Women thrust onto COVID front lines — like it or not
Even though women are clearly bearing the brunt of the war against the deadly virus that has turned our lives upside down, you wouldn’t know it from listening to most politicians.
But ever since the first case was detected in Canada, women have been thrust on to the front lines.
Women are doctors, nurses and longterm-care aides. They are the front line in home care and child-care centres. They are grocery cashiers and lab techs and pharmacists. And, of course, once schools closed down it was mostly mothers who took on getting the kids through their online classes.
And according to a recent RBC report, women were laid off from their jobs at a higher rate than men, and are being rehired at a lower rate.
Now as schools in several provinces are set to re-open in September, women will again be at the forefront, making sure students stay healthy and engaged in the work of learning — because women make up the majority of early childhood, kindergarten, elementary and high school teachers.
Are they being offered support for this hazardous labour?
Certainly not in Alberta. Premier Jason Kenney has declared that schools, closed down in mid-March, will be reopening at “near normal” conditions, even though COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are on the rise in the province.
That means no additional teachers or support staff will be hired: Teachers will have to contend with classes of 25 to 30 students, and be expected to keep them six feet apart. How is that going to work? Will teachers have to do all the class room cleaning as well? If a student gets sick, will that teacher have to alert all her students’ parents and then respond to each parent’s concerns?
Restaurant servers wear masks these days. The airport in Calgary is much emptier than usual, but everyone — passengers, staff and security — wear masks. Plexiglass shields have been installed in banks, grocery stores and pharmacies to protect customers and staff. Calgary City Council has made masks mandatory in all indoor public places including transit, shopping malls and grocery stores as of Aug. 1.
Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the province is making a big mistake by not mandating masks in schools, and that he is “nervous” about schools reopening without more solid plans.
Nenshi doesn’t have children, so imagine how nervous parents are at this point.
Kenney did outline some health protocols, such as hand sanitizing stations and staggered pickup for students. But it’s clear most of the responsibility for controlling virus outbreaks among thousands of young students has been downloaded to municipalities and school boards — and individual teachers —without adequate funding to implement necessary changes.
And yet, two months ago, Kenney’s UCP government committed $1 billion to the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which will ship oil through the U.S. and provide jobs for a mostly male workforce.
Kenney is also opening up pristine mountain slopes for coal mining. Who on earth banks on coal as a solid investment for the future these days? That aside, coal mining is mostly men’s work.
More planning and preparation has gone into establishing Edmonton as a hub for the NHL playoffs than has gone into reopening schools.
In the meantime, women’s work is being eliminated, taken for granted, ignored, underpaid or made more difficult.
As the Royal Bank report points, out this is not just about equity: Women and the work they do are vital to a thriving economy. Nurses, teachers, social workers, employees in hotels, restaurants and clothing stores are mostly women, and their work and earnings cannot be discounted.
There’s no question most parents want their children back in school, provided it’s a safe environment.
And there’s no question that men have been pulling their weight, too, in many different capacities, from health care to food supply to garbage pick-up.
But it’s women who have paid the highest price in the war against COVID-19.
And as schools prepare to reopen, it looks like women will once again be expected to take on most of the risk with little or no backup from the powers that be.
That’s more than a little maddening. It’s outrageous.
Gillian Steward is a Calgary-based writer and freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @GillianSteward