Covid- 19 and gender inequality: A critique of the working woman's struggle

Abstract

There has been a dramatic change in everyday life due to COVID-19 around the world. The lockdowns, closure of schools and universities, and the loss of jobs has placed a lot of pressure on the family, particularly women. One of the main outcomes of the pandemic in Jordan has been the increase in the workload of women outside and inside the home. Despite the efforts made to empower women throughout the years, they continue to struggle and gender inequality remains overlooked and even normalized in Jordanian society. The aim of the study is to unfold the way Covid- 19 has disrupted women's lives and made gender equality less achievable, and explore the challenges they have faced in terms of the added paid and unpaid work they have been forced to do during the pandemic and to this end, in-depth interviews were carried out with 20 working mothers who were selected using purposive sampling. The study is largely informed by feminist standpoint theory whose main concern is the female voice and making it a valuable instrument in the process of knowledge production. The findings show that most women suffered from traditionally prescribed gender roles imposed by society, pressure and discrimination at work, and a lack of understanding and empathy at home and the workplace. Very few shared responsibilities with their husbands and their burdens with coworkers and employers, and an even smaller number was able to use the pandemic to their advantage and found ways to regain female power and self-assertion. The findings indicate that serious changes in policies need to be made to protect women's rights at work and in the domestic world, and the institution of marriage reconstructed within the Jordanian imaginary, and gender roles redefined.