A “Disaster for Feminism”: How COVID-19 has Increased Gender Inequality Across the World
Since the start of the global pandemic, the world has seen a paradigm shift in most aspects of life. Monday blues have been replaced by cabin fever; private and corporate life now merge, with makeshift work-from-home set-ups; and religious events and social gatherings now take place virtually on video calls and other online platforms. Though the majority of the world has experienced disruptive health and safety regulations such as lockdowns, individual experiences of COVID-19 are differentiated, depending on, inter alia, race, class, and gender.
The pandemic, specifically governments’ implementation of lockdowns, has disproportionately impacted women and exacerbated gender inequality worldwide. While research shows that men are more likely to experience severe health complications from the virus, the pandemic poses a more potent socio-economic sting for women and girls. COVID-19 jeopardises milestone steps made towards gender equality over the last 30 years. Forecasts estimate that an additional 47 million women and girls will be pushed into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic. This pandemic is truly a “disaster for feminism”, as journalist Helen Lewis asserts in her piece in The Atlantic.
The Burden of Care Work
COVID-19 has highlighted just how deep the roots of normative gender expectations lie. The term “care work” is almost instantaneously associated with women — and the data supports this. Women bear the brunt of unpaid care work responsibilities, which consists of childcare, cooking, cleaning; the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 75 percent of unpaid care work globally was carried out by women before the pandemic. The pandemic has worsened this — the closure of schools and childcare facilities during lockdowns has added even more work to women’s responsibilities, as they are now forced to entertain their children and assist in their home-learning throughout the day. In India, women’s time spent carrying out unpaid care work increased by 30 percent as a result of the pandemic. A similar phenomenon is observed in more economically developed countries, such as the United States.
The asymmetrical distribution of unpaid care work has dire implications on women’s participation in the labour force; a greater amount of household responsibilities leaves women with less time to focus on their jobs. Between February and June 2020 in the United Kingdom, women increased their time spent on housework, childcare and home-schooling duties by 5.7 hours a week as compared to their male counterparts. As a result, women spent approximately three hours less a week working on their career than men did. In households around the world, COVID-19 has amplified the double burden imposed on women to concurrently work from home and carry out the bulk of domestic roles. Men, on the other hand, who are working from home are not expected to carry an equal load of domestic responsibilities. As a result of this, many women have been permanently excluded from the workforce as they are unable to juggle both their jobs and care work. This could have a lasting effect in the long-run, as women are unlikely to return to the workforce unless they are able to find alternative ways of “subcontracting” their care-work, by employing paid care workers or nannies, for example.
This gender imbalance is not exclusive to the private sector and can be seen in the public domain too; the paid care work market is mostly driven by women. Globally, women comprise 70 percent of the health and social care sectors. In the EU alone, women make up 93 percent of childcare workers, 86 percent of personal care workers, and 95 percent of domestic cleaners. As mostly women occupy the jobs of nurses, midwives, care workers and community health workers, they are more susceptible to contracting COVID-19, especially as there has been a lack of proper sanitation and protective gear available to them. Thus, with health and social care sectors consisting mostly of women, they are bearing the brunt of the work in the fight against COVID-19.
This suggests that the reasons for women as primary unpaid care-workers are not solely due to economic factors, but rather there is a deeply-rooted gender expectation present.
Overrepresentation of Women in the Informal Sector
Another issue that COVID-19 has exposed (and exacerbated) is the overrepresentation of women in the informal sector, which is less regulated and financially insecure. Approximately 740 million women worldwide work in the informal economy, and their incomes have declined an average of 60 percent during the first month of COVID-19 alone. In India, 94 percent of female workers are part of the unorganised economy; this includes jobs such as street vendors, market traders, domestic workers for wealthy families, amongst other things. Thus, lockdowns and severe economic slowdowns mean that the livelihoods of a large proportion of low-income women are at risk.
Healthcare and Domestic Violence
Inadequate access to healthcare and increased levels of gender-based violence are two issues that the pandemic (and more specifically, national lockdowns) has exacerbated for women and girls across the globe.
Prior to the pandemic, many women and girls received inadequate access to reproductive health services and hygiene products; COVID-19 has worsened this issue. In some countries, like Brazil, reproductive health services were categorized as not “essential” and forced to close, despite the World Health Organisation’s advice on prioritising reproductive health services. In other countries, public healthcare facilities, including those that offered services for women, have been repurposed to be used for COVID-19. Even in countries where these services were still available for women and girls, the pandemic has made it increasingly difficult for them to access these services. This is especially difficult for women and girls who live further away, in rural areas and the outskirts of cities, and do not have access to transport. Marie Stopes International, an international NGO which provides contraception and safe abortion services in 37 countries, estimated that the closure of their services would result in nearly 9.5 million women and girls losing access to contraception and safe abortion services, 2.7 million unsafe abortions, and 11,000 pregnancy-related deaths. Along with unwanted pregnancies, another significant concern is that disruptions in supply chains and limited access to contraception may increase the virulence of sexually transmitted infections.
Secondly, domestic violence rates have increased significantly in every part of the world as a result of lockdowns. In countries like India, Argentina, France and Singapore, there have been exponential increases in reports of domestic violence and calls to domestic abuse hotlines. Reports of gender-based violence in Colombia increased by a staggering 175% from the previous year. Conversely, in other countries, reports and calls to hotlines have decreased because women have less access to computers or telephones to report these crimes. The pandemic and the quarantine measures that have been imposed have increased the three key triggers (stress, alcohol consumption and financial difficulties) for intimate partner violence. Women, on the other hand, have been trapped in abusive situations due to less opportunities for social contact outside of the home and limited access to hotlines, shelters and counselling.
Changing How We Think About Gender
For so long, the international political economy has operated under a modus operandi that is biased towards masculine leadership. In addition to patriarchal frameworks that favour men in positions of power, before the pandemic, “good” leadership was associated with masculine qualities of leadership (such as assertiveness, strength and machismo). Thus, women in power often had to adhere to the masculine modus operandi in order to be taken seriously. However, COVID-19 has highlighted an interesting trend: Women’s leadership is proving to be highly successful in managing the pandemic and the array of complex socio-economic issues tied to it. Research shows that due to gender differences in risk aversion and leadership styles, female leaders have managed the pandemic better. While men tend to focus more on the final outcome and lead with a more task-oriented style, women place greater emphasis on ensuring a holistic process and adopt a more interpersonally-oriented approach. This is exemplified through the cases of Taiwan, New Zealand, Belgium and Germany where female leaders led with greater compassion and empathy, and used a more democratic and participative approach. Despite the disastrous effects of COVID-19 on gender equality, this could break ground for the emergence of a more gender-equal way of thinking.
Will we see a shift in the mindsets that previously equated feminine traits in leadership to weakness? Or a greater recognition that those in positions of power, including men, can use “feminine” leadership ideals to lead successfully? Or will we retain the misogynistic mindsets and patriarchal practices, such as women as carers, highlighted by COVID-19? While only time will tell us the answers to these questions, it is high time for a shift in how the world perceives gender.
