Covid is not a feminist

[hungrywalrus]

Well that’s obviously not meant literally as it’s a virus.

But what I mean is that this has a serious potential for sending women back to the 1950s. No childcare or no reliable childcare will massively impact our ability to work. And what is there to prevent companies from preventing discrimination against parents ( in particular women with young children) at a time like this? When the shit hits the fan, it’s women who pick up the pieces. If it all gets too much, it’ll be women who step back to focus on the home. How can this be prevented?

It feels like the advances that have been made are being destroyed by this horrible disease. It’s depressing as hell.

What do you recommend instead?

Uncontrolled spike?

I disagree. Covid is merely the latest excuse for sexism. It’s not causing lack of childcare, government decisions are causing that and neither is causing women to stay at home, family economic decisions are causing a disproportionate impact to working women.

I don’t suggest they let it run rampant but I don’t agree with some of the prioritisation that’s been taking place.

I agree that it’s placed a magnifying glass over society as a whole so we can take a good look at the fault lines. In too many societies, childcare is seen as a luxury rather than something that is crucial to permit people to go to work. I say this is a feminist issue because it’s been abundantly obvious during this crisis that women are hardest hit by both the childcare and the job losses. If governments think it’s more important for people to eat out at restaurants than it is for schools to reopen, it will result in millions of women dropping out of the workforce altogether. Right now, with potential lockdowns looming I can imagine many an employer is wondering why they would employ a person (woman) who has children.

COVID is exposing deep and structured misogyny in our society and women will pay the greatest cost as this unfolds.

Absolutely agree it is really detrimental for women. I know female single parents who are just exhausted and desperately worried about job security, who as this drags on must now be be available to be called in part time on short notice if needed, or they will be taken off furlough which they need to look after their kids. But there is drastically less access to child care. As bbc reports www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53635932 ‘Coronavirus: The childcare 'jigsaw' parents are facing this summer‘

Afaik no public sector workers are not allowed onto to furlough scheme, the ones I know who can work from home are juggling work and childcare dependent on manager goodwill which is wearing thinner the longer the situation continues, so the mums I know are working all kinds of hours. They have been told to take unpaid leave or use up annual leave to cover. But what will they do when half term or Christmas or Easter holidays come around? The ones who can’t work from home obviously have to find care for their kids over the holidays again with reduced access to childcare. A lot of grandparents are still cautious even if no longer technically shielding. You aren’t supposed to mix households by leaving kids at their friends for the day and taking the other child another day.

And in some families with two parents the men’s work is being protected from childcare (because they earn more) while women’s work is being sidelined to do childcare at the same time as working their own jobs at odd hours plus having been doing the home schooling, and the level of domestic work needed of course increases for anyone with kids home all day. Colleagues without children or with a partner to do the childcare of course do not have to worry about this stuff and get to be seen as ‘loyal’ by the employer.

It’s absolutely shit and these women are still exhausted In this summer ‘holiday’. If this situation continues employers will not want to hire women with kids. Women with kids will be first to be let go if employers are shedding. Or if women have a halfway flexible employer, or have problems in their current job, women will not feel able to leave for career advancement or to get away from a difficult employer as they would normally do (and as some men will continue to be able to do) because it’s always ‘last in first out’ when there is a challenging economy.

COVID has already been a career disaster for a lot of women.

So what happens next? Are those in charge going to acknowledge that things need to change or are women just going to be screwed over for another generation? This can’t continue until a vaccine is found. It’s totally untenable.

My DH is WFH and home schooled our DD throughout while I merrily pranced off to work (yes, admittedly I worked throughout) while he was cooking, cleaning and doing laundry.

I feel in a minority of one. The other women I know are juggling chainsaws while rocking a baby to sleep with their foot.

The establishment needs to screw women over. Because the economy is fucked and someone is going to have to stay home because there aren't going to be enough jobs. And that has always been women.

Of course it's not a feminist, if feminism means somehow creating a society where reproductive role has no significant impact on people's lives.

I don't want to suggest there aren't men who simply don't pull their weight in their families, because of course there are. But to me what Covid has shown us is that some of our attempts to equalise male and female lives aren't all that robust. Sure, there are things we can do to make it look like they are, if we have access to drugs that allow us to control pregnancy pretty well, and if we have the social structures that allow us to capitalise childcare (though we'd better not look too closely at the fact that mostly, that's still women, and if we can have state provided childcare/education for older children.

But when the shit hits the fan, how stable are those things? It comes down to the family in the end, and to some extent the local community, caring for mothers, caring for kids, educating them, and doing all the other necessary things for life.

