Women's Work in the Time of Covid

At the end of lockdown 1 of the Covid pandemic, when we were allowed to walk 5km, I wandered through the eerily empty city centre of Dublin. I encountered the familiar statue of Molly Malone festooned with a PPE mask. It spoke to me in 3 ways.

It was about the impact of Covid on women's work as data shows women being forced out of the workplace at higher rates than men and as they increasingly shouldered the burden of home schooling and other forms of care.

But Molly Malone today would also be an essential worker - one of the many marginalised people serving and delivering us food who were brought to the centre during the pandemic but who remained at risk and under-compensated.

Molly is also a sex worker and the impact of Covid on sex workers who, in the absence of other social protections being adequately available to them, have continued with direct sex work with the added risk of Covid infection.

This item was uploaded during the 'DIY Feminist Archival Practices for Researchers' (10th Feb. 2021) workshop, facilitated by Dr Sharon Webb and Dr Niamh Moore, for the AHRC-IRC funded network grant, Intersections, Feminism, Technology & Digital Humanities network (IFTe)

10/02/2021

Kylie Jarrett

Kylie Jarrett

covid-19

pandemic

women's work

labour

sex work

feminism

feminist object

CC BY-NC-ND