by As we begin to see glimmers of light at the end of the tunnel of the global pandemic, many are taking stock of the impact of the past year. Who carried society through these difficult months? Who risked their health to care for children and elders? Who risked their lives to make sure the grocery store shelves remained stocked? The answer is, primarily, women.
In many key sectors of “essential work,” women make up the majority of workers who have been at the forefront of confronting this crisis. Most visibly, it’s been nurses and environmental service workers making their own PPE out of trash bags and sharing photos of themselves on social media, with faces bruised and sores on the bridges of their noses from wearing tight masks for 12-hour shifts. Seventy-six percent of healthcare workers are women. Fifty-three percent of building cleaning service workers are women. But it’s also the checker at your local supermarket who has hundreds of people streaming past her in the checkout line during an 8-hour shift. It’s the women who care for the children of essential workers in daycares and preschools, 85% of whom are women. According to the Center for Economic Policy Research, 64% of all frontline industry workers are women. Despite the odds, women have kept society functioning.
Yet — and this is the cruel logic of the capitalist system — women have also borne the brunt of the COVID recession. Over four million workers, most of whom are women, have left the workforce, either through job loss or leaving to care for children or elders (NY Times, 3/15/20). Women’s participation in the labor force fell to 57%, the lowest since 1988, according to government data and the National Women’s Law Center. This represents an historic setback for women financially, but also socially.
In the midst of a global pandemic and a healthcare crisis, a time when our society should be investing in hiring more healthcare workers, many nurses have been laid off, while billionaires grew their fortunes to the tune of $1 trillion (Forbes, 1/26/21).
And with increased social isolation came an increase in the prevalence of intimate partner violence and child abuse. Under stay-at-home orders, many women and children, cut off from their support in the community, were unable to access services or get away from violent family members. This has been further exacerbated by women’s loss of income as they left the workforce because, as the New England Journal of Medicine noted in 2020, “economic independence is a critical factor in violence prevention.”
As we come out of this crisis, it is time to boldly demand fundamental changes to what many recognize as an untenable situation for women. We need free childcare for all, paid staff to provide family support services, a $15/hr minimum wage, Medicare for all, paid family and sick leave, an extended eviction moratorium, and cancellation of rent and student debt.
We are the essential workers who are keeping things moving throughout this pandemic, if not in the workplace, then at home, unpaid, caring for elderly family members recovering from COVID or children who’ve been out of school for a year now. We are essential, not the bankers and the billionaires, and we want what’s ours!
Jobs for All
The COVID economic recession is unique from past recessions in that the sectors which have been hit predominantly employ women, whereas typical recessions have hit male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing. Over five million women are unemployed as a result of the pandemic, according to the National Women’s Law Center report.
As women stream out of the labor market, decades of progress for women are threatened. These job losses occurred in low wage, insecure, and services sector jobs which primarily employ women, disproportionately women of color. In addition, in healthcare, as profitable elective surgeries were delayed, hospitals’ profit margins took a big hit. The resultant furloughs and layoffs came as the need for patient care, albeit less profitable care, surged due to the pandemic. There are numerous reports among healthcare and education workers of burnout, PTSD, and many are leaving, or considering leaving, their fields because of the working conditions.
The job losses in healthcare highlight how capitalist society isn’t designed to take care of you and me and our communities’ health. During a healthcare crisis, a rationally planned economy would invest in hiring more nurses, but under capitalism you saw layoffs and services being cut. And as people delayed non-urgent healthcare and elective surgeries, in 2020 insurance companies posted “earnings… twice as large as the previous year” (Journal of the American Medical Association, 2020). Billionaires increased their profits by a staggering $1 trillion over the course of the pandemic, while hospital nurses worked double shifts and nursing home nurses worked short-staffed. We need an economic system that provides living-wage jobs for all based on the needs of society, not the profits of the billionaire class.
Childcare is Not a Private Matter
The childcare crisis in the US existed well before the pandemic. Plagued by low wages, high turnover, limited availability, and high tuition, neither childcare workers nor families were well served. And now as a result of the pandemic, it’s expected that 4.5 million slots will be permanently lost from daycares. The failed response to COVID, which prioritizes corporate profits over public health, has only exacerbated these problems, which come at the highest cost to mothers.
And while unemployment has hit women hard, the crisis is much deeper than this one problem. Tens of thousands of women have been forced out of the workforce to care for elders or children who have been out of school for a long time, without access to their usual social support network. Without free high quality childcare for all, many women are forced to choose between a paycheck and leaving their kids home alone with nothing more than a TV to babysit.
It’s past time for a solution to the childcare crisis. The recent stimulus plan from Biden is a step in the right direction. But it needs to be made permanent and expanded to include free high quality child and elder care for all, with no means testing, and high quality public sector union jobs for educators, day care workers, and all staff.
End Violence Against Women
At home, many women also endured an isolation of increased time spent with violent partners. A New York Times writer likened intimate partner violence to an “opportunistic infection, flourishing under conditions created by the pandemic” (4/14/20). And as women face worsening economic prospects, their ability to leave abusive situations without the threat of homelessness has narrowed. One in three women experience intimate partner violence — an astonishing number that demands radical and immediate action.
Economic aid to women will have an immediate impact on their ability to leave violent situations when they feel ready to do so. But beyond temporary aid, we need living-wage jobs to provide ongoing economic security for women. We need Medicare for All so women don’t have to fear losing healthcare for themselves and their children if they need to leave violent partners. We need full abortion rights to remove an unwanted pregnancy being used as a means of control by abusive partners. The #MeToo movement is emboldening many women to stand up against violence; now it’s time for a thoroughgoing reckoning of the sexism that plagues our communities once and for all.
Time for a Change
The unique tragedies of the pandemic borne by women demand bold and transformative change. While more directly lethal to men, COVID’s impact on women has been devastating, even more so for women of color. Most women’s pay and working conditions don’t match the essential role our labor plays in keeping society functioning, but the pandemic revealed just that. One thing has become clear — we are not all in it together; the billionaires have padded their pockets while women have struggled to keep their families and communities’ heads above water.
Biden’s first relief package was a big step forward, despite failing to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour or provide relief checks for undocumented workers. We need to use the momentum to make these gains permanent and expand the social safety net, both to better the lives of women and our communities. Let’s use this crisis to fight for a better world for all, for a socialist society!.
Sarah White Kimmerle is a member of Service Employees International Union 1199NW (writing in a personal capacity). She is also a member of DSA’s Reform & Revolution caucus and a working mother of two children.
