Planning a feminist economic recovery

“COVID-19 is deepening fault lines in our economic system and perpetuating pre-existing gender inequalities,” Dolan writes. “Now we are at a crossroads: we can go back to the status quo or recover to something more equitable.” (World Bank/Flickr)

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious gender crisis. In spite of some claiming the coronavirus is “the great leveler,” it’s becoming clear how disproportionately people are being affected based on race, class and gender. The virus – and the economic devastation it causes – is far from offsetting.

The gendered reality of the pandemic

We know that women are on the front lines of the pandemic, especially women of color and low-income women. One in three jobs held by women in the US was considered essential, with women holding nearly eighty percent of all health and human services jobs and more than two-thirds of grocery and hospitality jobs.

Half of all home health and personal care workers – who often care for the elderly and disabled – are women of color. Most of these low-paying positions are still not receiving proper protective gear, health insurance, and decent wages.

While women are on the front lines of emergency response to COVID-19, they also face devastating long-term impacts of the economic fallout. House arrest, coupled with childcare and school closures, tend to place a greater burden on women, since they already do most of the unpaid care work.

Additionally, home quarantine is not safe for those exposed to domestic violence and gender-based violence, most of whom are women, children and LGBTQI+ people. Many anti-violence advocates are already documenting peak cases.

Even before the pandemic, women were paid less for the same work, had less access to emergency savings than men and were more likely to live in poverty. These gendered economic realities will only worsen and widen with an economic depression.

COVID-19 is deepening the fault lines in our economic system and perpetuating the gender inequalities that already exist.

A choice of how we recover

As the country stares at an imminent global recession, we stand at a crossroads: we can rebuild the status quo or recover to something more equitable.

We can recover to ensure all people have healthcare and workers earn a living wage.

We can reorient our economy away from fossil fuels and towards equitable, compensatory care work – low-carbon, sustainable and valuable work on which our entire society depends.

We can rebuild by investing in communities and regions that have been economically marginalized and disinvested for centuries – rather than returning to increasing wealth inequality and an economy that favors the wealthy.

Planning a feminist economic recovery
Nancy Pelosi spoke as protesters rallied at the Capitol for the People’s Filibuster against the Trump tax bill. (Susan Melkisethian / Flickr)

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Fight for a Feminist Economy

These are some of the precise economic recovery proposals being put forth by feminist advocates and activists across the country.

In April, we saw the first explicitly feminist economic recovery plan released in Hawaii, stating that “the road to economic recovery should not be on the backs of women.” Instead, they call for this as the “moment to build a system capable of achieving gender equality”.

The plan describes the need for:

  • a universal basic income,
  • a minimum wage for single mothers,
  • better quality maternal and reproductive health services,
  • free childcare for all essential workers,
  • Direct payments to indigenous communities and
  • Emergency fund for victims of domestic violence and gender-based violence – as well as other groups who are particularly vulnerable in the economic crisis.

For feminists, who for years have dubbed these ideas “feminist economics,” the struggle for a caring and social protection-based economy is nothing new.

This economic analysis, drawn largely by black feminists, immigrant feminists, and working-class feminists, draws attention to how the wealth accumulated by a capitalist system depends entirely on the gendered and racial division of labor, and typically on the devaluation of care work depends regarded as “women’s work”. A feminist economy would turn these norms on their head and turn away from an economy built on them extractivism and instead to one of regeneration and the value of all human and planetary well-being.

Feminist voices are badly needed in our response to COVID-19, from grassroots solutions to governance decisions. Because the US government has failed to provide basic social services to so many people, grassroots organizers and feminists have mobilized mutual aid funds and emergency relief groups in their own communities.

And there’s no denying that women-led nations are generally better off too, with lower mortality rates and greater social protections to protect workers and families. To protect all people, feminist economic solutions must be centered in our planning, or we risk returning to a “normal” that was anything but.

Framework conditions for a modern reaction

The scale of the interlocking crises at this moment calls for a response on the scale that both science and the judiciary demand. Tinkering with the fringes of economic policy will do little for the 36 million people who have filed for unemployment benefits over the past two months and nothing to fundamentally change the system that has allowed billionaires to amass wealth through the exploitation of workers during a national crisis .

Instead, this moment requires a real transformation of our economy and who it really works for. The frameworks set out by the People’s Bailout and the Feminist Green New Deal provide the kind of change that is needed at this moment, and we should look to their principles to guide our advocacy and vision of what could lie on the other side of the recovery.


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