CSWS Calderwood Seminars
Impact: Student Reflection
Throughout my time at the University of Oregon, which has been almost three years now, this class has been one of my favorites by far. I came into it very passionate about women’s rights and history, and throughout the term we extensively covered many different areas and angles of women’s history that I had not even been aware of- the old lesbian communes in Oregon, indigenous livestock destruction, even the popularity of Mahjong in the 20’s, I found myself broadening my definitions of what women’s history even is in the first place. We covered very dark and serious topics like the forced separation of indigenous families by members of the Mormon church, but also on the more innocuous elements of our culture that have enabled such atrocities to occur.
In addition to what we learned through our readings and discussions, I feel I learned just as much (or even more) about writing, editing, and group collaboration in the process. This was my first class that really centered peer feedback, and while that was very daunting for me at first, I grew so much more comfortable taking and giving criticism. In the past when friends have asked me to “edit” their writing, they basically wanted a full overhaul, but in this class it was clear everyone valued everyone else’s voice and genuinely wanted to improve each other’s writing. I found this helped me stay engaged with readings, too, as I also wanted to give people the best feedback and advice possible. I’m now far more confident writing first drafts, and even just getting started, because I no longer feel like they need to be perfect from the jump, and I feel like I have been able to realize a lot of my own strengths with writing in a way that I could not before. Having such a small group intimidated me at first, but I truly felt such a sense of community by the end of the term and had a lot of trust in my peers. Even though I still got nervous every class before sharing my work, I always left wondering why I was so nervous in the first place. —Shaelyn Thomas
Outcome: Student Work
“The Night Shift: Stress, Sleep and the Crisis of Inequality Causing Women to Lose Their Minds”
by Shaelyn Thomas
Working the night shift in a memory care facility, I quickly realized that not everyone rests. Some residents wander the halls, some yell from their rooms. But my focus keeps returning to Abena*—a retired teacher and mother of five who started showing signs of Alzheimer's at barely 70 years old and was quickly admitted to the facility for cognitive decline. Despite my beckoning, she’s still sitting in the common area on a waterproof armchair she will need help standing from. She’s gently rocking a baby doll in her arms, and has been for hours even though the plastic has been long silent and still.
As I watch her, I picture a younger but maybe equally-tired Abena soothing her children’s tears through all hours of the night, arms numb and ears ringing from the shrill cries. I picture her getting up early in the morning to pack school lunches with a baby on her hip, dry-swallowing Advil to ward off her headache before a long day at work…
I notice then that I forgot to charge her hearing aid and I wonder if she even heard me call her to bed.
Two out of every three people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the United States are women. While this has been commonly explained by women’s slightly longer lifespans, many researchers have been dissatisfied with that conclusion. It does not explain why Black women are disproportionately affected, or why certain geographic locations show a higher disparity of diagnoses. Nor does it show why there is growing evidence that women are still disproportionately underdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s, suggesting an even higher disparity in cases compared to less than five years difference in lifespan.
Arline Geronimous introduced the concept of “weathering” in 1992, which sought to explain the pattern of Black women having healthier babies as a result of teen pregnancies than later in life. Geronimous’ hypothesized that racism and socioeconomic
oppression has an aging effect on the body, which can speed up the development of many health issues such as heart conditions and diabetes. This idea was vital in establishing a foundation of social causes for diseases of the body.
Decades later, Justina Aviela-Rieger examined systemic oppression as a possible contributor to Alzheimer’s disease in women. By analyzing diagnosis rates across geographical areas and comparing them to their sociocultural views of gender
differences, she provided geographic evidence that women in areas with greater gender divides have a higher likelihood of later being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Her analysis examined a wide array of risk factors that are all strongly linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Sleep deprivation in particular is one contributor that also affects women disproportionately, for many reasons, likely including the mental toll of reproductive labor– that is, any labor needed to care for children, or the elderly or disabled. There are social inequalities in the expectations surrounding gender roles and traditions between men and women, largely regarding domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning, and childcare. However, this also reflects in the propensity of women to turn to career positions based around caring for and nurturing others. Teaching, nursing, and caregiving are all female-dominated industries. They are also positions that are notoriously undervalued, exhausting, and require a high degree of sacrificial emotional labor.
In the context of Alzheimer’s, women make up an estimated 75% of paid caregivers, and the majority of unpaid caregivers. In turn, this care has been labelled by some as a “third shift,” based on Arlene Hochschild’s original idea of the second shift. The majority of women in America today work while also doing the majority of childcare and labor within the home. any also provide unpaid care to elders.
When we start to deconstruct these issues, a sobering cycle is revealed. Women are predominantly impacted by social treatments and expectations that increase their risk factors for Alzheimer’s, including disproportionate responsibility for investment in reproductive labor. Sleep deprivation is a high percentage of women across America that is heavily associated with the reproductive labor often defaulted to them. Further, evidence suggests these responsibilities and the social structures that perpetuate them have grave effects on the bodies and minds of women, leading them to develop the conditions that require care- care that is often carried out by other women.
*Disclaimer: Abena is not a real person, nor is her story based on one single person’s life history. Her story is a combination of countless women from multiple memory care facilities.