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Is the epidemic regressing women's rights?

2020-11-29T09:21:06.494Z


The new crown epidemic has disrupted people's original pace and order of life, and behind the economic and livelihood regression, perhaps few people still have time to pay attention to gender equality. However, UN Women recently pointed out on multiple occasions,


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Written by: Commentary Editing Room

2020-11-28 07:00

Last update date: 2020-11-28 07:00

The new crown epidemic has disrupted people's original pace and order of life, and behind the economic and livelihood regression, perhaps few people still have time to pay attention to gender equality.

However, UN Women recently pointed out on multiple occasions that the epidemic has ordered gender equality back to the level of 25 years ago. The seriousness of the problem cannot be ignored.

The United Nations Women's Agency published an article on Wednesday (25th) that the new crown epidemic has hindered gender equality and even violated the results of equal rights in the past.

An Siqi, director of the UN Women's China Office, also mentioned on the 18th that "the new crown pneumonia epidemic has exacerbated gender inequality, and even caused us to stagnate or regress the pace we have made in the past few decades."

Anita Bhatia, UN Deputy Executive Director for Women’s Affairs, even fears that the equality fought for women in the past 25 years may disappear within a year.

The department pointed out that because women are still the main responsibility bearers for caring for their families in the traditional concept, the suspension of classes and work due to the epidemic has caused many women to take on more care of their families.

Another reason is that since most women have lower occupational incomes than their husbands, when the work of taking care of their families increases, it is often women who are forced to give up their jobs and return home.

Under the epidemic, women take on more family affairs.

(Profile picture)

Before the outbreak of the epidemic, about three-quarters of unpaid housework in the world was undertaken by women, and after the epidemic, women’s work time for this type of work was at least doubled.

The increase in domestic work caused 860,000 women in the United States to leave the workplace in September alone, compared with only 200,000 men.

Women have assumed more family care responsibilities under the epidemic, and have to quit the workplace. This is an important manifestation of the impact of the epidemic on the equal rights of men and women. It can be seen that a society that has not achieved complete equality between the sexes is gradually returning under the epidemic. The traditional structure of "male dominates outside female dominates inside".

In addition, according to the research of German economist Michèle Tertilt, in the unemployment wave caused by the past economic recession, men are usually more affected.

This is because more male construction manual jobs tend to lay off more jobs in the economic recession.

However, under the current epidemic, the unemployment rate abnormally shows that there are more women, which further reflects the existence of the ceiling of women in the original social workplace, allowing men to occupy more major positions, and in the epidemic, women are forced to give up their jobs. Equal rights is difficult.

Under the epidemic, most women's domestic work has increased.

(Gettyimages/Visual China)

Although there is no direct investigation into the impact of the epidemic on gender equality in Hong Kong, many other investigations on women and housework arrangements can still show that Hong Kong women are subject to increased family restrictions and pressure during the epidemic, indicating that Hong Kong cannot be Stay out of this issue.

The Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association conducted a survey on the gender distribution ratio of housework from July to October 2019 and found that more than 80% of housework items were in charge of women.

This shows that Hong Kong itself has the problem that women need to bear more family affairs, and this problem seems to have aggravated women's family roles and caused distress during the epidemic.

The association’s online group interviews this year found that many dual-employed women interviewed bluntly said that the epidemic has made them more stressed. Among them, "handling the situation of their children" and "non-stop cooking" made them feel the hardest.

A questionnaire survey conducted by the Women’s Affairs Committee of the Federation of Civilians and Professionals of Hong Kong on Hong Kong women in August this year also showed that up to 97% of the women interviewed said that their pressure had increased to varying degrees during the epidemic, and nearly 70% of them believed that their pressure had increased. Quite big.

Regarding the source of the increase in pressure, compared with nearly 50% of the financial pressure, nearly 70% of the interviewees agree that the pressure of caring for their family has increased, mainly due to increased friction with family members, difficulties in caring for the elderly and assisting their children in learning .

Mainland female doctors and nurses collectively cut their long hair for the convenience of wearing protective clothing.

(Pear video)

Regarding this, whether considering the pressure and mental health of women under the epidemic, or considering the long-term gender equality issue, society should face up to the problem of making women more trapped and traditional family roles under the epidemic.

In the short term, the government can provide women with online and offline emotional support, arrange online in-person activities, etc. to adjust their pressure during the epidemic, and consider adding more practical support services, including material distribution and online teaching. High-level support gives women more support.

However, in order to fundamentally reverse the mainstream impression and reality of "women in charge" and free women from the dual jobs of work and family, Hong Kong will also formulate workplace regulations that are more friendly to women in the future, such as improving family position discrimination. The relevant definitions and penalties of the regulations make it clearer and more usable to empower professionals who take care of their families.

At the moment of the epidemic, society is plagued by various problems, and the plight of women seems to be less visible.

However, in the course of the global war on the epidemic, whether it is female workers on the front line of medical care or women who silently guard the epidemic prevention work of every family unit at home, they have contributed to the epidemic prevention work.

But what kind of predicament and crisis are they facing?

We are responding to listen and change.

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New crown pneumonia, family position discrimination, workplace women, feminism, women gender discrimination, gender issues, gender disputes 01 views

Source: hk1

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