(Gender) Equality in a Time of Crisis

By Anna Lampinen

Although it feels like life as we know it has been put on pause during the COVID-19 crisis, we shouldn’t lose sight of the values and goals we fight for. Now more than ever, it is vital to focus on protecting people’s human rights around the globe. While some have called the novel coronavirus a great equalizer – bringing everyone’s life to a standstill, no matter rich or poor – such a simplistic viewpoint overlooks the many inequalities this crisis is enforcing rather than leveling. This post will explain how the COVID-19 crisis affects men and women differently – and why we should never take a gender-neutral approach to pandemics.

While men are more likely to suffer severe symptoms from the novel coronavirus, women make up the majority of the workforce that is battling the virus on the frontline, every day, around the clock: according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 70% of the health and social workforce around the world are women. Beyond the healthcare sector, a majority of other workers most affected by the pandemic – such as flight attendants, teachers, and service industry workers – are also women. Women also account for the majority of unpaid care work done around the globe. These statistics put women at a very high risk of being seriously affected by the COVID-19 crisis, not only physically, but also mentally and economically.

Even women who are able to work from home will not be safe from the consequences of this outbreak. As Helen Lewis from the Atlantic points out, previous research on the Ebola crisis in West Africa indicates that while everyone’s economic situation was affected by the epidemic, ”men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” As women do most of the unpaid care labor around the world, they are more likely to shoulder the burden of household duties and childcare during these uncertain times.

The concept of working from home poses its own risks for those trapped in abusive relationships. Although self-isolation and social distancing are necessary to contain the virus from spreading, staying at home can be even more dangerous to women who are victims of domestic violence. “If you’re in a shelter-in-place situation, abusers are monitoring your every move”, warns Alejandra Y. Castillo, CEO of the YWCA in the United States. According to previous studies on crisis situations, stress and uncertainty can increase abusive behavior; for survivors, finding help can also be more challenging as most of society’s resources are channeled into fighting the pandemic.

An unparalleled situation such as the one we’re in should force us, as a society, to reconsider our values. When the whole world is put on pause, there are still some who have to go to work every day: care workers, nurses, grocery store clerks, cleaners, food delivery people, and so forth. Many of these professions that are now, in the midst of a global crisis, considered essential to society are undervalued and underpaid, and often held by women. Beyond gender, any thorough approach to a crisis should also take into consideration race, sexuality, and other factors that may affect how people suffering from an illness are treated. Even early on, the COVID-19 crisis brought on a wave of hate crimes towards Asians around the globe; in the United States, inequalities in the healthcare system disproportionately affect people of color, often denying them the treatment they deserve; undocumented immigrants are continuously excluded from the US healthcare system altogether. A “one-size-fits-all” approach never leads to equality, because it overlooks the existing inequalities built into our society. We should continue to fight for the right values during these turbulent times, so that we may emerge from this global crisis as a better, more equal world.

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