By Guest Contributor Julia Smith
Speaking at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Preparedness last month, Marie-Claire Wangari of Women in Global Health said: I got it.“Women have risked their lives to save us during the pandemic. We are not going to ask them now to go back to gender inequality or business as usual.”
In 2020-2021, while conducting research for the Gender and COVID-19 Project, I interviewed 200 people on the front lines of the pandemic in Canada, including nurses, doctors, custodial staff, family caregivers, and teachers. I had the opportunity to talk to a woman near me. Interviewees described the lack of care for frontline workers in feminized professions that occurs in high-income countries with established public health systems, particularly when the federal government has characterized its response as feminist. and defined it as feminist, said there is little excuse for such neglect. Based on gender.
female voice
Health care workers whose work is not considered essential often lacked the basic necessities needed to keep themselves and those they care for safe. For example, in British Columbia, Canada, the government did not consider midwives to be essential, even though they were responsible for more than 25% of births. This meant they did not have access to the same financial aid, government supply chains, and support services that other health workers receive. One midwife said:
“We don’t have PPE. In fact, we’re asking our clients for supplies. We don’t have quarantine pay, we don’t have hazard pay. We’re really struggling here. And we’re asking our clients for supplies. We really want to continue to provide care because we’re keeping people out of the hospital.”
Even those who enjoyed essential status said there was a disconnect between public displays of hero worship and the lack of basic necessities to do their jobs. A nurse working in a COVID-19 ward expressed her dissatisfaction:
“We are heroes in health care, but we are not. We are not treated like heroes by our actual employers. We don’t want to be treated like heroes. We don’t even have access to coffee or tea or a refrigerator, even though we’re expected to do all the other things that are expected of us.”
Women reported that their experiences were shaped by multiple and overlapping social positions related to race, ethnicity, ability, age, income, and other factors. For migrants and single parents, it was often impossible to combine multiple burdens with paid care work, especially given the infection risks associated with front-line work. One novice early childhood educator reported leaving her job for the following reasons:
“I was scared that the air would make me sick, because, as they say, the air was very powerful in those days and I was scared that I might lose my life.” Because I’m worried about who will take care of my son if I get sick because I have no one.I have no family or relatives and of course if I get sick However, none of my neighbors are willing to take care of my son because they are also single mothers and don’t want to get sick.”
Because the mother quit her job rather than be laid off, she was not eligible for the income support available to people who lost their jobs during the pandemic and faced severe financial hardship.
The most disappointing experiences reported by the women I interviewed concerned the toll on their mental health from front-line work. People working in long-term care, which accounts for more than 43 per cent of COVID-19-related deaths in Canada, spoke of overwhelming sadness.
“We were losing a resident that you’re very close to, even though they’re house cleaners. We were really hit hard. You become part of their family. Even in death. Well, before COVID-19, you were attending the funerals of these people, because you’re one of them. And they were like, you shouldn’t be one of them. , say we have to break up. How can you do that? You work with these people day in and day out… I have very, very great feelings for all of them. ”
Many noted that mental health services were inadequate. People with low incomes and precarious employment may not be able to afford counseling or have access to technology or private space to participate in virtual counseling. Some women were unable to find services in their desired language. People caring for others at home didn’t have time. Respondents expressed dissatisfaction with mental health care being positioned as an individual responsibility rather than an employer or collective responsibility. One of the nurses vomited,
“People should stop telling me to take care of myself and take care of myself because I don’t have time to take care of myself and just taking a bath won’t cure the pandemic.”
Way forward
Despite these challenges, the women I spoke to were strong and resourceful. Nurses successfully persuaded management to provide additional personal protective equipment (PPE) to colleagues who were pregnant and had vulnerable dependents, and midwives successfully advocated for home births to continue. , women doctors started support groups, and early childhood educators fought to be recognized as essential.
They also provided suggestions including basic needs. For example, ensuring childcare is available around a healthcare worker’s work schedule. More complex changes may be needed, such as moving from top-down emergency management to consultative leadership. The fact that these recommendations come from high-income countries with at least some formal commitment to gender equality means that even in the best-case scenario, women will not be able to reach the front lines without adequate support. It shows that you were placed there and paid for it with your own time and energy. , finances and well-being.
These lessons can be applied globally. Recognizing and pursuing a pandemic response that empowers, rather than exploits, female health workers requires more than just increased funding and feminist declarations (although these are important first steps). System-level changes are required. To alleviate the legacy of patriarchal systems of oppression. If global health leaders want to address gender inequalities in the health and care workforce (as mentioned in the Political Declaration of the UNGA High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response), specific It needs to include both actions and goals. And get serious about breaking away from “business as usual.”
julia smith He is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University in Canada and a theme leader in health and social inequalities at the Pacific Institute for Pathogens, Pandemics and Society. Her book, Conscripted to Care: Women on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Response, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2023. From 2020 to 2022, she served as co-leader of the Gender and COVID-19 Project and continues to serve on the steering committee of the Gender and Public Health Emergencies Working Group. Julia’s research focuses on the social, political and commercial determinants of health, often to better understand the intersections between policy areas and how they frame health inequalities. To understand, we apply an intersectional lens of feminist and critical political economy.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by contributors are solely their own and not necessarily the views of PLOS.