When everyday-life troubles get even bigger: Being a young woman with a disability during Covid times

Abstract

Abstract One day I found myself in the middle of thousands of people crowded into a stadium to watch a match. The next day. . . a roaring silence. This was my beginning of it all. On February 21, 2020, Italy experienced the first Covid-positive case. Everything changed within hours; the entire country was frozen in sheer dread. After almost eighty days of lockdown, I started evaluating the implications that the pandemic was going to have in my life of a young, visually impaired woman. Though the long-term consequences of Covid-19 require time to fully process, in this article I examine two main changes that I can already qualify as a direct result of the hard times we have just lived through. First, the repeated lockdowns determined an abrupt halt in hiring. At the time of the Spring 2020 lockdown, I was seeking employment, as were many fellow fresh graduates. However, both public and private recruitment was suspended. Therefore, most of us had to wait months before finally getting a job. But one year of (forced) gap can be very detrimental to the career of a young person. Second, technology has proved to be very useful in times of isolation. I argue, however, that technology, itself, can determine isolation. For people with a disability, in particular, there is a hidden risk in relying too much on technology, as the hard, real life is gradually replaced by a virtual life, with fewer challenges but, at the same time, with fewer socialization and integration opportunities.