COVID-19’s American Anniversary, and an Anniversary of a Different Kind [Contributing Writers Series]

COVID-19’s American Anniversary, and an Anniversary of a Different Kind

By Annie Jones, M.A., Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida

This is an installation of a new Contributing Writers Series, focusing on bridging sectors and giving partners a spotlight to share on important issues.

The fact that Women’s History Month and America’s COVID-19 anniversary co-occur provides a unique lens to reflect on our history and analyze our present. Almost exactly one year ago, The Atlantic published a piece titled, “The Coronavirus is a Disaster to Feminism.” Their pessimistic vision highlighted how school closures in particular had the potential to lead to an increase in unpaid household labor done by women. The article argued that the pandemic would essentially send women in the United States back into a state of dependency. It is true that COVID-19 has impacted women, especially mothers, quite hard over the past year. Below I will explore some of these statistics to show how women have experienced the brunt of issues caused by COVID-19 in the U.S. Taking this in a more optimistic direction, though, I look to our foremothers who fought for women’s suffrage just over a century ago to uplift our expectations of what can come next for women’s progress in the U.S.

Women and COVID-19

Revisiting The Atlantic article a year later, many of their predictions about women’s labor have come true. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that in the summer of 2020, 32% of women between the ages of 25 and 44 were not working during the pandemic due to childcare issues, which is almost three times the number of men who were in the same situation. The Pew Research Center has also recorded a handful of troubling statistics over the past year: Working moms are more likely to be struggling with work-life balance and are worried about having their hours reduced or being turned down for a promotion; Women have been more likely than men to have had their pay cut or lost employment; Women are less likely than men to have emergency rainy-day funds and to be able to borrow money in case of income loss. Consequently, women are also significantly more stressed and depressed than men. Furthermore, the American Medical Association reports that women make up 80% of the health care workforce. Not only have women taken a role on the frontline of fighting the virus in hospitals across the country, but they have been disproportionately burdened behind the scenes as daily life shifted in major ways due to COVID-19.

Women in Education and COVID-19

The pandemic’s impacts on higher education will also disproportionately impact women. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 50% of undergraduate students are independents, with 60% of this group being women. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research analyzed NCES data and found that almost a third of women undergraduates are parents, 60% of whom are single parents. This paints a troubling picture of a large portion of undergraduate women who have had to deal with massive shifts in both their own and their children’s education experiences throughout the past year. Education is valued as a mechanism for mobility, but a large population of our students are left to struggle in the face of crisis. There is a critical need to view COVID-19’s impacts on education through a feminist lens. We must be advocating for an increase in resources like childcare, flexible academic programs for moms, and more financial support for our students.

gazing back for a direction forward

Is the pandemic a disaster for feminism because it has been a disaster for women? Looking to the experiences of feminists of the past, we can imagine a world in which crisis leads to progress.

The 19th Amendment was passed in the middle of the 1918 global pandemic. When I learned of women’s suffrage growing up, the context of feminists fighting for progress in the middle of a pandemic was only briefly touched on. It wasn’t until the past year that this context was given a new frame of reference. Suffragettes took on critical roles to respond to the 1918 pandemic. Time Magazine reports that women joined health care professions and filled gaps in the workforce left by men who were dying of the flu or fighting in World War I. Women became the backbone of a society in crisis. Additionally, the progress of women impacted progress in education. The National Bureau of Academic Research attributes a significant rise in funding to public schools during this time to the suffrage movement.

It is often hard to see any silver lining as we head towards the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. One thing we can do, though, is learn from the suffragettes. By jumping in to fill essential gaps in the workforce and health care, the women of the suffrage movement showed the world that recognizing women’s value is essential to social progress. The women of the suffrage movement also fought to uplift others in their quest for liberation. The 1918 pandemic could have literally been a disaster for feminism. Instead, the crisis highlighted our ability to adapt to the unknown, taking care of families and neighbors while simultaneously fighting for the right to vote. Contemporary women turn history to tradition by (again) rising to the challenge during a global health crisis.

Today we have experienced over 500,000 lost, individuals suffering in social isolation, and economic disaster. As our experiences with COVID-19 continue to exacerbate inequalities, there is a unique opportunity to rally around the progress that women in this country urgently need. We must not allow COVID-19 to be a disaster to feminism as The Atlantic article suggested. A feminist lens on COVID-19 can provide direction for the future. This lens tells us that we must take a stand for progress and advocate for what women desperately need: universal childcare, universal health care, and free public college education. If we ignore the pandemic’s impact on women, we will be doing a disservice to those who sacrificed and fought for the right to vote in circumstances eerily similar to what we are going through today.

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Annie Jones, M.A., is a graduate student pursuing her Ph.D. in the Sociology Department of the University of Central Florida, and is UpliftED’s Student Representative & Stakeholder. This is an installation of a new Contributing Writers Series, focusing on bridging sectors and giving partners a spotlight to share on important issues.