By Rebecca Mark
Essential worker status, school closures, unemployment, and quarantining within the home, put an enormous burden on everyone. But for women already in precarious economic and social positions, this COVID-19 crisis has meant increasing the demand for their paid and unpaid care work. They are making impossible choices. Many women of color, particularly Black women, are on the front lines in low-wage occupations, experiencing a lack of access to quality health care, high unemployment, morbidity, and mortality.
In the United States, approximately 80% of domestic workers are immigrants and are predominantly women of color. Women are 78% of social workers, 77% of health care workers, 53% of critical retail workers, 46% of medical supply and 38% of food processing workers. Elementary and secondary teachers (approx. 76% women-identified) are pulling every trick out of the bag to teach children online.
Put these numbers beside the numbers of children living with single Moms — approximately 23%. Remember that white women make 80 cents to a white man’s dollar, Black women 62 cents, and Latino women 54 cents for doing the same work. Today, we ask again: why are jobs that we cannot do without —including mothering — disregarded and underpaid with no job security and fewer benefits?
Add to these facts the reality that violence against women has increased dramatically worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic – representing a pandemic within a pandemic — and a devastating picture of inequality emerges. According to Sarah McMahon, director of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen many slogans urging us to just stay home. However, we know that for some individuals, home is not a safe place. The isolation that comes with the pandemic traps many women and children in violent and abusive relationships.” What kind of society tolerates violence against women and girls?
In contrast to the day-to-day reality of COVID-19 life for women, major news outlets have noted that the countries doing best under the current health crisis are run by women. Many women leaders in the United States, at every level, are among the best out there. Members of Congress, mayors, governors, public health administrators, educators, doctors, nurses, and food czars, are fighting every day for their constituencies.
What would the COVID-19 crises have looked like if there had been an equal gender distribution of power, a deep consciousness of class inequity? What if we had placed the values of care, sustainability, anti-racist policies, and child well-being, above corporate gain, military might, and greed? Systemic inequality and structural discrimination have exacerbated the present crises.
COVID-19 is the world’s wake-up call. Addressing pre-existing systemic inequality is the real challenge we face each day and most urgently in every moment of disaster response and relief. The world is upside down and we are standing on the backs of women. Without public policies for childcare, a safe home, healthcare, food on the table, and a fair paycheck even strong backs will break.
All of us need to demand an end to violence against women and girls, an increase in the wages of women of color, and improved access to quality and accessible health care. In government, let’s elect women from all backgrounds, classes, and sexualities to the highest offices in the land.
There’s a big cost for not listening to women who advocate for social justice. There is a price to pay for being afraid of women’s leadership. Today, we are paying that price with our lives. Tomorrow let us welcome the voices of socially conscious leaders who act to ensure all our futures, a livable planet, and one without discrimination and violence.
Rebecca Mark, Ph.D. is director of the Institute for Women’s Leadership and Professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University.
This op-ed was also signed by:
Radhika Balakrishnan, Ph.D., faculty director at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and Professor in Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University
Joan W. Bennett, Ph.D., a Distinguished Professor of Plant Biology and Pathology and Senior Advisor to the Office for Promotion of Women in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Rutgers University
Charlotte Bunch, a Board of Governor’s Distinguished Service Professor in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and founding director and Senior Scholar at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University
Krishanti Dharmaraj, executive director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University
Tatiana Flores, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies with a joint appointment in the Department of Art History at Rutgers University. She is Director of Visual and Performing Arts of the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities
Lisa Hetfield, associate director and director of development at the Institute for Women’s Leadership at Rutgers University
Debra Lancaster, executive director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University
Sarah McMahon, Ph.D., associate professor at the Rutgers University School of Social Work and Chancellor’s Scholar for Violence Prevention. She also serves as director for the School’s Center on Violence Against Women and Children
Isabel Nazario, associate vice president for Strategic Initiatives at Rutgers University
Yana Rodgers, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, at Rutgers University. She also serves as faculty director of the Center for Women and Work at Rutgers
Arlene Stein, Ph.D. is director of the Institute for Research on Women and Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University
Sarah Tobias, Ph.D. is associate director of the Institute for Research on Women and affiliate faculty in the Department of Women’s Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University
Mary K. Trigg, Ph.D. is associate professor and chair of the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University
Kavitha Ramsamy, Ph.D. is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Africana Studies and the Academic Director of the Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities.
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