Effects of corona virus on women

[ByGrabtharsHammerWhatASavings]

Just thinking about the ways the virus and measures taken to combat it will effect women. The first thing that come to mind is that if children need time off school/ elderly people need caring for, it'll disproportionatly be women providing that care and probably taking time off work to do it. The second things is the way isolation and domestic abuse will correlate. Women in violent and abusive relationships will be trapped at home with their abuser in an increasingly tense claustrophobic environment. No chance of even escaping to a friends or him going for a walk to calm down. I can imagine that a lot of women will experience their first episode of violence if a long lockdown is initiated. It's also a controlling abusers dream situation. I have a friend whose husband is extremely controlling and does anything he can to limit and control her movements. He's basically got her imprisoned inside atm and won't let her go out til CV is over - for her own safety, of course . Shockingly there's no need for him to self isolate yet, but her and their kid absolutely must be in the house 24/7. It's like all his Christmases have come at once. It's the perfect excuse for abusers to isolate their partners from friends, family, maybe even a way to force them to give up work. And worst of all I don't even know if these effects can be mitigated.

Bigging up one role utterly seems pointless.

Feminism focuses on women dido. Not men.

he is trying to homeschool / look after children at the same time as 'working' then he'd lose his job and get fired (he's in a competitive industry)

It's pretty outrageous that although people are at risk of dying some of these companies still wont make any form of concession to allow people to work and meet their childcare responsibilities.

Feminism focuses on women dido. Not men

Its weird that people don’t grasp this

Its like going on the doghouse board and going...

‘Cats...fab aren’t they’

This is a unique situation. There are posts on here which come across as little more than point scoring.

There are posts on here which come across as little more than point scoring.

Oh absolutely

But I don’t think we are thinking of the same posts

Bloody hell, are you lot still feminists? In a crisis situation like this?

Ive been building an essentials stash in the garage since brexit and only realised yesterday that I'd totally forgotten to buy any sanpro!

This is a slightly old rant but I guess the rage isn't out of my system. A few weeks ago at the start of the hoarding/stockpiling madness I saw a thread on Reddit where some dude was joking that he'd like to go in and start stockpiling random/non-essential items just to freak out the other customers in the shop.

He named three wacky pointless items that he would pile his trolley high with - plug adapters, lemongrass stalks and, you guessed it, tampons.

I didn't know how to respond to that so I didn't, though someone did at least point out to him that some people were stockpiling tampons.

Still cannot form a coherent comment on it so I'm just sharing it with you all.

He named three wacky pointless items that he would pile his trolley high with - plug adapters, lemongrass stalks and, you guessed it, tampons

What a prize dipshit

God what a twat! This has actually been the push I needed to get some cloth pads and I'm glad I did, they're so comfy!

To the posters who are still complaining that we're discussing the effects of this on women and only on women, on a feminism board, just piss off already. Seriously, this thread has had tonnes of really interesting contributions and I don't want it derailed and bogged down with dross just because you can't cope with the existence of a single thread that doesn't involve dick. Just fuck off back to AIBU if you don't have anything useful to add.

So this is a bit of a lighter observation than some of the other posts, and I guess it's more about isolation/distancing than the virus itself, but I've seen a lot of threads from women who are either going out, or stressed that they can't go out, for "beauty maintence" reasons. My dp shaves his head, but I have a pixie cut that's looking more ragged by the day. Lots of women obviously have much more high maintence looks than men, and go for hair cuts every 6 weeks, professional hair dyes, gel nails which need to be put on/taken off in a salon etc. Lots of women seem to be still trying to keep these appointments, and those who don't are unlikely to simply use the clippers like most men will. On the flip side I've also read a lot of posts from women saying they've stopped bothering with hair styling and makeup entirely as they can't go out so what's the point? I wonder if it will change some people's perceptions of the amount of "maintenence" they think they need, or if it will just lead to some women losing confidence and become one more thing they feel stressed about. Its not DV or caring responsibilities or any of the big topics that effect women, but it's definitely something that will effect women more than men.

