TheBlueprint
Designing A Line Of Thinking
Five Steps Forward,
Ten Steps Back
- Anirban
Covid-19 has been one of the most impactful events of this century till now. It seems unbiased, affecting people of all genders, ages, nationalities and races. But as is with many things in life, Covid seems to have hit women in a much more adverse fashion, perhaps sending women’s right movements decades back; it has even managed to put the lives of millions of women worldwide at risk. Their existence is threatened not only by the raging pandemic but also by an age old issue: Inequality.
Covid-19 caused an unemployment crisis at a scale never seen before and has undoubtedly affected women more, since they tend to partake in jobs which require physical contact like domestic work, babysitting, running self-owned restaurants and parlors, compared to men who have reserved in society a throne of high-ranking administrative positions which allows them to work from home during the lockdown.
During the start of Covid, domestic workers, a large portion of whom are women, were no longer allowed to enter gated communities, being seen as carriers of the virus and nothing more. Unfortunately for many of these women, majority of whom were surviving paycheck to paycheck, didn’t have any savings from which their family could sustain until the government allowed them to return to work. This forced them to choose between taking loans in order to feed their families, or being at risk of getting infected from the virus.
I know of a woman who used to enter our locality to provide domestic help to many families. Her husband was a recovering alcohol addict with no job even before the pandemic. A quick chat with her revealed that the initial stages of lockdown were devastating for her and her family. With her being the sole breadwinner of her home and having lost a major part of her income, she had to rely on friends for survival, taking up numerous odd jobs in order to help pay bills. Her comments prove that being able to work with a consistent pay again, even if that wage has been reduced than what it previously was, is nothing less than a boon.
The pandemic has not only affected financially weaker sections, but also women of middle class. While most men can enjoy the privilege of working from home, more women have had to shift to a system of work for home. Out of the 122 million Indians who have lost their jobs due to the pandemic, a disproportionate number of the affected were women.
These women have to take care of menial household tasks, like cooking in the kitchen and taking care of children. Even if they do not lose their jobs, and they indeed get to continue their work in a stay-at-home fashion, the distribution of the household tasks will certainly not be in their favor (much like pre-pandemic). Of the time they get to spend with their families due to the pandemic, a large portion of it goes toward doing chores. The number of hours they usually had reserved for office work is no longer safe either, with family expectations growing with time, they get more comfortable with having the mother figure helping them with their chores.
However nice it may be to spend extra time with family, it sometimes lead to more quarrels, a higher frequency of disagreements. This sadly means many more instances of domestic abuse, with the reported cases of domestic violence reaching its highest in 10 years. This fact is highly concerning, seeing how generally cases of domestic violence and abuse go unreported. Now, with even fewer means of physically reaching help and a more surveilled computer system, voicing their issues has become even harder. With women facing said abuse during the pandemic, (it is crucial that family practicing lawyers are easy to contact to prevent any serious casualties. This however is also an issue that women who face domestic abuse need to tackle, with court hearings taking place over zoom in the same house as the people who may physically abuse them. It is worth pondering over whether the testaments provided by the victim could be doctored by any chance.
A viable solution to the above-mentioned problems might be having the victims stay at domestic violence shelters. However, with the increase in the number of victims that require these services, even these shelters tend to face trouble with housing capacities, leaving some either in outdoor camps or leaving the victims to fend for themselves.
As is the trend with decision making bodies, women’s rights and security is something often neglected or forgotten during the policy making. Sadly, these traditions have not been broken, with rarely any plans being made by the government to help ensure the safety and protection of women’s rights during these troubling times.