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There has been a disproportionate impact of the pandemic, and measures to address it, on women in areas of mental health, health care, and other critical social justice (& criminal) issues including domestic violence and sexual assault.
Because women statistically live longer than men, higher numbers of women live-in long-term care facilities. There has been a staffing crisis for much longer than the period that the pandemic has had an impact on. All of this has resulted in greater numbers of deaths of women than men; and greater numbers of senior women living alone with a greater impact on mental health, especially around loneliness. As research has been demonstrating loneliness is known to be a significant factor in personal health. Not only do long term care facilities and assisted living neighbourhoods require higher standards of care and better staffing ratios, there is also a need for increased recreational programming during times when visitation to residents is prohibitive. Pandemic response isolation measures have led to women being at greater risk in gender-based violence. Most perpetrators are intimate partners who have now been isolated at home with their partners. With the majority of us remaining at home most of the time, women in these circumstances are left with little (if any) privacy to even make a phone call or search a website. Women experiencing gender-based violence during times of isolation are also not coming into contact with others who would potentially see the signs and offer support. Those women who have reported domestic or sexual violence require additional supports during this unique time of isolation, a time when access to services is actual more limited. Access to support services (including health care and mental health services) has become more limited, even with remote services available – the ability to access those services varies significantly for women on person-to-person basis. Women living in poverty and/or rural areas may not even have a computer and/or internet at home. More households accessing income assistance are headed by single parents of which a greater proportion are women. Income Assistance does not provide funds for the basic needs of phone & internet. Many of these households do not own computers and are limited to use of a tablet and/or phone with internet capabilities. Private space for counseling sessions, during the day while children are at home at the same time, may not be an option for women. Women with challenges affecting their hearing, have found both phone/video remote services, as well as services provided by an individual wearing a mask, to make support services less accessible to them. Again, due to a greater population of senior and elderly women this has had a disproportionate impact on women. Women are also disproportionately affected by the impact of prescription drugs being limited to 30 day supplies because women often have the responsibility of caregiving for children and/or elder parents, etc. Women also bear the greatest responsibility for birth control products. Thirty-day supply limits meant an increased cost due to dispensing fees being more frequent, and also resulted in more frequent trips to the pharmacy being required at a time when the entire community was being advised to stay at home. Those who already face systemic barriers prior to the pandemic have been more significantly affected by pandemic response measures.
While we continue to live through unprecedented times during a pandemic outbreak we would like to call on government at all levels to take a feminist analysis of the response to the pandemic as it was rolled out so far, when considering planning for future response to this and/or other health crises. We stress that the consideration of intersectional gendered implications is crucial to the wellbeing of women and their families. Trish McCourt Executive Director Tri County Women's Centre Tri County Women's Centre and Women’s Centres across Nova Scotia continue to provide services to women to the best of our abilities. This includes bringing issues of injustice or disproportionate impact to the attention of our municipal, provincial and federal decision-makers. We implore you to approach all decisions going forward with feminist intersectional-analysis.
The pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women, has resulted in the limited gains that were made by women over recent decades to quickly roll backwards. We are observing a widening economic gender gap:
There is a clear need for Universal Childcare in order to level the field for women in the workforce, the pandemic has brought this issue back to the forefront. Accessing childcare has already been a challenge in most Nova Scotia communities even prior to the pandemic. Basic income has been a recommendation by groups who work with vulnerable populations in Canada for decades. The measures put in place in response to the pandemic have shown that not only is a basic income possible to offer Canadians, but it seems that the pandemic response would have been far less complex and possibly even less costly if we already had a basic livable income guaranteed for all Canadians. The CERBs impact on IA is still undefined; we have also seen penal efforts beginning to ramp up by the federal government to clamp down on those accessing CERB who may not have been eligible. This will have a disproportionate impact on women (who traditionally hold more of the lower paid jobs to begin with), causing increased stress & anxiety, which has a negative impact on mental health. Food security has been a challenge for women, especially single parents who did not have someone to provide childcare while picking up groceries. When only one person per household was allowed entry into stores, this made it difficult for single parents of young children to shop for necessities. While curbside pickup became increasingly available as the time continued, those who did not have transportation of their own were unable to pickup groceries due to the already limited transit and taxi services in rural communities being less available (if at all). Children who received food assistance at schools were no longer accessing these supports, and programs to bridge the gap were slow to respond. Women’s hygiene products are cost-prohibitive for many women to begin with and with women being more significantly affected by work stoppages and shortages, this has also been a problem unique to women. Women need paid Sick days when needing to stay home due to COVID symptoms (rarely have in low-paying jobs), otherwise they face additional economic strain, or end up attending work when counter to public health guidelines. A higher proportion of women are also employed in industries most significantly impacted by isolation measures – with high lay-offs in retail and hospitality, etc. While we continue to live through unprecedented times during a pandemic outbreak we would like to call on government at all levels to take a feminist analysis of the response to the pandemic as it was rolled out so far, when considering planning for future response to this and/or other health crises. We stress that the consideration of intersectional gendered implications is crucial to the wellbeing of women and their families. Trish McCourt Executive Director Tri County Women's Centre |
TCWCUpdates & statements of the Tri County Women's Centre Archives
October 2023
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