Providing in a Pandemic: COVID-19, Masculinity, and Intimate Relationships in Uganda

Abstract

A prominent area of COVID-19 research is the impact of the pandemic on gender relations in the home. The majority of this research has been in the United States and a key finding has been challenges working mothers faced balancing their careers with heightened childcare burdens. COVID-19’s impact on gender relations in the Global South, however, has received much less attention. This article helps fill this gap through a rare, in-depth analysis of the pandemic’s impact on gender power dynamics in heterosexual relationships in Africa. We argue that in Uganda it was men’s inability to fulfill the dominant economic provider role that proved to be the core issue. Surprisingly, we found a wide range of ways couples handled this core tension, from strategies that reproduced conventional gender norms to those with more egalitarian gender dynamics. These strategies had important consequences for how couples weathered the disruptions caused by COVID-19. They also shed light on how health crises can be intertwined with broader shifts in conceptions of masculinity, including new practices of men’s care work that are central to emerging manifestations of more caring masculinities.