Why We Need Feminism to Curb the COVID-19 Impact
Feminist security studies offer a conceptual framework to identify and understand the gendered nature of security threats emerging from the COVID-19 crisis. Namely, COVID-19 pushed us to think beyond a state-centric and towards an individual-focused conceptualization of security, as a key step in the identification of sources of threats and solutions in the world without passport control for a deadly virus. Westphalian sovereignty offers no protection against the most serious threat the world has seen since World War Two.
Closing borders and imposing lockdowns have only helped by slowing down the spread and alleviating impact on the absorptive capacity of healthcare systems, but along the way these measures have made many of us less safe behind the silent walls of patriarchy, exacerbating a threat of violence against women, an ongoing, persistently unaddressed global pandemic. Homes in lockdown are the least safe place for millions of women and girls seeking help from overstretched, underfunded specialist support services.
Structural inequalities have heightened COVID-19’s socio-economic impact in the same way the virus has gained ground on pre-existing patients’ health conditions. The women’s share of employment in the health sector is high, but gender distribution by occupation shows a systemic discrimination in favor of male workers occupying the majority of well-paid, decision-making positions, while female workers comprise the vast majority (70%) of the nursing and workforce in close contact with patients. The risks these front-line workers take to save lives in COVID-19 crisis are compounded by poor working conditions, low pay and lack of voice in health systems. Women in the US spend in average 10.8 hours more per week doing unpaid household work than men.
COVID-19 lockdowns have generated a double burden on women: 1) Women have been more likely to have quit or lost their job since the start of the lockdown; 2) Mothers are doing paid work during 2 fewer hours of the day than fathers, but spend 4 more hours in childcare and housework. Furthermore, the UN Secretary General policy brief “The Impact of COVID-19 on Women” alerts that based on “past experience and emerging data, it is possible to project that the impacts of the COVID-19 global recession will result in a prolonged dip in women’s incomes and labor force participation.”
COVID-19 is generating a wide-scope impact in almost every sphere of private and public life. Sources of security threats are now located internally, within the borders of states, cities, and home walls.
This crisis has unveiled the gaping contradiction of our societal foundations. The heavily gender-biased care economy that has kept us safe and alive throughout the crisis is an underpaid/unpaid sector of socio-economic organization. Socially, we rely on the power of care to heal the sick, educate new generations, ensure survival of the elderly and fellow citizens etc., while economically this work is not rewarded. The life-saving system of healthcare and its first responders is gasping for air. The essential workers cannot afford healthcare. Those who take on the burden of family care are not even recognized as workers.
Military power seems to be helpless both against these threats and COVID-19. The feminist understanding of security points in a right direction: Addressing the long-standing structural inequalities as a persistent internal threat is a key for preparedness for any new, emerging threat, including COVID-19. One year of military spending would pay for 2,928 years of funding for UN Women, the umbrella UN agency for gender equality (Runyan, Peterson 2014:25).
A reason for optimism: Case study of New Zealand
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern adopted WHO’s recommendations early on and implemented timely, proactive, evidence-informed, risk-based government decisions, combining rigorous case detection, isolation, contact tracing, and quarantine measures along with empathetic leadership for raising population awareness, education and engagement. The decision-makers have learned lessons from previous influenza pandemics that have seen inequitable morbidity and mortality for Māori and Pacific peoples. The measures undertaken, grounded in an intersectional approach, were aimed at curbing the spread of the virus to these vulnerable communities.
New Zealand was able to rely on accessible and affordable healthcare system for its citizens, which made a significant difference in mortality rates (1, 2%). Adopting a gender lens in identifying emerging internal threats, in May 2020, New Zealand resourced domestic violence services with NZ$202 million. Services to rehabilitate perpetrators of violence also received NZ$16 million to help break the cycle of violence. The Government of New Zealand called on the entire population to unite as a “team of 5 million” to protect their families, friends and neighbors, de facto adopting one of the key feminist strategies against a common threat.
In the spirit of understanding power as a relationship of mutual enablement (Tickner, 2014: 47), New Zealand relied on multilateral and bilateral cooperation. Beside an early joint WHO-China mission for scientific learning, NZ Ministry of Health and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade worked closely with WHO to support their neighbors in the Pacific. This included procuring supplies and providing training to health staff within those countries and via remote support.
In conclusion, the country’s success in curbing the first wave of SARS-COV-2 virus in 102 days is a demonstration of how effective, decisive leadership inspired by feminist thought and prioritization of care makes a difference in people’s safety.
What can we learn and apply elsewhere? New Zealand offers at least several universally relevant lessons on what has worked:
- Prioritize people’s safety and wellbeing above other concerns
- Adopt a gender lens in identifying and promptly tackling internal threats (domestic violence)
- Adopt an intersectional approach and learn lessons (indigenous communities)
- A solid, advanced, well-resourced, affordable and accessible healthcare system is a lifesaver
- Empathetic leadership and a call for social solidarity unified people in the time of crisis
- Power as a relationship of mutual enablement protects us all (multilateral and bilateral cooperation)
Jacinda Ardern’s competent, confident, empathetic leadership has been rewarded in a landslide electoral victory in October 2020 on a scale that the Labor Party hasn’t seen over the past 50 years.
Adopting a feminist lens in security pays off!
Further Reading
Tickner, A. (2014). A Feminist Voyage through International Relations, Oxford University Press
Runyan, A.S. and Peterson, V.S. (2014). Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium, Westview Press
