WOMEN: Empowering Our Vanguards Against COVID-19

 

         

Bringing different problems along its way for men and women, the COVID‑19 pandemic has created, and is still creating, a major disorganization worldwide. And being as risky as it is to act as vanguards against such foe, still, based on a data given by the OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus, 70% that makes up the healthcare work force are women.

 Maintaining ground on the frontlines against COVID‑19, the impact of the crisis on women is being put at greater risks. Women face compounding burdens, and that they are over-represented working in health systems. Though, yes, it is true that medical perspective suggests that COVID‑19 seems to hit men harder than women. Fatality rates for men who have come in contact with COVID‑19 are 65-85% higher than for women (WHO). However, as COVID‑19 continues to spread, the impact of the pandemic on women is becoming more severe.  They continue to do the majority of paid and unpaid care work in households and the community, dive head first into high risks of economic insecurity, and face increased risks of violence, exploitation, abuse or harassment during times of crisis and quarantine. The pandemic has had and will continue to have a major impact on the health and well-being of many vulnerable groups. Women are among those most heavily affected.

Moreover, these professional, female healthcare workers find burden of being over-extended as they are also primary caregivers at home for spouses, children, and the elderly, and while also taking on household work. It is no secret that the unfair expectation on women to be solely responsible for unpaid work adds hidden opportunity costs, negatively affecting not only their quality of life and career advancement, but on the advancement of their communities.

 

“It is always wise to remember that others will survive even if we are not there taking care of them. I found out that I feel so much better when I take an hour a day, just to take care of me and love myself. It keeps me from feeling so put upon by everything and everybody, and helps me get through the day. By taking my hour early in the morning, I feel like I get my love first and I get it when I am at my best.” - Byllye Avery, health care activist

Like fighting the pandemic, dealing with gender-based violence is a multi-layered and complex task – one that requires a bottom-up approach in terms of allocating resources and information in order to better enable and protect women. Understanding these issues on a macroscopic level but approaching it in a case-by-case method can empower affected women by enacting schemes and policies that mobilize outreach resources at individual community and locality levels.

In the start of COVID, new forms support and legal safeguards provided by the government are essential to protecting their rights and interests and secure the entry of millions of women around the globe into the formal economy, appreciate their contributions in the community and recognize the enduring value of their presence. In order to achieve this, governments and private organizations must consciously design gender-responsive employment policies to bring more women into the formal economy. A renewed focus on upgrading existing skills and providing new types of training relevant to the new industrial revolution that would render many manual jobs obsolete.

These growing issues like income loss, insufficient access to finance, and major household changes are more likely than not to have longer-term impacts if not addressed, and risk setting dangerous further consequences. COVID-19 has forced donors to re-evaluate how they allocate funding and adjust to the new context, so in the following sections, we look at how some donor projects have adapted their programming to help women cope with COVID-19 and how the insights gained from this experience can be used to rebuild women’s economic standing moving forward.

(Photo credits: World Health Forum)