What about the voices of women?

out of the pandemic.

Women are also at greater risk during the pandemic, making up almost 70 per cent of the healthcare workforce, which exposes them to higher chance of infection. They’re also being expected to do a higher proportion of unpaid work (child and elder care), which has increased over the pandemic as have the risks of job loss, violence, exploitation, abuse and harassment.

To ensure that women do not bear the brunt, the OECD recommends that governments embed a gender lens and account for women’s experiences in all the emergency decisions they make.

So did we listen to the OECD?

Our Pandemic Response Committee is made up of seven men and four women – at least creating the potential to make sure women’s experiences and perspectives are included in their deliberations.

But Hansard records show that of the 163 submissions made to the Pandemic Response Committee between March 31 and May 21, men lodged 114. At six sessions of the committee, only men were invited to speak. For the two sessions when women outnumbered men (and only just) the topics were midwives and education.

Some readers will conclude that we were in a crisis so the ‘‘best minds’’ needed to be called on. But those selected ‘‘best minds’’ over-represented an older, European professional male experience.

Despite plenty of rhetoric about equality, when the going got tough, New Zealand depressingly reverted to type.

Women and men, whether we like it or not, are different. We spend our time differently, play different roles in our families, work in different jobs and have different career pathways.

To ‘‘build back better’’ we need to consider everyone so we don’t unintentionally disadvantage some over others.

And surely we want all of us to come out of this better or, at the least, not deepen existing inequalities?

Never has it been more important to consider who is at the table and who is not when we are talking about our nation’s future.