It might also cause a reduction in the sale of impractical female clothing Grabthar, who wants to wear a skirt, in the midst of a pandemic?

Yeh, impractical clothing and fast fashion in general. The pressure to have a new outfit for each event doesn't really work when there are no events! Tbh it would be good if this shifted people's thinking away from shopping as a leisure activity because that's one of the changes we need to make anyway to tackle the climate crisis.

One of the consequences of health care givers being mostly women is that while men are said to be more susceptible to the coronavirus more women have died of it here in Washington State than men.
It is my suspicion that susceptibility is overdetermined.

I don't think women are less likely to catch it for any medical reasons, only because in some societies they are less exposed to it.

In relation to health outcomes it is not clear if there is any underlying medical reason why outcomes for women are better or whether it is because they are less likely to have other factors that pre dispose them e.g smoking.

The thing is that most medical research excludes women because they are too "difficult" to study. Suddenly, lower death rate and medical science is all over studying women. Saw a comment on Twitter that isn't it interesting how suddenly data broken down by sex is seen as valuable ... as a way to cure / help men?!

The lower death rate could be anything but will need studying.

Men are more likely to smoke than women, especially older men and especially in China and Italy (where much of the data is coming from).

TinselAngel

It might also cause a reduction in the sale of impractical female clothingGrabthar, who wants to wear a skirt, in the midst of a pandemic?

Oh bore off. That has to be the stupidest comment I've seen so far on the topic.

most medical research excludes women

No it doesn't.

I know NAMALT etc. but I really need to hear some stories of men stepping up because I personally don't know any.

Dp is at home with dd most days as I need to be in school and he can WFH. He is doing all the cooking and cleaning and doing his best to teach her while also keeping his business going. She is loving it so far (only day 3 to be fair). I am loving coming home to a cooked meal every night!

No it doesn't.

haha. Attached a few clips from just the first few pages of the chapter on medical issues for women in the book, Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez. For more detail, feel free to go and buy the book.

Talking about unisex NHS equipment.
I have a box of masks here and they are one size only.
Faceache tiny - I have a large head for a woman and wear men's size hats as I can never get womens hats to fit
The mask I've been wearing all morning has left welts all over my face and is so painful I don't think I can stand a whole afternoon of it.
God knows how the male staff can stand it because I can't.

haha

I knew you'd post those links, and they are totally true.
But you said "most medical research excludes women".
Not true.

I’ve just had the results of my smear test back and I’ve been called into hospital later this week for a colposcopy. I’m nervous about going into a hospital at this time and I’m even more nervous that procedures like these could be cancelled at any time. On top of being nervous about the procedure and the results from it too.

I wonder if it will change some people's perceptions of the amount of "maintenence" they think they need
If you listen to women who are into skin care or make up or fashion, many of them lead very challenging lives and treasure this small amount of time that they spend purely on themselves. Of course it's unnecessary and arguably pointless, as is icing cakes or growing cacti or listening to The Archers. But self care is important at a time like this, particularly if you spend much of your life looking after other people, and hierarchies of worthiness are not helpful.

Oh bore off. That has to be the stupidest comment I've seen so far on the topic.

Wow, what an incredibly rude overreaction. Who on Earth gets this belligerent and aggressive when someone suggests not all women love wearing skirts... oh. I will try to forget i thought that question. And since then there has been some Well Actually-ing, a WATM, and even an attempt at "any criticism of the beauty industry is antifeminist" with a massively hamfisted accompanying attempt at a guilt trip. I guess this thread is rustling some jimmies.

It is lowkey infuriating that it took a health crisis that primarily affects men to force public health agencies to start collecting sex-disaggregated data without "gender" fogging up the stats. But hopefully now they've started doing it, it will be easier to hold their feet to the fire to make them continue doing it in future.