This article presents a selection of the different feminists perspectives and information shared, with links to further overviews. We aim in this way to contribute to the further discussion for a feminist future. WIDE+ supports and recommends the feministcovidresponse.com website, including feminist principles (ENG, ESP, FR) for a further developed and updated feminist overview of resources.
UN Women and UNDP’s newly launched COVID-19 Global Gender Response Tracker. Only one in eight countries worldwide have measures in place to protect women against social and economic impacts, new data shows. shows the social protection and jobs response to the pandemic has largely overlooked women’s needs. The tracker, includes over 2,500 measures across 206 countries and territories.
We would also like to refer you to a gender and COVID-19 Group on Mendeley which includes ~500 resources related to gender and COVID-19 drawn from multiple sources. https://www.mendeley.com/community/gender-and-covid-19/.The library is a public group, free for anyone in the world to join, access and add. References—articles, preprints, news articles, blog posts, magazine articles, reports, etc.—include those compiled by Dr. Rosemary Morgan.
Another very comprehensive overview in French and other languages is initiated by Claude Vouhy and can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f12hJkAs4gt-8fHc0jQAebVjxAm9WKKy5Q9bDM5cWfE/edit
ILO has published a global overview database of country responses to the coronavirus:
https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/coronavirus/country-responses/lang–en/index.htm#HU
ttps://www.covidgbvtracker.live/2020/04/country-city-news-tracker.html COVID-Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Tracker The Gender Security Project just set up the COVID-GBV Tracker to draw up a comprehensive dataset on the rising number of instances of gender-based violence across the spectrum during the lockdown in many countries in the world. The initiative is calling for organizations that have been working with survivors of gender-based violence during COVID-19 lockdowns to share data.
An interesting genderandcovid tracker: https://aphrc.org/blogarticle/global-partners-launch-worlds-most-comprehensive-open-access-covid-19-dashboard-on-sex-and-gender/. It offers a multi-disciplinary space of academics and development practitioners continuously analysing the gendered impacts of COVID19: https://www.genderandcovid-19.
FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES ON COVID-19
Analysis by WILPF: What has covid 19 taught us about Neoliberalism?
“In the midst of the pandemic, the full scope of the effects of neoliberalism is being revealed. Not all people will be affected the same. The ability to isolate, work from home, homeschool your children, stockpile your shelves, access healthcare, and financially (and psychologically) put your life back together after the pandemic is class, gender, race, age, and geography dependent.
But even though the scales will be different, the problems will be similar. There will be an impact on employment, and in fact corporations are already asking for bailouts; the care burden on women is already massive; the state of emergencies proclaimed around the world will have an effect on our freedoms and human rights; our mobility will be different. But while we cannot (for the time being) do anything about how the virus operates, we can use this momentum to start transforming how our societies operate”.
Unchecked Corporate Power paved the way for covid-19 and globally women are at the Frontlines
Felogene Anumo is a pan-African feminist activist that co-leads the Building Feminist Economies program at the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID).
“The current pandemic is brazenly putting a spotlight on the urgency of questioning, challenging and resisting mainstream global capitalism. If we don’t stop the destructive effects of corporate power on our planet and our health, Covid-19 is here to remind us that nature might do it for us!”
The Coronavirus is a disaster for Feminism
“Grim as it is to imagine now, further epidemics are inevitable, and the temptation to argue that gender is a side issue, a distraction from the real crisis, must be resisted. What we do now will affect the lives of millions of women and girls in future outbreaks. For too long, politicians have assumed that child care and elderly care can be “soaked up” by private citizens—mostly women—effectively providing a huge subsidy to the paid economy. This pandemic should remind us of the true scale of that distortion”.
Self-help kit for feminist quarantine (in Spanish)
Pandemic: informal workers urgently need income replacement and more protections
WIEGO calls forsocial protection measures — such as cash grants to replace incomes for women informal workers. This allows greater financial freedom, affording them the ability to social distance as much as possible. As public health restrictions on movements in public space and on contact with others become more stringent, such measures will become essential to keeping the world’s large informal workforce out of poverty.
COVID-19: highlights the failure of neoliberal capitalism, we need feminist global solidarity
Statement by APWLD: women must be a part of decision-making in national budgeting processes, especially when urgent fiscal policies are made to respond to this COVID-19 crisis. The responses must be formulated with the aim to reduce inequalities, redistribute wealth and achieve human rights. For that, structural change is undoubtedly crucial.
The gender impact of Corona Virus: How to move to an economy that cares for people and the planet, analysis and recommendations by Thera van Osch.
ActionAid briefing about women led localised responses to COVID-19. As 67% of frontline health workers globally and primary carers in families, women are one of the greatest assets to prevent the spread of Covid.
