Gender norms and the coronavirus

This multi-blog by experts from ODI looks at gender and Covid-19 in relation to leadership, violence, economic empowerment, education, health, social protection, youth, data and humanitarian contexts.

Published by: ODI

Emerging public discourses around the Covid-19 crisis have characterised this pandemic as unprecedented and disruptive. This blog asks the question 'how exactly do such global disruptions of unprecedented nature affect men and masculinities?'

Published by: Gender and Covid-19

Article looking at how quibbles over who does the housework during the recent coronavirus lockdown have brought the gender politics of India's homes into the open.

Published by: BBC News

This article explores the warning coming from campaign groups that women across Europe risk being pushed back into traditional roles.

Published by: The Guardian

This article describes the serious plight of India’s domestic workers, laid off with no resources and often little family support, during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Published by: News 18 - India

This article discusses potential post-pandemic positive changes in domestic labour. There are suggestions that gender equity might be one of the winners from this crisis but there are also suggestions of the opposite – that existing inequalities between genders will be reinforced by the privations of the Coronavirus crisis, and women will be the bigger losers from the economic fallout.

Published by: The Sydney Morning Herald

The likelihood is though that despite both parents now being at home, much of the “domestic” work will still land squarely on the shoulders of the women of the house. Like the 1950s housewife, women will be expected to make exciting meals, keep the house clean and tidy and the children entertained – but she’ll also have to do all this while working from home.

Published by: The Conversation

In this final blog of the "Diaries from the frontline" series, the authors examine how particularly vulnerable population groups are affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. This blog looks at refugee children in Lebanon, girls in Pakistan faced with school closures and what this will mean for their education and life opportunities, and similarly girls in India losing out on their education.

Published in: Centre for Global Development

This article outlines the constraints rural indigenous children, particularly girls, face in accessing learning through Mexico’s Aprende en la Casa (Learn at Home) programme.

Published by: Brookings

This post summarises the potentially gender-differentiated effects of Covid-19 on young people’s educational opportunities and outcomes. It also flags a survey seeking responses from front-line service providers on the specific risks to girls of school closures.

Published by: Centre for Global Development

This article shows how one of the most commonly adopted and recommended ways of continuing education during periods of school closure is skewed in favour of better off groups, with gender inequalities in some contexts.

Published by: UKFIET

This much-cited paper on the effects of a life skills and livelihoods programme for girls and young women in Ebola-affected Sierra Leone highlights its role in maintaining education and a range of socially protective effects on younger girls.

Published by: World Bank

This blog notes how Covid-19 has unleashed a wave of international concern for increasing violence inside the home and how inequalities in gendered power dynamics and toxic masculinities faced by women and children around the world are historical, where for too many women and children, home was never a safe place. The authors call for multi-sectoral efforts that address harmful social norms and increased global financial resources (beyond the current 0.002% of overseas development assistance targeted to GBV) to meaningfully make progress on this agenda.

Published by: Think Global Health

Violence against women has surged in Mexico since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but the country’s president has downplayed the problem and slashed the budgets of agencies charged with addressing women’s issues.

Published by: The Guardian

Based on interviews with women’s right’s activists, government officials and secondary data, this report examines the impact of Covid-19 on violence against women and girls in Nigeria and entry points and effective strategies to address this issue. The report notes that women’s meaningful participation in formal decision-making was very low in Nigeria prior to the pandemic and this exclusion continues in Covid-19 response structures. While VAWG has gained greater public salience, there are few large-scale programmes that improve prevention and response. Similarly, GBV is not prioritized due to, for example, narratives around victim-blaming or lack of information on access to services. The report recommends a series of actions and responses in the next 3 to 6 months to prevent and respond to GBV.

Published by: UK AID

Governments need to do more to monitor and intervene to prevent violence against women during Covid-19 lockdowns, Human Rights Watch said today in a report to the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women. The problem may be especially acute for women who face both discrimination and marginalization.

