Now that we’re practically basking in the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel that is the COVID-19 pandemic, it feels safe to look back and sift through some of the lessons learned.
Some were obvious. Masks can help prevent illness of any kind. Driving less or not at all is good for the environment. Staying inside too long is bad for you.
But the pandemic also brought many issues to the surface regarding gender equity, including additional challenges when class and race were factors.
To mark International Women’s Day and this year’s theme, #BreakTheBias, UDaily asked several UD professors for their thoughts on the hurdles women faced during the pandemic and what can be done now that we seem to be moving on to live in the “new normal.”
Alison Parker, Chair and Richards Professor of American History; co-chair, UD Anti-Racism Initiative; joint appointment, women and gender studies
Women of color have paid the highest price for the gender inequity that exists around the world in the way that certain jobs are valued, and how people are paid. What we saw during the pandemic was that the parenting burden was still, by default, considered to be something that women had to deal with, and that they had to adjust to the lack of childcare, the lack of daycare, the lack of schools being open, etc. Many women had to lose their jobs and pull themselves out of the job market. Black women who work as daycare workers, nurses, nannies, nursing aid, all of those kinds of jobs, were under incredible stress. And those women were put in a worse position, because, first of all, they in some cases lost those jobs or did not have the resources to take care of their own children, in order to be able to take care of other people's children or other people's family members. So there's this incredible disparity in the system that made Black women and other women of color the most likely to suffer from the economic effects of the pandemic. If we had more gender parity in pay, and if jobs that are currently considered at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of work and and value -- like the daycare, like school teachers -- if those jobs could be paid what people are really putting in, in terms of the value that they offer for the community, we would see more empowered women.