Feminist Resources on the Pandemic, collected by the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy
Article written with WO=MEN (member of WIDE+) and Atria on how COVID-19 is also being used to push back further on the rights of women, such as the recent killing of Carlota Isabel Salinas Pérez in Colombia who could not leave her house (in Dutch).
What does feminist leadership look like in a pandemic? Leila Billing
Chilean womens movement releases feminist emergency plan in the face of the coronavirus crisis
Statement of feminists and womens rights organizations from the global south and marginalized communities in the global north, signed by WIDE+ as well.
European Women’s Lobby policy brief on COVID and Women’s Rights.
This policy brief recognises that the deepest impact of the crisis will be on women and girls, and particularly on those who face multiple forms of discrimination on the basis of sex, compounded with other factors including race or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, sexual orientation, class, and/or migration status. Especially worrying is the situation of women and girls who are made vulnerable by our system, such as sole carers, those facing male violence, those in precarious work or economic uncertainty, all those who do not have safe accommodation, those requiring care, or who already face social exclusion. The brief also notes that people who are stepping in to lead in providing care and support for all in this moment are overwhelmingly women, allowing society to continue functioning, and communities to live in self-isolation. Our solidarity is with every person doing their best in dealing with this crisis.
Statement on Rights at the Intersection of Gender & Disability During COVID-19
You can download a package of free graphics related to COVID-19, healthcare, and solidarity/mutual aid
COVID19: crisis upon crisis in Africa an ecofeminist perspective, from WOMIN
Supporting women environmental defenders in the time of covid
GENDERED IMPACTS OF COVID-19
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/research/carrying-the-work-burden-of-covid-19/index.aspx The project title is Carrying the work burden of Covid-19: working class women in the UK. The project aims to identify and respond to the difficulties experienced by working class women across the UK during the pandemic, and to examine the social impacts on the UK’s labour force through a gendered lens to better understand gender inequalities in working lives. How will covid-19 affect women and girls in low and middle income countries? COVID-19: the gendered Impacts of the outbreak (with analysis from previous virus outbreaks) Why gender matters: impact and recovery covid-19 Coronavirus puts women in the frontline (overview by EIGE on gendered impacts in EU) COVID-19 in Latin America Gender and data resources related to COVID-19 (overview of diferent resources and articles) Gender and COVID-19 pandemic (other overview of different resources and articles) Global Rapid Gender Analysis and COVID-19 in fragile states, where people grapple with addressing this pandemic layered on top of existing humanitarian crises where insecurity, displacement, weakened health infrastructure, and humanitarian access constraints hamper response efforts and exacerbate vulnerabilities. Policy Brief by IRC and CARE.
ActionAid International: Who Cares for the Future: finance gender responsive public services!. The report calls for an urgent need to increase financing for GRPS if women’s unpaid care load is to be redressed and women’s rights are to be fulfilled, which requires developing countries to resist the ideology of austerity and neoliberal economics promoted by the IMF. Messaging has been updated to make relevant to the COVID-19 crisis, which has further highlighted many of the issues the report powerfully critiques.
IT for Change article on COVID-19 and the need for alternative models that work for local economies and small actors: https://kafila.online/2020/04/
What do countries with the best coronavirus reponses have in common? women leaders
A crisis like no other: social reproduction and the regeneration of capitalist life during the COVID-19 pandemic, Alessandra Mezzadri, 20 April 2020
In this dossier, you will find all of Fair Wear’s statements, guidance and reports regarding the impact of Covid-19 on the garment sector. We will be updating this information as and when required: click here.
Updated analysis from the Women Budget Group in the UK:
Crises Collide: Women and Covid-19
Social Care and Covid-19
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Gender Impact of COVID-19 in USA, 20 March 2020
Gender Impacts of Pandemic in Asia, 8 March 2020
‘Gender blind’ coronavirus policies could hinder disease fight’, 16 March 2020
Asia and the Pacific, Gender and COVID-19, Briefing paper by GiHA (at site UN Women)
Gender Analysis Framework COVID-19, prepared by Samantha Turner, Rachel Thomas, Sarah Keese
We need class, race and gender sensitive policies to fight the covid-19 crisis, 2 April 2020
As COVID-19 forces school closures in 185 countries, Plan International and UNESCO warn of the potential for increased drop-out rates which will disproportionately affect adolescent girls.
COVID-19: statement of feminist organizations and social women`s movements in Bolivia.
Proposal for a feminist approach to COVID-19 by YWCA Canada
Levy Institute analysis on Covid and inequality
Resources and analysis from Genanet -Leistelle Gender, Umwelt, Nachhaltigkeit
Read the ‘Covid19/FfD Resources’ with a drop down menu on the different FfD thematic areas on the CS Financing for Development website: https://csoforffd.org/
MenEngage Resource Page with campaigns, actions and materials (such as videos, audio, and infographics): “Digital Activism for Engaging Men during Covid-19”.