Published by: Human Rights Watch

This is a living document outlining the current evidence on GBV during Covid-19 as well as innovative solutions and recommendations for organizations to integrate GBV support into their response. It makes recommendations to be considered by all sectors of society at the onset, during, and after the public health crisis with examples of actions already taken. It also considers the role that gender norms play in exacerbating GBV or in accessing support such as the fact that women and girls in many countries may not have access to mobile phones, computers or the internet to access support services or to use them safely. Similarly, the brief notes the role of harmful gender norms in exacerbating social and economic inequalities due to the fact that women disproportionately work in insecure, lower-paid, part-time and informal employment, with little or no income security and social protection. These inequalities will place the most vulnerable groups of women at an even higher risk of violence.

Published by: UN Women

Based on the experience of South Africa, the authors indicate the role that alcohol and drugs, gender norms and beliefs about the roles of women in society, and childhood trauma play in increasing the likelihood that men will perpetrate violence against women, particularly during Covid-19. The authors note that the important questions to ask during this pandemic are not whether the violence has increased or decreased (which we cannot answer), but to ask about the impact of Covid-19 and social distancing measures on women and children, and whether they’ve been able to access services. The blog calls to undertake further research to better understand how women and families experienced the lockdown and what informed the reduction in reporting.

Published by: Sexual Violence Research Initiative

Rising Flame initiated this research study in collaboration with Sightsavers to respond to the urgent needs of women with disabilities in India during the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim of this research is to capture and amplify voices and narratives of women with disabilities and to make strong recommendations to ensure inclusion of women with disabilities in social, legal, policy and systemic responses.

Published by: Rising Flame & Sightsavers

Women with disabilities across Nigeria have lamented their exclusion from intervention programmes by governments meant to cushion the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Published by: Sahara Reporters

News article to accompany the launch of a UN report calling for a disability-inclusive recovery and response to the Covid-19 crisis. The report comes after UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, said the crisis was intensifying inequalities experienced by the world’s one billion people with disabilities.

Published by: UN News

This podcast discusses how “gender” roles and norms impact general health and the Covid-19 pandemic. The podcast has two guest speakers both of whom are experts on how societal perceptions and stereotypes surrounding “masculinity” influence the health and well-being of men and women. Through Promundo, Dr Barker has done significant amounts of work in Brazil where toxic masculinity has been associated with the early deaths of millions of young men and Dr Burrell recently wrote the article: Coronavirus reveals just how deep macho stereotypes run through society.

Published by: seX and whY

David Moinina Sengeh, Sierra Leone's education minister, shares a photo of himself with his 10-month-old daughter on his back as he cares for her whilst on a lockdown conference call. The minister chose to share the photo as an example for other men and to challenge gender norms.

Published by: The BBC

In this commentary, the authors point out that there are important gender determinants to both men’s and women’s vulnerabilities to Covid-19, and call on the global health community to unpack and address these early in the Covid-19 pandemic response. They point to best practices and tools from two decades of engaging men in research and programming in the sexual and reproductive health field.

Published by: Global Public Health Journal

This article outlines some of the ways that masculinities have been changing among some social groups and reinforced among others during the Covid-19 crisis in Uganda.

Published by: School of Women and Gender Studies, Makerere University (Kampala, Uganda)

The Men Engage Alliance has compiled useful resources on digital activism for equitable, compassionate and non-violent ways of being men during the Covid-19 pandemic. The collection includes materials in English and Spanish from Men Engage Africa, Latin America and South Asia among others.

Published by: The Men Engage Alliance

This LSE blog provides data from surveys of male and female perceptions of the danger of Covid-19 and explains differences in terms of masculine attitudes and behaviours, which may make men more vulnerable.

Published by: London School of Economics and Political Science

This piece highlights the slow pace of including mental health in low and middle income countries's responses to Covid-19 measures with a focus on Ethiopia. It also highlights how access to mental health care is driven by inequalities. Structural factors or social determinants (of which norms are part) are key to understanding both drivers of mental ill-health and access to therapies to support those facing mental ill-health.

Published by: Addis Standard

This article shows how a mental health programme adapted during Covid-19 to support those in need through online/remote/teletherapy methods. In so doing it found that addressing structural factors (e.g. inequalities in access to health education, internet etc.) and basic needs (i.e. social determinants of mental ill-health) was crucial to the success of the programme.

