It is the socially and economically disadvantaged who are the ones bearing the brunt of this insidious virus. What is in store for us from the COVID-19 pandemic is not just a recession, but also a “shecession,” one that will destroy the financial independence and freedom of many women, in a very unequal and unpredictable manner.
A FRANCIS OFM
A ludicrous rhetoric is being circulated about the COVID-19 pandemic that it is a ‘great-equalizer’. High-profile politicians, religious leaders of substantial standing, and even celebrities continue tweeting it, without enquiring the overarching impact of this pandemic.
The equalizing rhetoric
Is COVID-19 truly an equalizer? Evidence of the impact of COVID-19 on the 58 million people who are infected (at the time this article is being written), on the rest of the people and communities across the globe is the solid proof that it is not an equalizer!
The proof of the pudding, the proverbial wisdom says, is in the eating! If it is ‘an equalizer’, as they say, then how or whom does it equalize?
No one, of course, would challenge the stark fact that this fatal, life-threatening virus can infect anyone regardless of their fame, prestige, wealth, colour, cast or creed. We see it in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas; in fact, we see it all over the world. All are affected; the affluent, the pauper, men and women, black, white and brown alike can equally get infected.
One could only say that it is in humanity’s lack of immunity to COVID-19 that all are equal, and here ends the equalizing rhetoric!
The staggering reality
The fact of the global lack of immunity to COVID-19, is important, but is only a single narrative in the larger story of a health tsunami that continues to unleash horrendous destructions on people around the globe. The staggering reality about the bigger, multilayered story is that it is the poor, who are being disproportionately affected by it! It is the socially and economically disadvantaged who are bearing the brunt of this insidious virus. “The virus itself is affecting poor people, and it has a massive impact on poor nations”, says Dr. David Nabarro, the World Health Organization’s special envoy for the COVID-19 response. Many convincing statistics from the United States indicate that blacks and people of colour are among those most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. On 20 May, 2020, the English daily newspaper, ‘The Guardian,’ reported that in the United States, three times as many black people have died from COVID-19 than white folks. A more recent finding on race-based data on COVID-19 in the city of Toronto, Canada, reported that 81% of city’s COVID-19 cases are from the communities having a large number of recent immigrants, many of whom are people of colour. The same study highlights the fact that families with lower incomes are disproportionately affected by the disease.
Impact on gender equality and women’s rights
When analyzing the impact of COVID-19 on the socially and economically disadvantaged, we certainly have to talk about its impact on women around the world. Although more men have died from the virus than women, it is possible that women have stronger immune systems, global statistics suggest that the distribution of people affected by the virus are split equally between male and female. Looking beyond mortality rates however, women are definitely facing multiple impacts of the pandemic, both directly and indirectly. The significant ripple effects of the pandemic on women is squarely echoed in the warning given by the António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, UN Secretary General, earlier this year. His words are worth remembering as the pandemic is deepening; “COVID-19 could reverse the limited progress that has been made on the gender equality and women’s rights.” This seems shocking, but it is observed to be happening in many parts of the world.
The 1 August, 2020 issue of ‘Lancet,’ the world’s oldest and best-known general medical journal, sheds light on the unequal impact of COVID-19 globally. Referring to the 740 million women employed in the informal economy, it indicates that the social and economic constraints of the lockdown are causing a quick disappearance of their jobs. This poses catastrophic consequences for women in many countries, especially poor ones, amplifying their already precarious existence from impoverishment to destitution. Drawing from the UNESCO’s statistics on 1.52 billion children around the world who are unable to go to school during the lockdown, the journal highlights the staggering impact on girls in some countries: “Some of them will not return to school. Out of education, girls face a heightened risk of female mutilation and early marriage. Schools are a safe environment for vulnerable girls; they can provide sanitary towels, for example, and protect them from certain abuses… Losing this protection has huge implications for health, including in terms of teenage pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections.”
The depressing implication of a ‘shecession’
What is most depressing about the impact of COVID-19 is that the protracted miseries of women from COVID-19 will not be resolved either when a vaccine is developed for the prevention of the spread of the illness, or with the pandemic ending. It will continue to negatively impact women for a long time, the length and depth of which, unfortunately, we cannot predict or foresee right now. This is what causes many people to believe that what is in store for us from the COVID-19 pandemic is not just a recession, but specifically a “shecession,” one that will destroy the financial independence and freedom of many women, in a very unequal and unpredictable manner.
Should we then consider the COVID-19 pandemic to be a ‘great equalizer’? It is important to add another relevant question that arises from this; “So what does this imply for each of us?” It implies that we do not forget our role of advocacy for the socially and financially disadvantaged, particularly for girls and women finding their place in the global effort to recover from the pandemic. Our work, while getting through the pandemic, needs to be built on the value of inclusivity, of building a better future for everyone.
No one should be left out.∎
A Francis is a certified clinician and supervisor in psychotherapy, and marriage, family and couple therapy and works in a multicultural community setting of the Greater Toronto, Canada.
