A stop for women

Women workers suffer greater burnout, greater chances of being fired and seeing their careers stagnant than men.Adria Salido Zarco / GTRES

All workers are affected by the pandemic, either due to the possibility of contagion, due to the uncertainty of their economic situation, due to the stoppage of activity or due to the instability scenario in general.

But among all of them, the bloc made up of women is already shown to be especially vulnerable to a reality that imposes new burdens on an already stressed labor segment.

According to a comprehensive report by McKinsey in the United States, female workers experience greater burnout, greater chances of being fired and having their careers stalled than men.

One in four is contemplating stepping aside and leaving the workforce entirely, says this consultancy, which has asked 40,000 people at 317 companies in the US.

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, has warned that COVID-19 "could erase a generation of fragile progress towards gender equality."

The data provided by the international organization shows in detail how women around the world have assumed greater tasks of cleaning, caring for and educating children, cooking and shopping than men.

Women are also more exposed to infections because they are the majority in health and care tasks and are more exposed to unemployment and instability because they are the majority in professions related to tourism and commerce, two of the sectors hardest hit by the crisis.

Sexist violence during confinements is also the “shadow pandemic”, as the UN has described it.

A study published by the medical journal

has calculated that only 3.5% of the bodies that make decisions about the coronavirus are peers.

In Spain, the situation is no better.

The family and household burden, mostly assumed by women in difficult conditions due to the closure of schools and the lack of aid for conciliation, has deepened a gender gap whose overcoming was an ambition shared by the Government, the European Union and multiple organizations .

This is the photo of a fragile situation for women.

A warning sign so that something as a priority as the fight for equality does not go to the background these days, once again, while the forces concentrate on the fight for health resources and vaccines and for economic recovery after the pandemic.

Fighting so that half of the population so historically punished by discrimination is not left behind from the future of employment, economics and human rights must be everyone's obligation.

Going back in this area will be a loss for everyone.