The COVID-19 Pandemic and Ethics in Mexico Through a Gender Lens

Amaranta Manrique De Lara,María De Jesús Medina Arellano

doi:10.1007/s11673-020-10029-4

Amaranta Manrique De Lara, María De Jesús Medina Arellano

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10029-4

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Abstract

In Mexico, significant ethical and social issues have been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of the most pressing issues are the extent of restrictive measures, the reciprocal duties to healthcare workers, the allocation of scarce resources, and the need for research. While policy and ethical frameworks are being developed to face these problems, the gender perspective has been largely overlooked in most of the issues at stake. Domestic violence is the most prevalent form of violence against women, which can be exacerbated during a pandemic: stress and economic uncertainty are triggers for abuse, and confinement limits access to support networks. Confinement also exacerbates the unfair distribution of unpaid labor, which is disproportionately assigned to women and girls, and highlights inequality in the overall labor market. Lack of security measures has resulted in attacks towards health workers, particularly female nurses, due to fear of contamination. Finally, resource results in lack of access to other health necessities, including sexual and reproductive health services. Research across all disciplines to face—and to learn from—this crisis should be done through a gender lens, because understanding the realities of women is essential to understand the pandemic’s true effects in Mexico and the world.

Highlights

In Mexico, significant ethical and social issues have been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic
Women all across the country sought to generate a widespread debate and called for active commitment from key stakeholders and decision-makers. While they marched through the streets in Mexico, the rest of the world was beginning to become paralyzed by a virus which has claimed over 600,000 lives globally, confining individuals and families to their homes, and overwhelming already fragile health systems (World Health Organization 2020)
While policy and ethical frameworks are being developed to face these problems, here we will try to show how the gender perspective has been largely overlooked in practice during the pandemic response in Mexico

Summary

Introduction

In Mexico, significant ethical and social issues have been raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this unprecedented situation, girls and women in Mexico find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place of two public health crises—the pandemic and gender-based violence—in a country where misogyny seems part of our cultural heritage (Htun and Jensenius forthcoming).

Results

Conclusion