If feminism depends on some sort of advanced capitalistic welfare state, I'm not sure it's really very radical.

What should happen next is that we all put huge pressures on the government to acknowledge that nobody can do paid work and properly supervise children at the same time (unless the paid work IS looking after children). Let the government think about the problems and opportunities that that incontrovertible fact presents and come up with some money and political will to solve that via clear guidance to employers and individuals and clear, realistic, genuine options for parents. There needs to be some tapering of support for older age groups of children but even teenagers need an element of support from parents so it should be anyone with under 18s that is being considered.

The way that this is the elephant in the room for the electorate but not the government (because just like Dominic Cummings the politicians don’t look after their own kids) needs to be amplified by us all, we absolutely need to demand more via writing to our MPs and public campaigns to highlight this problem. We shouldn’t let government or employers pretend that ignoring differences in employees childcare commitments is being non-discriminatory, because we are fearful of being discriminated against as employees. That discrimination is already there. We need to call it out and act on it.

Is it is feminist to assume all women have children?

Colleagues without children....do not have to worry
Yes they do. If they're amongst the millions of vulnerable people of working age (including many in their 60s). Take diabetics. One in four of the Covid deaths. Diabetics and people with other high risk conditions, particularly those over 40, have a lot to worry about. They have to choose between risking their lives or losing their jobs (and quite possibly the roof over their head).

It will be the disabled who employers will let go first.

Of course it's difficult for working parents of younger children. (For dad's as well as women, particularly the growing number with 50/50). It's just a bit unpleasant and unhelpful to pit groups, both struggling, against each other, suggesting one lot has it better than the other.

Sheep if you read what I wrote (which is different to what you quoted ) , I said ‘ ‘Colleagues without children or with a partner to do the childcare of course do not have to worry about this stuff’

ie worry about childcare.

I quite obviously didn’t say nobody has anything else to worry about. Nobody thinks that.

And there’s nothing wrong with talking about issues that affect a certain group, ie people who do have to worry about childcare. Any one of those group obviously may have all the things you mention to deal with too. There’s no ‘pitting against‘ going on.

Nobody has assumed that all women have children, either.

It’s a horrible situation all around for any marginalised group. But in this particular case we are talking about the spectacular shit sandwich that has disproportionately hit parents. And of those parents, it’s been women who have been screwed over the most.

Nurseries need support and parents should probably be getting some money back for the fees they paid when the nurseries were shut. You might ask where the magic money tree is, but this tree always seems to appear when it comes to anything that directly boosts GDP. There is very little appreciation for how precarious these childcare arrangements already were. Having women quit their jobs means more money spent on benefits and less revenue gained in taxes. Aside from the economic impact, it’s awful from a social impact too. I don’t see why in many quarters it’s treated like a nice to have luxury.

What I think it has exposed is the misogyny of Mr Johnson. All the decisions made by men, most of the relaxations favouring men (golf before swimming, for example), and the daily press briefings almost all by men. The Attorney General's legal opinion would have been welcome on a few occasions, the Work and Pensions Secretary on some others, yet they are nowhere to be seen.

It's also probably shown up the fact that a large proportion of the economy relies on unpaid childcare in the form of grandparents. And of course, when older people are most at risk, most families are unlikely to expose them to the festering risk vector that is small children.

There was a strike in Spain a few years ago, all the grandparents stopped doing the childcare. The country effectively ground to a halt.

Time to recognise the value of care and childcare? Would be nice.

There was an article about WASPI aged women who have lost jobs or are too scared to work as they work in health/public facing roles and are primary carers for sick/elderly husbands/parents. They then experience ageism when they apply for anything else, they feel too old to work and are too young to retire and claim pension. Again it’s those who take on the majority of unpaid caring responsibilities (mainly women) at both ends of the spectrum who are struggling. Covid definitely not a feminist!

I feel in a minority of one. The other women I know are juggling chainsaws while rocking a baby to sleep with their foot.

I feel this a bit - having DP home (I've always worked from home - childcare being a problem when you move as much as we do for DP's job) has actually been a relief - because I can leave the house without thinking about the kids - I was walking an hour day in lockdown - unthinkable during schooltimes when that's a precious child-free working hour, but totally fine when the kids can just stay home with Dad.

But so many others are struggling - whether it's from their partner taking over the living room so he can work - forgetting that mum and 2 kids have to be somewhere too, or, a nursery closing permanently and leaving another mum-friend with no-where to send her 2 year old in September when she was hoping to get back to (a third) job, or another who normally works 2 jobs, but both are zero hour, so she has had no income now since lockdown started.

