Little Old Ladies

Sometimes I fail to make a connection so obvious that when I see it, it takes my breath away.

If you’ve been here for a while, you’ve heard me discuss geriatric and elder care in America, our problematic healthcare system, the difficulties of doctors appointments and transportation for folks with impaired mobility, the frustrations of “assisted” living, the emotional toil of caregiving, and problems with aging.

I think about these things a lot.

And probably haven’t seen the forest for the trees.

But the last time I was in Richmond, visiting my mom at her assisted living facility, I stood in the lobby for a moment, looking around, waiting for my nametag to print. The executive director and the nursing director happened to walk by (they both know me quite well. Ha!). Several residents had gathered in lounge to chat. A few were pushing walkers down the hallway, one assisted by an aide. The receptionist (who also knows me quite well) made some idle chit chat. When suddenly I realized.

Every person there was a woman.

Not just the residents. And to be clear, the vast majority of the residents are women. There are only a handful of men who live in this facility, which is in keeping with the national demographics. But the directors are women. The front desk workers. The nurses. The CNAs. Almost every single person in this facility was a woman. The only men are a handful of residents, and, shocker, the head of maintenance (and his crew? The repair technicians tend to be men. The cleaning crew? Women.)

Geriatric care doesn’t get funding or research or interest because people are old (well, that’s a part of it) but because the old people are WOMEN. If men outlived women, I bet we’d have the best goddamn geriatric care and science available. But they don’t. Instead, men get cared for by women their entire lives (This is patriarchy. Men make more money, have more “prestigious” jobs, do less domestic work, less parenting, less caregiving, less support work as a general rule (to which there are wonderful exceptions, and I know several men who have worked hard to achieve actual equity in their relationships, so this is not a male-bashing statement, but a statement on patriarchy, please understand that), and then they die, and the women that are left get cared for by other women. Often underpaid and overworked women. And it’s excruciatingly expensive.

So women, who spend their entire lives taking on caregiving roles, assisting, supporting, helping, parenting, nurturing, aiding—all of these roles that are assigned through gender norms and that are taken on in varying degrees of willingness—when it’s their turn to be taken care of, the people who do it are other women. And if that elder care takes place in an assisted living facility, or even within the medical industrial complex, then that care happens in a system designed to exploit that care, and profit from it.

Obviously, this is a problem.

It’s bad enough that assisted living, and most medicine, is profit focused. It’s bad enough that none of this is designed to actually help those who need it. But that it treats women like disposable Kleenex is unforgivable. Women are used for caregiving in every aspect of patriarchy. Domestic household management, supporting roles at work, women constantly are put in positions to take care of men. And when women are too old to do this, they are, for all practical purposes, put out to pasture and charged to be there.

Reader, this is unacceptable. And now that I’ve noticed it, I can’t stop thinking about it. About all the focus we’ve put in our culture on helping little old ladies cross the street, or carry their groceries, or holding the door. And instead, we’ve been shoving them under the bus the whole time.