research examining the intersections of disability,for instance, with gender and 'race' is urgently needed. Consequently, the proposed studywill examine the intersection of gender and disability in UK HE students and its impacts. Thisis because of the well evidenced and much researched disadvantages faced by women in UKHigher Education (HE), as students and staff; the higher prevalence of women with ChronicIllnesses (Dusenbery, 2018), and the issue of medical sexism making access to diagnoses(which are needed to "evidence" disability) difficult for women (Dusenbery, 2018).UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have a legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 andthe Public Sector Equality Duty to ensure that access to their services is not limited by any ofnine protected characteristics (inclusive of Disability and Gender). Furthermore, they havean ethical/moral duty to ensure equality of access, and this was incentivised when the UKgovernment introduced the "widening participation" agenda in the early 2000s (Connell-Smith and Hubble, 2018).There are issues beyond the academy that make this research particularly pressing. Hectoret al. (2020) argue that the support of Disabled students in the UK needs improvement, andhighlights an attainment gap for Disabled students (although they do not consider disabilityintersectionality with gender). This suggests a need for research to understand these issues.