2020 is almost over, Covid-19 has officially celebrated its first anniversary, and it is time to address the elephant in the room: the pandemic’s forgotten casualty, overlooked by practically any and every government plan or policy: equality. Here’s our non-exhaustive review of the ways in which the pandemic has affected gender equality.
We could be tempted to think of a world pandemic as a health disaster which affects all individuals equally, or at least regardless of their position within the social organization. Well, Covid-19 proved how wrong that view is: pandemics exacerbate social inequalities rather than erasing them. While early data seems to indicate that the mortality rates from COVID-19 are higher for men, the pandemic has disastrous social, economic, and even health consequences for women and girls across the world. It is time we stop letting women bear the heaviest burden of the health crisis we are experiencing.
Higher exposure risk for women due to horizontal segregation in the labour market
Gendered norms and socialisation result in women and men orienting themselves towards different work sectors and professions. Globally, women represent 70 percent of the healthcare workforce. In particular, they occupy most of front-line health workers’ positions, including nurses, midwives and community health workers. They also make up the majority of health facility service-staff, who are often invisible in public consciousness and discourse, such as cleaners or catering staff. This overrepresentation of women in these professions results in a higher risk of exposure to the virus for them. This inequality is reinforced by the fact that women are less likely to have access to adapted personal protective equipment (PPE) than men. The male body is always seen as the norm, especially in the medical sector, which is why most PPE masks are designed based on the average male face. In the British case, Dr Helen Fidler, the deputy chair of the British Medical Association UK consultants committee, affirmed that: “masks are designed for a male template, with the irony being that 75% of workers in the NHS [National Health Service] are female.”
Harder second shifts and unmanageable 2-in-1 workday
While female front-line workers across the world kept going to work during periods of lockdown, often assuming higher workload in crucial sectors such as health, domestic work increased. With schools closing and the health needs of family members, especially the oldest, increasing, demand for care work rocketed. The issue is that, even before the pandemic, women were doing three times as much unpaid care and domestic work as men. Thus, women’s second shift, an expression coined by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild to describe the double burden faced by employed women who come home from work to do most of the domestic tasks, became even more exhausting. The situation is often no better for “non-essential” female workers too. Telework became the new norm for many employed women during the pandemic, which tends to blur the line between professional and private life, and by extension paid and unpaid work. Just imagine participating in a zoom conference while handling a toddler’s whim and making sure the food is ready by lunch. Yet, as an interesting study by McLaren et al. shows, the Covid-19’s State responses, from Sri Lanka to Australia, fail to address this gender inequality.
An increase of gender-based violence due to lockdown measures
It is important to remind ourselves that one in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence, mostly perpetuated by an intimate partner. With lockdown measures trapping victims with their abusers, calls to domestic violence helplines have increased in many countries since the outbreak of the pandemic. This phenomenon is reinforced by the disruption of many gender-based violence services due to the current crisis, which leaves victims with nobody to turn to.
When health policies omit reproductive and sexual health
Reproductive and sexual health services are essential to ensure not only the health of women, but also their right of control over their own body. However, access to these services has been seriously limited all over the world. While the disruption of maternal health may result in exacerbated maternal mortality, access to contraception and voluntary interruption of pregnancy has been restricted in many countries. For instance, in Italy, many hospitals have suspended medical abortion to redirect resources towards Covid-19, even though the Ministry of Health guidelines still requires abortion medication to be administered during a three-day hospitalization. Consequences are also dramatic across the Atlantic: estimations show that an additional 18 million women may lose regular access to modern contraceptives in Latin America and the Caribbean.
An economic crisis which will hit women the hardest
Emerging evidence suggests that the economic consequences of Covid-19 will affect women disproportionately. Globally, women have lower incomes, lower savings, and have more insecure jobs. It is especially the case in developing economies, where 70 percent of women’s employment is in the informal economy, giving them little access to social protection and to the relief measures put in place in many countries worldwide to limit the arising economic crisis. Moreover, women represent the majority of single-parent households, meaning that they rely on a single wage that they cannot risk losing. In short, they are less able to absorb economic shocks than men.
How to stop Covid-19 from pushing the fight for gender equality backwards?
On April 9, 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres asked all governments to “put women and girls at the centre of efforts to recover from COVID-19”. Indeed, there is an unprecedented need to include gender-based approaches in designing disease outbreak preparedness and responses. Yet, can we expect this necessary step to be taken as long as women do not occupy as many seats as men in governance bodies? The answer to this is doubtful. So, whilst Covid-19 has exacerbated the inequalities that women face, perhaps it may also act as a wakeup call to prevent such inequalities occurring again, or better yet, existing at all.
Resources:
For an overview of the situation:
António Guterres (UN Secretary-General), "Put women and girls at the centre of efforts to recover from COVID-19 [statement], UN Women, April 9, 2020. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/4/statement-sg-put-women-and-girls-at-the-centre-of-efforts-to-recover-from-covid19
“ Explainer: How COVID-19 impacts women and girls”, UN Women, last updated May 19, 2020. https://interactive.unwomen.org/multimedia/explainer/covid19/en/index.html
On gender inequality in the health sector:
Alexandra Topping,” Sexism on the Covid-19 frontline: 'PPE is made for a 6ft 3in rugby player'”, The Guardian, April 24, 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/24/sexism-on-the-covid-19-frontline-ppe-is-made-for-a-6ft-3in-rugby-player (accessed October 23, 2020)
On the burden of unpaid care and domestic work
Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution at Home, with Anne Machung. New York, Avon books, 1990
Helen Jacqueline McLaren, Karen Rosalind Wong, Kieu Nga Nguyen and Komalee Nadeeka Damayanthi Mahamadachchi, “Covid-19 and Women’s Triple Burden: Vignettes from Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Vietnam and Australia” Social Sciences 9, no. 587, article no.87, 2020. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/9/5/87
“Out-of-Pocket Spending for Contraceptives in Latin America”. UNFPA, Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office, March 2020.
On the increase in gender-based violence
“The Shadow Pandemic: Violence against women during COVID-19”, UN Women. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/in-focus-gender-equality-in-covid-19-response/violence-against-women-during-covid-19
On reproductive and sexual health policies in times of Covid-19
Hazal Atay, “Countries’ COVID-19 responses could debunk some myths around the ‘abortion pill’”, The Conversation, April 16, 2020.
https://theconversation.com/countries-covid-19-responses-could-debunk-some-myths-around-the-abortion-pill-136088
On the need for a gender inclusive outbreak’s response
Rosemary Morgan, Julia Smith, Clare Wenham (on behalf of the Gender and COVID-19 Working Group), “COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak”, Comment 395, issue 10227, March 14 2020), pp.846-848. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30526-2
UN Secretary-General’s policy brief: The impact of COVID-19 on women, United Nations, April 9, 2020.https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/04/policy-brief-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-women#view
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