Editorial Note:
This blog feature was created by the Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) Media Editor, Stephanie Wilson, in celebration of the third place winner in AKD’s 2024 undergraduate student paper competition, Emily Wallack.
Each year AKD sponsors an undergraduate student paper competition. Winners are eligible to win cash prizes and travel money to attend the American Sociological Association annual conference. The third place winner received $100 and up to $1,000 in travel expenses to the 2024 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
Continue reading to learn more about Emily Wallack’s winning paper!
Meet Emily Wallack
Emily Wallack is a sociology student from Loyola Marymount University. Her paper titled “Invisible Illness: The Silent Epidemic For Women” earned her a third place prize in our 2024 Undergraduate Student Paper Competition.
To learn more about Emily and her research, we reached out for a brief interview. Continue reading below to learn more about Emily, her award-winning paper, and her experiences as a sociology student! You can also connect with Emily on Instagram.
Can you briefly summarize your award-winning paper?
The purpose of my study was to uncover the experiences that women with chronic illness have had with physicians, and how this has impacted their mental and physical well-being as well as in their respective social lives. The results of the study show that women with chronic illness are continuously marginalized in healthcare simply because they are biologically women and possess socially constructed “traditional” feminine associated traits.
The normative standards set by society create a “stigma” surrounding women’s illness. The data also reveals that doctors rely on orthodox andronormative diagnosis standards to account for women’s symptoms, furthering the disregard for women’s invisible illness. Ultimately, my paper argues that women’s experiences are disregarded simply because they are women and traditional medicine relies upon the diagnosis standards based on male bodies.
What motivated you to write on the topic of your paper?
My personal experiences with chronic illness and the healthcare system motivated me to write my paper and bring awareness to an otherwise “unknown” topic. I not only wanted to bring attention to chronic illness, but the patriarchal prejudices that are fundamentally rooted within our social structures and institutions.
As a sociology student, what has been your favorite class and why?
My favorite sociology class was Sociological Theory because I found it fascinating to study the theories on which our social institutions are founded on and apply them to everyday life.
What have been your biggest “aha” moments while studying sociology?
One of the biggest learning moments while studying sociology was the realization that almost the entirety of our history can be connected with sociology. Every event that we learn as a foundation of our education is rooted within social processes. I think it is very interesting to follow the process of change over time and how we define “success” as society revealing the connections to sociological foundations.
If you had to choose one concept, theory, or idea from sociology that has had the biggest impact on how you view the world around you, what would it be and why?
One theory that has had the biggest impact on my world view is Jean Baudrillard’s concept of simulations and the hyperreal. In a society that is becoming increasingly dominated by the media, Baudrillard’s theory has made me more self-aware and taught me not to take everything at face value. I think this is really important especially in a time where one does not always know the authenticity of what they are seeing.