Bridging gender divides: the impact of Covid-19 on equality
Covid-19 poses different challenges for women all over the world.
Often, women are caught between seemingly contradictory trends. Depending on who they are, where they are and what situation they find themselves in, women are experiencing the pandemic as a time of regress or progress, with traditional gender roles becoming reinforced for some while others are able to access online education and networks in unprecedented ways. Economic hardship can sit side by side with economic opportunity. Some women’s worlds are shrinking social spaces while for others their virtual world is expanding. Many women are struggling to access health care for themselves or their family, others are the main providers of healthcare, working in the health sector often without proper support or adequate pay. Many need to manage the family staying at home, schooling kids, and providing meals on often tighter budgets; often, in these situations they are not themselves safe from violence in their own homes.
The pandemic has thus highlighted just how much a universal challenge such as the Covid-19 virus is experienced entirely differently by individual women. This offers an opportunity to formulate what new insights we have gained on systemic barriers to gender equality in its many forms. This webinar thus asks concretely what the pandemic has taught us about what is needed for more effective policies that support gender equality.
We explore this question from a variety of angles, asking:
- How can information on women’s experience of Covid-19 be improved to create better policies?
- What are innovative policy and practice initiatives that seek different paths towards building gender equality into their systems and how have these been influenced by the pandemic?
- What are urgent issues that need addressing with better knowledge and policy options to support gender equality during a time when the pandemic threatens to reinforce traditional gender roles in many parts of the work?
Topics:
- The data gap on women and the impact this has on policy, including on health policy
- How money, financing and economic models need to change for gender equality
- How the social space determines women’s ability to challenge traditional gender roles
Champions:
Dr. Mareike Schomerus, VP Busara Center
Her Highness Sheikha Intisar Al-Sabah
Webinar #10
Date: Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020
Time: 09:00 PT, 12:00 EST, 16:00 GMT
The Virtual Victoria Forum 2020, the webinars and the Victoria Forum 2021 are jointly hosted by the University of Victoria and the Senate of Canada.
This webinar is presented in partnership with:
Founding partners: