photo courtesy dreamstime
Former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
A mind-bendingly mean year for nearly everyone, 2020 has inflicted particular damage on women, as well as on non-binary and transgender people. I do find reason, thanks to the strength in women everywhere, for hope, hard-won but real. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — may her memory be a blessing and a guide — said, “Women belong in all places where decisions are being made.” Little by slow, we come closer to a world where women are no longer the exception.
Here are the stakes: Domestic abuse and violence have risen around the globe during the COVID-19 crisis, as in other pandemics before it, with disproportionate harm to women and girls. Reporting intimate-partner violence, difficult under any circumstances, is that much tougher when a victim is confined to a home shared with her abuser.
Access to sexual and reproductive healthcare has contracted; unsafe abortions and teen pregnancies both tend to rise during pandemics. The journal Nature reports that a family-planning organization, Marie Stopes International, expects 2.7 million extra unsafe abortions to occur this year than average. Meanwhile, the UN Population Fund anticipates up to 7 million unanticipated pregnancies globally in 2020.
In some places, new mothers have faced with labor and delivery solo, when hospitals’ COVID-19 policies dictate no one may accompany the patient. While pregnant, then once home with a new baby, new mothers’ standard support systems have been discombobulated by the pandemic.
Workers have lost jobs on a staggering, generation-defining scale, and again, women are affected disproportionately. Many of the first-to-vanish positions were those held by more women: jobs in the gig economy; in retail, restaurant, and hospitality organizations; in childcare; in the travel industry.
When schools shifted to virtual learning and kitchen tables became classrooms, the burden of childcare, already heavier for mothers on average, grew crushing for some. Many responsible, involved fathers shoulder this burden alongside their partners or co-parents, or on their own. I’m married to a man of this variety, as it happens: He isn’t alone in this respect, but neither is he the norm.
The hardships of this moment — this endless string of moments: pandemic, social reckoning, economic fragmentation, the western edge of the country on fire — can feel overwhelming. But they don’t tell the full story.
Much of the activism defining and clarifying our cultural landscape has been imagined by women.
Women-led countries have seen markedly better outcomes during the pandemic, and it doesn’t seem to be a statistical anomaly. In an interview for this month’s cover story, I asked Marjorie Hass, president of Rhodes College, about how she understands the phenomenon of women’s leadership in the age of COVID-19. After noting that it’s “overly simplistic” to ascribe certain leadership styles to certain genders — I agree — she suggested that women and non-binary people in leadership roles are by necessity more consciously aware of choosing their own pragmatic blends of traditionally ‘male’ traits, like decisiveness, and traditionally ‘female’ traits, like empathy.
Much of the activism defining and clarifying our cultural landscape has been imagined by women, and Black women in particular; the Black Lives Matter movement was founded, in 2013, by Black women Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Their work set in motion a shift that has seen, in 2020, public support of Black Lives Matter surge. A June 2020 Pew Research Center poll found that 67 percent of Americans support the movement.
Plus. There’s an election on. By the time many readers peruse our next issue, conceivably this country will have elected a woman as its next Vice President, for the first time ever. Also conceivably, we could be mired in a court battle or god knows what else. What we know for sure is that women’s votes will be critical in determining the election’s outcome. Women vote at consistently higher rates than their male counterparts, typically about four percentage points higher. We’ve only been allowed to vote for 100 years; maybe we’re making up for lost time.
(Early voting in Tennessee opens October 14 and runs through October 29. Whether you vote early, absentee, or on Election Day, November 3, please make a plan today for how you’ll vote, and commit to following through. Tennessee residents can find most information you might need at govotetn.com.)
The October issue of Memphis includes the stories of an array of dynamic local women. You’ll read about the distinguishing work they do, the growth they facilitate, and the beauty they create. These stories are joined by a common theme: finding hope and possibility in a time of great pain, and I hope you find inspiration in these pages. I do. There’s not any one synonym for the word hope, and there’s no substitute for the thing itself. Hope bolsters us as we face the mess before us, and guides us as we create a better, kinder world ahead.
