Over the past few days and weeks, things around the world have undergone massive change due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. As a transnational feminist network, we believe in addressing deep structures and social norms within organizations and society and strive to build cultures of equality, inclusion, and peace. The perpetual fight for social change and justice requires a continuous effort, especially in trying times like these. To respond responsibly to these abrupt and unpredictable changes will require adjustments in the way we do our work, and the way we support our staff, associates, consultants as well as our partners.

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As a humanitarian, I’ve worked in health emergencies around the world. Alongside many amazing colleagues, I’ve responded to Ebola epidemics, malnutrition outbreaks, and set up programs for victims of conflict and violence. I work with communities to try and understand their needs, and adapt our responses to their concerns. I’m used to working in times of stress, intensity, and danger. For the first time since I’ve started this work however, I’m scared of what I’m seeing and what we are collectively living through.

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Applying a gender lens to ‘work from home’ The outbreak of COVID 19 and the subsequent work-from-home imperatives and lockdowns have led to significant economic disruptions around the world. As several millions of workers across diverse sectors are asked to self-quarantine, the ways we work and divide work seem to be shifting as well. As those who have been fortunate enough, are starting to work from home, we are observing existing patterns of gender norms and biases being practised in different ways.

Gender at Work convened a panel of women professionals to shed light on the nuances of gendered aspects of work from home, in the private sector during COVID-19.

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I have been 32 days at home, just like half of humanity, experiencing multiple degrees of mobility restrictions. Our lives have been entered a terrain filled with uncertainty, fear and anxieties.

I am one of those privileged people who has a job that can be done remotely. Who can take paid time off to care for myself and others. Who has enough food and enough cash flow to withstand these times. I don’t count my blessings; I count my privileges. The further the crisis sinks in, the further they crystallize.

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As COVID-19 continued to spread worldwide, it impacts every level of our societies, it is crucial to listen to those on the front lines for expert insight into the ongoing crisis. One unique perspective on the COVID-19 emergency is from humanitarian workers.

G@W convened a panel of women leaders in humanitarian action, to have an open conversation about their experiences, what we can learn from other emergencies, and some personal, gendered reflections on how we can get through a crisis of this scale.

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Over the past couple of months, the world has gone through such drastic shifts that I, for one, would never have thought possible. Who would have known, that the world could come to a halt in a couple of months, a couple of weeks, in fact?! Not because of wars or climate change but a virus, and not even a fancy, airborne kind that one would have read about in a sci-fi novel. Not that wars stopped being fought, or the climate stopped going down the toilet. All of that is still happening.

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The COVID-19 pandemic generated a vast array of responses, analyses, and insights from global feminist movements. In this essay, I will try to highlight the key issues and concerns that feminists raised, as well as recommendations that were brought forward for immediate action and for thinking through ways to envision a post-COVID-19 world.

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With Pride Month 2020 coming to an end, we took a moment to reflect on the ways in which workplaces can do more than donning the pride flag or simply talking about affirmative action. We have created a social media toolkit, with predesigned graphics templates that would facilitate every participant in their listing down of recommendations based on the prompt for the day. We invite LGTQIA+ people with other intersecting identities to share stories, experiences, learnings, and recommendations to facilitate a dialogue on making workplaces more intersectional and inclusive.

Check out the social media toolkit and our graphics templates.

In collaboration with Chalk Back we organized conversation on LGBTQIA+ activism and feminist collectivisation, to explore 'How can queer activists find and create safe and inclusive spaces in feminist collectives?'. A group of young activists, academics, and organisers from around the world talked about pride, queerness, feminism, and global solidarity.

The outbreak of COVID-19 and its subsequent work-from-home orders during today’s world have led to significant disruptions to life as we know it. Billions of workers across diverse sectors have continuously been ordered to self-quarantine while others have lost jobs and means to stable livelihoods, shifting discussions around the ways we work and divide work.

With the intention to make sure that women’s rights are not negated as we move forward, Gender at Work, CRTDA and CIBL convened a panel of women professionals in the MENA region, to shed some light on the nuances of gendered aspects of work from home, during and post COVID-19. This conversation was in Arabic with interpretation to English.

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Arabic
English

School Related Gender Based Violence (SRGBV) is violence that undermines the bodily integrity, human rights, and gender equality of all those involved in the school but primarily that of the school child.

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That previously hidden but ever-present violence within our social and economic structures reinforced by state power was exposed and challenged in many places even before COVID and with it, the resurgent demand for freedom and a new kind of wellbeing. 

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Confronted with the stress of living and working through an endlessly prolonged state of emergency, we are letting go of our anxieties around the private/public  divide...... discarding our notions of "professionalism" is setting us free to bring our whole selves and all the complexities of our lives, into the learning space. 

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