ROUNDTABLE: Critical Voices on the Gendered Impact of The COVID-19 Crisis on Policies, Politics, and Lives

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has nakedly shown our vulnerability, our need of caring each other, and the importance of sustaining life beyond production. It has also brought in, in a quite more evident way than before, the need for a sustainable life that should be also considered in any productive activity, and the crisis of care that feminists have been problematising already for some decades now. Essential care work – massively performed by women- has proven to be highly important and necessary, although not compatible with regular gender-blind working standards and arrangements, which could not be maintained during lockdowns. All this results in a differential impact for women, who have spent more time and energy than men in domestic and care work, home schooling, and dealing with the impact of emotional and mental health, a s some evidence has shown; consequently, we can see now several indicators in some realms, such as the decrease of as much as 30% less submissions by women to academic journals during the pandemic. Also, the needed confinement has sadly made visible an exponential increase of gendered domestic violence. However, there are many other not so apparently visible aspects that the pandemic might bring into the surface too, as this crisis has a substantive gendered impact that reflects in many aspects of our lives, policies and politics. Moreover, analysing this pandemic with a gender lens more thoroughly should also help us to show the structural and systemic nature of gender inequalities. This means that, by default, not only the impact of crises themselves -as it was demonstrated with the 2008 crisis that also had a clear gendered impact too-, but also, the mitigation measures and policies to overcome them, keep on reproducing and maintaining those inequalities, if we don’t do the effort of conceiving them from a gender perspective. Therefore, this panel aims to address the gendered impact of Covid-19 crisis in lives, policies and politics from different angles. Professor Sylvia Walby, director of the Violence and Society Centre at the City University of London will expose the problems posed by the confinement of gendered domestic violence, and also what she calls ‘the gender of R’, that is, how the transmission of the virus along gendered pathways has been underestimated. Professor Mieke Verloo will explore gender and sexuality issues in academia and how the pandemic might affect the strong opposition to gender movements we can find in Europe nowadays. Dr Angéla Kóczé, Acting Chair of Romani Studies Program at the Central European University will offer an intersectional perspective on ethnicity and gender to analyse the covid-19 crisis. Finally, Dr.Agnès Hubert will explain the study and policy paper her group (G5+) is just finalising on the impact of the pandemic and its aftermath on gender equality in the EU, including recommendations for policy makers, and Dr. Elisabeth Klatzer will tell us the conclusions of the Gender Impact Assessment she did along with Dr. Azurra Rinaldi on the EU proposals for Next Generation EU, the Recovery and Resilience Fund proposals presented by the European Commission in May 2020. Dr. Bustelo, acting as chair will briefly offer some data on submissions to political science Journals during the pandemic, and on the unequal effects on scientists (Myers et al, 2020) and university Faculty, showing some results on the working conditions, academic time usage and performance study performed under the H2020 SUPERA (Supporting the Promotion of Equality in Research and Academia) project. The Round Table will be organized in an interactive way. A first question on the gendered impact of the pandemic will be posed to the invited speakers who will address this first part for 5 minutes each. A second round of 5 minutes talk of invited speakers on what should be done to mitigate this gendered impact will follow, to then open the floor to questions/comments from the audience that speakers will then finally address. María Bustelo (Chair) is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). She currently coordinates the Horizon 2020 SUPERA project (Supporting the Promotion of Equality in Research and Academia), and with Emanuela Lombardo as Co-PI, the Excellence UCM Research Group on “Gender & Politics”. Agnès Hubert is an experienced policy maker and an author on EU gender equality policy. She has made a career as a high-level civil servant in the European Commission and is currently associate researcher in the gender programme of Science Po, visiting professor at the College of Europe and president of the first European feminist think tank, GenderFivePlus. Elisabeth Klatzer specializes in research, advocacy and consultancy in the field of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB), Public Finance Management as well as gender and economic policy. Her work includes conceptual work on adapting GRB to different national, regional and local contexts, support in developing GRB strategies, extensive capacity building and training activities. She has been in charge of the recent Study commissioned by The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament “Next Generation EU Leaves Women Behind”. Angéla Kóczé, Sociologist - Assistant Professor of Romani Studies, Acting Chair of Romani Studies Program, and Academic Director of the Roma Graduate Preparation Program at Central European University, Budapest. She is a co-editor of The Romani Women’s Movement: Struggles and Debates in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2019, with Violetta Zentai, Jelena Jovanović and Enikő Vincze) and The Roma and their Struggle for Identity in Contemporary Europe (Oxford: Berghahn, 2020, with Huub van Baar). Mieke Verloo is Professor of Comparative Politics and Inequality Issues at Radboud University, and Non-Residential Permanent Fellow at the IWM, Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. She is the winner of the 2015 ECPG Gender and Politics Career Achievement Award. She was scientific director of European research projects on gender equality policymaking in Europe (see www.mageeq.net and www.quing.eu). Her current research is on de-democratization and opposition to feminist politics in Europe. Sylvia Walby is Professor of Sociology and Director of the interdisciplinary Violence and Society Centre at City, University of London. She Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK. She is author of Globalization and Inequalities: Complexity and Contested Modernities (Sage 2009), Crisis (Polity Press 2015), The Future of Feminism (Polity Press 2011), and The Concept and Measurement of Violence against Women and Men (with colleagues) (Policy Press, 2017). Website: www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/sylvia-walby

Title	Details
Agnès Hubert	View Paper Details
Elisabeth Klatzer	View Paper Details
Angéla Kóczé	View Paper Details
Mieke Verloo	View Paper Details
Sylvia Walby	View Paper Details