Childcare where I am was already really tough to get, now with so many closing, and schools still not sure what's going to happen, every woman I know has been impacted, and isn't sure what they're going to do in the next few months. In contrast, my male colleagues and friend's husbands and my partner seem largely unaffected - aside from the inconvenience of working from home, they just don't seem too be worrying about childcare at all directly, although I've heard more than one say that their partner is worrying!

Women, particularly mothers, are the well of the world and everything else draws from that. Except we get treated like shit and devalued by society at the same time.

Lots of interesting points here about the precariousness of childcare in general.

I do think though that this is not just something we need to put to the political level. People in general seem to have such different ideas about this. We see the divide here all the time between those who think we need much more robust government provided childcare (and eldercare too) so all parents can work, and those who think we need to restructure so that parents/family are more able to provide childcare, with not all adults in paid employment. These are not totally mutually compatible goals. restructuring the economy would mean less parents using socialised care, and that kind of socialised structure typically requires a significant social buy-in to be economically justified, they also tend to create different social attitudes to work in the population, and if the norm for parents is paid employment that affects things like pricing of other necessities which limits choices of non-workers.

That's not to say it would be impossible, but it would need a really really clear vision. And I'm not sure we have that as a society.

Why do so many women accept the role as default parent, where this means sacrificing their own careers? Why are single mums nearly always the ones to bear sole or main custody of their children ? Things will not change until women start rejecting these expectations.

When Woman’s Hour covered this, a man immediately observed in a Facebook Radio 4 group that men had the higher death rate from covid, with the implication being that women should shut up about the effects the virus had on them. That seemed to him to trump all other considerations.

Why do so many women accept the role as default parent, where this means sacrificing their own careers?

I think that when society has prepared you for it your whole life, and then you grow a child inside you, you are much, much more likely to be the one who takes ultimate responsibility for it.

Conversely, when you've been raised to always be the centre of your own story, to expect people to sort things for you, and just been presented with a screaming little thing that turns your life upside down, and a partner who feels as above, that you let them make the sacrifices because you don't want to, and they seem to.

@Pelleas

Why do so many women accept the role as default parent, where this means sacrificing their own careers? Why are single mums nearly always the ones to bear sole or main custody of their children ? Things will not change until women start rejecting these expectations.

These are long term structural inequalities... does coronavirus just lay them bare or is it more of a specific/strategic failing in the management of this virus?

I had my career/childcare running like a well oiled machine (with DH playing his part and me happy with the comfortable plateau my career is at, I never have been terribly ambitious but have a lot of challenge and job satisfaction at work). I am now struggling to make up hours and use all my annual leave to keep my job because of no wrap around or holiday care, even though dh a key worker so we had school places for the older 2.

Interestingly my professional body decided they would help out by reducing membership fees and cpd requirements during COVID, they have never done that for women on maternity leave, even if you’re not earning a bean.

@Pelleas

Why do so many women accept the role as default parent, where this means sacrificing their own careers? Why are single mums nearly always the ones to bear sole or main custody of their children ? Things will not change until women start rejecting these expectations.

There are a heck of a lot of women who would fight tooth and nail to be the main custodial parent, especially of an infant or toddler.

It could have something to do with growing them in their wombs, or the months after the birth when they aren't yet entirely separate.

A movement that depends on women putting ideology over their kids has a hard row to hoe.

I think it’s about 99% shit for women For the reasons outlined by PP, but with a slight silver lining. white collar workers and employers are realizing that, yes, it IS possible for people to WFH and be productive. Not having to commute for every job would be a huge benefit For women with families. Not only would it help then directly, but if male partner also has the leeway to wfh that provides her with much more freedom. He can be the one at home who deals with sick kids, pickup/drop off etc.

Unfortunately does absolutely nothing for the majority of blue collar and essential workers who can’t wfh.

That’s the thing: to be able to work and have a career, you have to make adjustments and work around the structural inequality. Now these work arounds have been stripped out. Everything that can make your life easier as a working parent or indeed possible: nurseries, wrap around care, holiday clubs, grandparents etc are no longer reliable or even possible.

Sure it’s possible to work from home in a lot of jobs but you can’t do it properly with an under 5 on the premises. For those who can’t work from home, what exactly has been suggested? What acknowledgement has there been about how hard this has been? Are we getting angry enough about this? I’m not saying just open everything up, but there needs to be a plan. Maybe start with a plan to bail out nurseries that are going bankrupt, routine testing in nurseries and schools, maybe compensatin for business if employees have to quarantine. Perhaps I am naive. But there has got to be a better way than to throw people with dependents under the bus and expect them to just manage.