Published by: Psychological Trauma Theory Research Practice and Policy

This piece highlights how human vulnerability increases during crises which can also lead to increases in suicide rates. It notes that in India causes of suicide since the pandemic hit are more linked to starvation and accidents than the pandemic itself. In suggesting ways to prevent suicide, the article highlights how interventions need to be multifaceted both universally (addressing the social determinants of suicide, including preventing domestic violence and creating financial safety nets) and individually (targeting such as through crisis helplines and guidelines for remote assessment of suicide risk).

Published by: The Correspondent

This briefing discusses the mental health effects of financial inequalities in the context of Covid-19. Drawing on evidence from “Coronavirus: Mental Health in the Pandemic” research – a UK-wide, long-term study - it concludes Covid-19 is putting a huge strain on people’s mental wellbeing and that the burden of mental distress is borne disproportionately by those with less economic security. In some cases, these are people facing considerable existing challenges, such as mental health problems surviving in a destructive cycle of poverty and mental distress, or those facing structural inequalities due to belonging to an ethnic minority group.

Published by: Mental Health Foundation

This article shows how reduction in social interactions amongst adolescents during Covid-19 can have a detrimental effect on their mental health (which are also lessened, to a certain extent by digital forms of social interaction). The article is important as it highlights how Covid-19 may affect different age groups in different ways and also shows how social determinants of mental health (of which norms are part) are critical to understand drivers of mental ill-health.

Published by: PsyArXiv

This policy brief highlights how widespread mental ill-health is, even when not in pandemic contexts and how it can be driven by a range of factors. The brief calls for urgent attention for specific population groups (including women, adolescents, children, older people, health workers), and a whole society approach including looking at (underlying) drivers of mental ill-health such as violence and poverty.

Published by: United Nations

Countries with women in leadership have suffered six times fewer confirmed deaths from Covid-19 than countries with governments led by men. Unsurprisingly, the media has swelled with stories of their pragmatism, prowess — and humanity. This blog asks if these positive outcomes will influence our collective readiness to elect and promote more women into power in the future.

Published by: Harvard Business Review

The Covid-19 crisis is disproportionately affecting women and girls. This makes it all the more important that their voices are equally included in the decision-making spaces and processes where responses are formed. This report by CARE found that where women do have higher levels of leadership, governments are more likely to be responding to the crisis in a way that supports gender equality.

Published by: Care

This briefing is from the UK's Gender and Development Networking highlighting key areas for action and support for women's voice and leadership in Covid-19, including financial support, voice in the workplace, and engaging with existing networks and organisations in response planning.

Published by: Gender and Development Network

Four months into the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a growing awareness for norm collisions between the right to life and well-being associated with the virus on the one hand and a broad array of other norms. This blog discusses the politics surrounding COVID-19 as being, fundamentally, about difficult decisions on hierarchies between norms in cases where they collide.

Published by: Duck of Minerva

This article looks at research suggesting female leaders are managing their country's response to COVID-19 more successfully than their male counterparts and what attributes may be causing the difference.

Published by: The Guardian

Research article looking at why gender equality is good for the economy and society, with the Covid-19 pandemic putting that truth into stark relief and raising critically important choices.

Published by: Mckinsey and Company

This blog looks explores ideas for longer term solutions during the recovery phase of the pandemic. Based on research from India, the blog looks at crisis management that can potentially bolster women’s economic agency.

Published by: Gender and Covid-19

This policy brief highlights the key impacts of the pandemic on women who work in the informal economy in developing countries. It underscores their vulnerability to economic stress, as this demographic often lacks legal and social protections, and analyzes government responses to address the economic fallout.

Published by: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security

This article discusses the International Labour Organisation (ILO)'s latest statement saying the pandemic is a bigger blow to gender-equal employment than it previously feared.

Published by: The Guardian

School closures, massive rates of job loss and furloughing, and a shift to working from home are all affecting how parents spend their time, and how mothers and fathers divide responsibilities for paid work, housework and childcare. But the divide is not even. This new survey data captured how 3,500 families with two opposite-gender parents are sharing paid work and domestic responsibilities.

Published by: Institute for Fiscal Studies