Is coronavirus a 'disaster for feminism'?

14/4/2020

5. Is Coronavirus a ‘disaster for feminism’?
One of the less understood impacts of the coronavirus has been (and will be) the increase in violence against women. Take a second to think why that may be?
1. DIRECT VIOLENCE
Women are by far the most likely victims of domestic abuse (although men, of course, can be victims too, and this should not be ignored) - in places where the lockdown is legally enforced (in particular), victims are trapped indoors with the aggressor, in a situation that is already tense. The first article from the BBC news and explores this issue in Spain.
2. STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE
Until recently, there has not been proper research into the wider impact of pandemics on women (and, yes, the impact on men has been researched; their experience erroneously being used to draw general conclusions for everyone). This, in itself, is evidence of historical bias against women. Of course in more recent times this is being readdressed and the findings are bleak, but not surprising given what we know about structural violence. In times of crisis, women are disproportionately affected. The second article, from The Atlantic, unpacks why this is the case and makes predictions for the coronavirus.
Read one or both of the articles and make a post to the forum. I will leave the subject of your post up to you on this occasion, as there are so many possible threads - pick one and have a pull at it. It would be great to see some connection to the course though.

3 Comments

Emily

14/4/2020 08:28:08 am

Direct violence against women still remains a prominent threat to global public health during emergencies like an epidemic. As distancing measures are put in place and people are forced to stay at home, the threat of partner violence is likely to increase. Perpetrators, for example, may use restrictions due to COVID-19 to exercise power and authority over partners to reduce access to services and support from formal and informal networks. Government and policy makers should include essential services to deal with violence against women in response plans for COVID-19 and humanitarian NGOs are working to gather data on reported cases of violence against women. Thus, all stakeholders involved in COVID-19 responses should raise awareness of the potential consequences that physical distancing are likely to have on women subjected to physical direct violence.

Hailey

15/4/2020 11:14:49 am

The article views the effects of a pandemic through a Feminist lens, highlighting how a pandemic has a negative impact on gender inequality both long-term and short-term and what it demonstrates about the structural violence that is present against women. The article not only points out the more direct impacts a pandemic has on women’s health and security but also the perhaps less obvious aspects including their career and independence. The fact that such structural violence that women are faced with are not so visible as direct abuse often seems to make society and even the victims themselves less aware of the fact that they have systematically been mistreated. The results of structural violence are more likely to attract less attention and not shed as much light on the fact that there is violence taking place, making it difficult to identify and address. It seems that a crisis such as a pandemic, while exacerbating such inequalities and injustices, diverts attention and makes these problems even harder to notice. The fact that politicians (a majority of which are male in many countries) are dismissing debates about gender, insisting that “this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis” reinforces the structural discrimination and reveals how women’s struggles may be dismissed more easily in times of crisis, making them more vulnerable and preventing progress in gender equality.

Hong, Sung-min

15/4/2020 12:02:10 pm

Following section of the Atlantic article by Helen Lewis attempts to summarise the feminist concern regarding COVID 19 outbreak: "What do children kept home from school need? Looking after. All this looking after—this unpaid caring labor—will fall more heavily on women, because of the existing structure of the workforce." With the article's reference on greater female employment in service sector, Lewis proposes the economic downfall to disproportionately disadvantage women.

Before sharing my short research, I acknowledge the statistical misrepresentation of 'gender-based income inequality' where the industrial and employment type is not considered as independent variables. Instead, I considered KOSTAT's 2019 report regarding all registered workers above the age of 20, Korea showed 45% of all female workers hired as irregular workers (비정규직) - which is far greater than the 29.4% of the male (http://www.index.go.kr/unify/idx-info.do?idxCd=4214). This Korean example of disproportional gender distribution regarding irregular workers can suggest the plausible difference in economic impact based on biological sex.

In addition, I would suggest a different scope on understanding COVID 19's socioeconomic impact. It is empirically true for female workers to show relatively greater vulnerability against the outbreak. Nevertheless, we cannot oversee the on-going polarisation between the MEDCs and LEDCs. I view the economic impact of COVID19 outbreak to be severer against the developing economies than the developed. In contrast to MEDCs, LEDCs suffer from lack of technological capacity and trained medical units to resist against the current outbreak. This status quo may deteriorate their response to prevent the further spread of the virus and to treat the infected. When considering the poor infrastructure of these countries i.e. lack of state-funded healthcare services and sanitation facilities, the new virus appears to be more detrimental against the livings of people in LEDCs than the natural disaster or economic crisis as these communities are exposed to biological threat with less or no medical protection.

So lest we forget the minorities who suffer from social-distancing and quarantine period. Surely biological sex will not be the ultimate determinant dividing our fate against "economic disaster".

Is coronavirus a 'disaster for feminism'?

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories