Journeys of disorientation & dislocation: Women/invisible dis/ability in and out of social work. A transdisciplinary exploration.

Research Question: Please describe your experience of invisible illness/ dis/ ability and what this has meant to you both professionally and personally. This is a qualitative, exploratory study in which six women (including myself) who work/have worked within the social work profession, responded to the research question employing an online-email method \ I developed a variety of "self-monitoring" questions to assist the process. These questions were designed to be used as conversational prompts only if necessary, and to make up for absence of face-to-face contact. The participants were found using a snowball sample. This research is an exploration of female social workers' experiences with invisible illness/dis/ability. Specifically, the study explores the intersections and subjectivity of a variety of women's oppressions, including socialization, media/body image, sexual identity, and aging in relation to the effects of gender violence and women's health, sense of well being, and social worker retention in rural, isolated, and northern communities. Gender violence will be understood to include a continuum of violence extending from economic coercion to outright physical abuse. I explored the possibilities (and potential linkages) that there may or may not be a relationship between women's previous experiences of marginalization and oppression, including trauma, abuse, neglect, poverty, and abandonment, which might increase the likelihood of further such experiences within a social work setting, and that gender violence is contrary to social worker retention, specifically in rural, isolated, and northern communities. "The fact that 1 In order to accommodate my own illness, a minor reconfiguration of a semi-structured interview format was employed to obtain the data. they seemed so eager to please made them more vulnerable to exploitation" (Transken, 2003, p. 168). This may include that women position or allow themselves to be positioned in social work environments paradoxically to re-encounter such situations that would not likely be experienced in other non-caring, or traditionally "male" professions. Our choices are shaped by our structural contexts and vice versa. Our choices are also influenced by subconscious and subtle dynamics. More specifically, in this initial exploratory research, I am interested to know how becoming invisibly ill impacts women's overall existence, working environments/ work relationships, and how these women maneuvered through the various systems . Please note that the dynamics I am exploring in my research are not limited to women. I have personal knowledge of male workers who have experienced situations of violence and abandonment. Male workers who experience illness/disability frequently feel "impotent" and often are feminized within the agency hierarchies, left effectively powerless and alone. However, this is not the focus of my research study and shall be for another researcher to explore in more depth. But I am curious to know if men with histories of trauma/oppression are also inclined to become social workers and if so, do they experience similar circumstances? And if not, might they instead be disposed towards positions of promotion and leadership (and non-caring professions)? All sorts of women have known in their daily lives the low self-esteem that is attendant upon cultural depreciation, the humiliation of sexual objectification, the troubled relationship to a socially inferiorized body, the confusions and even the anguish that come in the wake of 2 As the research evolved, I began to question if there might be a social connectedness component that could perhaps be an important indicator in regard to how women might perceive and maneuver through their experiences with invisible disability/illness. For instance, are the invisible illness/disability experiences of women who are well connected to her family, friends and community versus women who are relatively isolated from family, friends, community (ie 'transplanted' for employment) dis/similar? incompatible social definitions of womanhood; women of all kinds and colors have endured not only the overt, but also the disguised and covert attacks of a misogynist society (Bartky, 1990, p. 9). TABLE OF C O N T E N T S Acknowledgements Abstract I N T R O D U C T I O N D E F I N I T I O N S Chapter One