COVID-19 Resources for Working Women
The President’s Council for Women team has put together a document containing the Top 5 Suggestions for Supervisors of Women Trainees & Employees during COVID-19.
Friedman and Westring. (March 16, 2020). World Epidemic Forum.
URL: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/working-parents-school-closures-coronavirus/
Working parents benefit greatly from thinking and acting like leaders. COVID-19 presents the leadership challenge of our lives as parents. How we respond will have a powerful impact on our children and our communities.
Hinchliffe, E. (March 20, 2020). Fortune.
URL: https://fortune.com/2020/03/20/coronavirus-pandemic-childcare/
Employees may be navigating everything from 24/7 child care to care for elderly parents to concern about spouses and other members of the household working as doctors, grocery store cashiers, and more.
Lewis, H. (March 16, 2020). The Atlantic.
“Grim as it is to imagine now, further epidemics are inevitable, and the temptation to argue that gender is a side issue, a distraction from the real crisis, must be resisted. What we do now will affect the lives of millions of women and girls in future outbreaks.”
Luscombe, B. (March 17, 2020). TIME.
URL: https://time.com/5804176/coronavirus-childcare-nannies/
A huge disruptive force like a pandemic can wreak havoc in solid well-run businesses — like, say, the New York Stock Exchange. Its effect on people’s precarious child care arrangements can be catastrophic. “We’ve never had this before,” says Liliana Maslog, who has been a professional nanny for 18 years. “There’s no system or arrangement to tell us what to do.”
Moss, et al. (March 23, 2020). Kaiser Family Foundation.
Key provisions of the Families First Act, which addresses the domestic outbreak, including paid sick leave, insurance coverage of coronavirus testing, nutrition assistance, and unemployment benefits.
(March 1, 2020). The National Child Traumatic Stress Network.
URL: https://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/resources/fact-sheet/outbreak_factsheet_1.pdf
Knowing important information about the outbreak and learning how to be prepared can reduce your stress and help calm likely anxieties. This resource will help you think about how an infectious disease outbreak might affect your family — both physically and emotionally — and what you can do to help your family cope.
Petersen, A.H. (March 20, 2020). Buzzfeed News.
URL: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/coronavirus-covid19-parents-kids-childcare
Everything that was once simple feels difficult, and everything that was already difficult feels impossible.
Smith, K. (March 18, 2020). CBS News.
URL: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/working-moms-among-hardest-hit-coronavirus-pandemic/
“The need to care for children when a school is closed, it is most likely to pose a disproportionate burden on women.”
Strauss, E. (March 17, 2020). CNN.
URL: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/15/health/parenting-emotional-labor-coronavirus-wellness/index.html
“For me and many others, managing the threat of the virus is adding a new and significant dose of domestic and emotional labor to our lives. If you are the mom in the family, odds are that most of this labor is falling in your lap.”
Valenti, J. (March 10, 2020). GEN Medium.
URL: https://gen.medium.com/coronavirus-is-having-an-outsized-impact-on-working-moms-207b955825c6
In addition to the strain these closings put on low-income families — many of whom depend on the two meals a day their children get at school — working parents are going to suffer. Working moms, in particular.
Pearce, Michelle. (March 21, 2020).
Taking care of your emotional health during this time of uncertainty and upheaval is critical. Michelle Pearce, PhD, a clinical psychologist and UMB Graduate School faculty member, shares 10 practical tips for staying emotionally healthy.
Association of American Medical Colleges. (April 10, 2020).
Engaging state and local public health departments, private testing labs, and hospitals — all on the front lines of the pandemic response — in the data collection effort is essential to avoid undue burden on these systems.
Wenham, C., et al. (March 6, 2020). The Lancet.
URL: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30526-2/fulltext
Recognizing the extent to which disease outbreaks affect women and men differently is a fundamental step to understanding the primary and secondary effects of a health emergency on different individuals and communities, and for creating effective, equitable policies and interventions.
Alon, T. et al. (April 2020). The National Bureau of Economic Research.
URL: https://www.nber.org/papers/w26947
The economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 crisis has substantial implications for gender equality, both during the downturn and the subsequent recovery.
Selvaratnam, T. (March 23, 2020). The New York Times.
Self-isolation during the pandemic can be dangerous for those in abusive relationships. Resources are limited, but there are options.
(April 2020).
Five incredible change-makers join “Intersectionality Matters!” podcast host Kimberlé Crenshaw for a conversation about building collective resistance and power in the time of COVID-19.
Frederiksen, B., et al. (March 20, 2020). Kaiser Family Foundation.
Women are more likely than men to report mental health effects from worrying about the coronavirus.
Bayefsky, M.J., et al. (April 9, 2020). The New England Journal of Medicine.
URL: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2008006
The president of the American Medical Association issued a statement on March 30, 2020, in support of continued access to abortion and explaining that physicians, not politicians, should decide which procedures can be delayed.
UN Women.
URL: https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/in-focus-gender-equality-in-covid-19-response#news
The COVID-19 pandemic is not just a health issue. It also is a profound shock to our societies and economies, and women are at the heart of care and response efforts underway.
(March 26, 2020). Catalyst.
URL: https://www.catalyst.org/2020/03/26/coronavirus-layoffs-could-erase-many-of-womens-workplace-gains/
Research suggests women are more likely to lose jobs in layoffs. Here’s why and how to prevent this from happening.
(April 3, 2020). World Economic Forum.
URL: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/women-female-leadership-gender-coronavirus-covid19-response/
As the virus continues to spread, governments, research labs, and health facilities should commit to ensuring that women in leadership is not the exception, but the norm.
Minello, A. (April 17, 2020). Nature.
Academic work — in which career advancement is based on the number and quality of a person’s scientific publications, and their ability to obtain funding for research projects — is basically incompatible with tending to children.