Guardian article: Disaster patriarchy: how the pandemic has unleashed a war on women

[RoyalCorgi]

This article is by V, who used to be known as Eve Ensler (author of The Vaginal Monologues).

It's an excellent article, outlining the impact of things like domestic violence, sexual abuse and female genital mutilation and loss of schooling. Yet she writes: "In this devastating time of Covid we have seen an explosion of violence towards women, whether they are cisgender or gender-diverse."

It seems such a stark illustration of cognitive dissonance, when all the examples she then gives are so clearly of women and girls who have been abused and discriminated against precisely because they are biologically female.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jun/01/disaster-patriarchy-how-the-pandemic-has-unleashed-a-war-on-women

And to get back to the article, this para is good:

'Covid has revealed the fact that we live with two incompatible ideas when it comes to women. The first is that women are essential to every aspect of life and our survival as a species. The second is that women can easily be violated, sacrificed and erased. '

Absolutely.

That article by the Transsexual Jenny Roberts is very interesting, and I agree with a lot of what's written, but what struck me was the fact that Jenny's first relationship post transition (with a lesbian Woman) taught Jenny about being "respectful" of Women's concerns.

I quote

"So transsexual women need mentors who will be totally honest (as well as understanding and kind). They need to be shown the boundaries, to learn about changing inappropriate behaviour, to understand that the women’s/lesbian community is very different from the way men perceive it to be. And they need help in letting go of male culture. It is a hard, painful path to follow but, for us, it is the most important journey of all – and we can’t make it unless someone helps us."

Yet again, it's all about entitlement and Women being the support human to a (natal born, in this instance, although transitioned ) man 🙄

Why are we always expected to move over, be kind, help Men 😡

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]Twitter thread

The precarious position women’s rights and empowerment are in really hits me when I think about how covid disproportionately affected women. Too many think of women’s rights as a linear and upward trajectory, like we can’t go backwards.

But the second the pandemic hit, domestic violence cases went through the roof globally. By 30% in France. By 400% in Jordan. The number of rapes in Niger tripled.

Financially, women have been screwed over for a generation. Women were more likely to work low wage jobs already, and were twice as likely to lose their jobs in the pandemic than men. In America, four times as many women left the workforce as men.

They were also more likely to choose to stay at home with kids when schools closed, because of societal expectations on women, and because women’s careers are taken less seriously... in a word, because patriarchy. So more women left the workforce “of their own volition.”

But the part that haunts me is that research projects that the jobs that women lost? Those jobs are likely to not come back. Men are already beginning to return to the workforce in a way women aren’t.

Women are overrepresented in retail and service jobs, and those jobs aren’t going to bounce back for years. Add to that the fact that women who’ve left the workforce are being heavily tasked with childcare and domestic duties? The effects of this are going to last a generation.

Continues: twitter.com/cache_pas/status/1399093432337981440?s=19[/quote]
That’s a really shocking read, potholes

I feel very helpless and angry reading that. It’s so unfair.

I haven't had time to read all the comments, and was hoping that the focus would have remained on the negative impact on women of the Covid pandemic.

But also to say not sure why the Guardian felt it necessary to get a celebrity to write and article that many UK based women's groups have reasearached and reported.

In case anyoone isn't aware of them one of the groups is the Women's Budget Group - wbg.org.uk/category/media/press-releases/

Some other links including an online seminar looking at COVID-19 and Working Lives in the UK: Inequalities of Gender and Class www.womensgrid.org.uk/?s=Covid