Gender-Discriminatory Nationality Laws Add to Families’ Suffering during the COVID-19 Pandemic
In Dutch on how Roma people are locked up in neighborhoods in Eastern European countries where there is no lock down.
Kasiyanna: particular challenges indigenous peoples facing Covid19
Global Greengrants Fund resource hub primarily for grassroots activists in the global South.
Invisible coronavirus makes systemic gender inequalities and injustices visible, Briefing Paper Heinrich Böll Foundation USA.
How are mothers and fathers balancing work and family under lockdown?: https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14860
Rapid Assessment studies to understand the ‘Impact of Covid 19 national lock down’ on women in informal economy working in five vulnerable sectors in Delhi: domestic work, street vending, home-based work, waste picking, and construction work: http://www.isstindia.org/publications
Impacts on women in supply chains:
Garment workers face destitution as COVID-19 closes factories
Ramifications of COVID 19 for workers at the beginning of the supply chain (women in the flower sectors in Kenya
Impacts on migrant and refugee women:
In time of Coronavirus, how are women domestic workers are coping with work and fear
Impact of Social Distancing on Immigrant Survivors of Gender Based Violence
Webinar: LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND – Support Lesvos in COVID-19 times (including possibilities on how to support the migrant women at the Greece Island).
Statement by ENoMW, listing different kinds of impacts.
Women in migration statement on the covid crisis
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-lebanon-workers-tr/lebanons-coronavirus-lockdown-leaves-migrant-women-penniless-and-stranded-idUSKBN21Y2Q2
Impacts relating to Gender Based Violence:
Protection from domestic violence urgently needed for women and children under stay-at-home orders, say OSCE officials, 2 April 2020
Increase in Domestic Violence in China, 2 March 2020
Rise in domestic violence and police apathy in India, 2 April 2020
In Dutch: about how women in Italy cannot escape their domestic abuser, 26 March 2020
We need to talk more about the potential for COVID-19 to increase the risk of violence against women and girls (Social Development Direct, Briefing Paper).
How to stop Coronavirus Lockdown Leading to Upsurge in Violence Against Women (Mwanahamisi Singano, FEMNET)
Women are using code words at pharmacies to escape domestic violence during lockdown, 6 April 2020
Statements and resources from UN Women, including on the shadow pandemic of violence against women and girls.
France: covid-19 trapping women between a deadly virus and a deadly partner domestic abuse, 6 April 2020
European Parliament calls to stopping the rist in domestic violence during lockdown
Violence against women and girls: the shadow pandemic, Statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women
Briefing paper by MADRE, WILPF and others: Domestic Violence Under COVID 19
Violence Against Women & Girls & COVID-19 Are BOTH Pandemics
WHO briefing note on what the health sector can do to address VAW during COVID-19 pandemic.
Impacts relating to Women’s Sexual and reproductive rights
Happening in states of US: delaying ‘nonessential’ abortions during coronavirus crisis endangers women’s health and financial future, 1 April 2020
Coronavirus crisis may deny 9.5 million women access to family planning worldwide, 3 April 2020
Absurd’ rules obstruct abortion access in Italy during COVID-19, 3 April 2020
UK: State control over women’s bodies is an unforeseen outcome of the coronavirus crisis, 29 March 2020
Covid-19 pandemic affecting womens sexual reproductive health
Proposals relating to (gendered) macro-economic policy changes:
Access to Vaccines using the WHO’s PIP Framework and Freeing Medicines and Medical Products from the Intellectual Property Protection, briefing paper by Biswajit Dhar
Women’s role at the frontline and in care requires that governments implement the tax transparcency mechanism, country by country reporting, where multinationals are required to produce information on economic activity in each country where they operate, offers a protective measure to help governments find the information they need to tax companies appropriately – and fulfil their human rights obligation to promote women’s health and well being. Article at TaxJusticeNet.org
A set of policy measures with a gender lens to migitate harm by pandemic(s), 18 March 2020.
Southern African People’s Solidarity Network among others calling for a breach with current neo-liberal trade agreements.
European Policy Recommendations by the European Women’s Lobby, letter to European Commission President Von der Leyen: “member states must also be urgently requested to declare as “essential services” all the support services to women as helplines and shelters for women victim of male violence, migrant women, homeless women and those affected by prostitution”.
We Move Europe call for coronabonds so all EU countries have equal access to borrowing to help support us and our livelihoods through the recession (petition that can be signed).
Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development calling for tax justice to be better prepared for any new pandemic crisis, 18 March 2020.
UNCTAD Commentary on COVID-19 and Gender
Denmark bans tax haven companies from accessing coronavirus bailout money – will other countries follow?, article in the Independent, UK
258 organizations from over 150 countries signed the “Stop the Negotiations” Statement! ( English, Spanish, French).
Principles for protecting civil and political rights in fight against covid-19, by Freedomhouse