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Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism
Article

Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism

Helen Lewis
The Atlantic, 2020
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Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Eye Opening
  • Concrete Examples
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Writing in The Atlantic, Helen Lewis details the ways that women face outsized consequences in a pandemic and what governments could do about it. As she notes, William Shakespeare wrote King Lear and Isaac Newton’s work flourished during the Great Plague of London, but they weren’t sheltering in place with children. Lewis offers telling anecdotal and statistical evidence that during the coronavirus pandemic women are likely to shoulder the lion’s share of child care and domestic work and are more likely to lose or give up their jobs, all while governments pay scant attention to their thoughts or needs.

Take-Aways

  • COVID-19 makes men physically sicker than women, but pandemics damage women in other ways.
  • Dual-income couples enjoyed the advantages of outsourcing child care, but social-distancing measures upset that balance.
  • The pandemic is even harder on single-parent households.

About the Author

Helen Lewis is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.

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