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1/24/2021

Concurrent English 1010

Viewpoint Synthesis

Everyone seems to have heard about the issue of the Coronavirus and its profound effects

on women's equality in the United States, but there is some disagreement about the cause of the

issue. Some acknowledge that the pandemic changes the way both genders handle employment

during a world wide crisis such as this but feel that because of underlying gender stereotypes,

women are forced to carry the majority of the domestic burden. Others point to statistics that

show that occupations filled by mostly women are most negatively affected by the pandemic,

and this is why women are impacted further. Still others say that women are experiencing gender

inequality because of lack of childcare opportunities due to the pandemic.

Abby Vesoulis, a reporter from ​Time ​magazine, explains the stresses of unemployment

and the societal expectation for many women to take on most of the domestic responsibilities of

family life. According to the Mckinsley and Lean In Report, two times as many mothers

communicated stress about their job performance because of the additional struggles of at-home

responsibilities and only 44% of women claimed to be sharing these responsibilities equally with

their partners, says Vesoulis. Because of the dissipation of support systems women used to rely

on before the pandemic, Vesoulis says, “...​the full-time job of caring for and educating kids has

fallen disproportionately on women''. These support systems such as after school programs and

government assistance once did a good job of covering up the destructive assumptions and

expectations for women to handle domestic obligations, claims Vesoulis. The Pandemic has
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merely uncovered these underlying sources for gender inequality and disproportion. ​Vesoulis

concludes with a profession of potential disappointment if this pandemic ends with a digression

of hard-earned progress in gender equality and opportunity. Because of the Pandemic’s

worldwide effects on almost every person in the United States, and because of the influence of

Time​ magazine on the United States, this article will be relevant to anyone who reads it. Vesoulis

clearly portrays her support of women’s equaily and the movement against sex discrimination

and injustce. Although not all of her readers may side with her opinions about the impacts of the

pandemic on working women, Vesoulis has clearly outlined her stance. I was able to take this

article seriously because of its appearance in ​Time ​magazine, an extremely reliable source with

many open-minded and insightful perspectives making it easy to review the article with trust in

its information. After reading many articles on this subject previous to reading this specific one,

my views on this topic have not changed, they have only been reinforced by the reliability and

effectiveness of this article.

Eleni Karageorge​, an author from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, argues that the

reason women have been more negatively impacted by the Coronavirus Pandemic is because a

majority of working women occupy jobs in the industry sector which has been more severely

impacted. ​Karageorge​ suggests that jobs in government and health and education services, which

40% of all working women occupy compared to only 20% of working men, are the occupations

more affected by the pandemic and recession. Similarly, the occupations occupied by a majority

of the women’s workforce, says Karageorge, are the occupations that don’t allow the possibility

to telecommute. Karageorge furthers her point by explaining the occupations most affected. She

says, “​the crisis has battered industry sectors in which women’s employment is more
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concentrated—restaurants and other retail establishments, hospitality, and health care. This was

not the case in past recessions, which tended to hurt male-dominated industry sectors like

manufacturing and construction more than other industries”. From my point of view, ​this article's

perspective was insightful and informative. Because of the source’s widely known reliability, I

believe the large variety of readers will be impacted by its valuable and relevant information.

Karageorge’s inclusion of instances when working men have been primarily impacted by world

and national events added a much needed variation in perspectives in msy opinion. The source

allowed me to think more openly about this issue. While reading articles on this subject in the

past, I have had a sole focus on the effect of the virus on women and the constant injustices

women face. Karagorge’s inclusion of instances when working men have been hit the hardest by

global events has opened my eyes to a more open minded approach to these kinds of issues.

Because of the reliability of the website, I had complete trust in the information that was

provided. In addition to Krargeorge’s consistent trustworthiness, Karageorges furthers the

strength of her article by offering a solution to this issue. She concluded that enabling flexible

working arrangements and enforcing child care obligations from both genders will help soften

the long lasting impacts of the pandemic.

Nicole Bateman and Martha Ross, scholars from the Brookings Institution of public

Policy, write of the severe impacts the Covid-19 pandemic have had on the women of the United

States. Bateman and Ross explain the evidence showing the rates of women’s unemployment

increasing substantially more than men over the course of the pandemic due to lack of affordable

childcare options. Between February and August, mothers of 12 years old and younger children

lost 2.2 millions jobs compared to the 870,000 jobs lost by fathers according to Bateman and

Ross. Bateman and Ross explain ​a 2018 analysis which found that average ​childcare costs in
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every state exceed the federal definition of affordability​—7% of annual household income. With

such a dramatic increase in jobs lost by women, the limited and unaffordable options for child

care are quite impossible to achieve.​ Bateman and Ross conclude that the solution is to diminish

the overreliance on an unstable childcare system and focus on the support of low wage jobs that

many women in the US fill. This article, written by two seemingly well-informed, thoughtful,

and educated women, offers some good points about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on

women to the varied audience of Brookings Institute. The article offers multiple reasons and

viewpoints to the issue and leaves the reader thinking about women of all circumstances by the

end. Not only does the article provide information about the position women face mid-crisis, but

the article also provides very helpful information about the employment of women previous to

the Pandemics disruption, which makes it easier to understand the impacts of the pandemic.

Overall, I was able to accept the seemingly sensible, accurate, and thought provoking

information provided

I was interested in this topic from the start because of its relevance to the present day

specifically but it also incorporates a struggle for gender equality that's been prevalent since the

beginning of time. After reading many articles and perspectives on the topic, I have decided that

working women are being negatively impacted by the COVID-9 because of underlying societal

stereotypes regarding women, the pandemic’s target of female majority occupations, and lack of

childcare opportunities combined. I believe that these issues are all causes of gender inequality

exposed by the pandemic, and not one of these alone could cause such a dramatic focus on

gender oriented injustices. Although this pandemic has caused dramatic problems for most

everyone, because of the United States' history of predetermined gender roles, the virus

accentuates and exposes the underlying expectation for women to be the ones to leave
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employment and work domestically. In addition to this, the shutting down of a large number of

childcare facilities has also drastically contributed to many women staying home from hard

earned careers. On top of these two major effects, the pandemic’s natural target of “pink collar”

jobs adds to the increased likelihood of women leaving work in many more cases than before the

pandemic. In my view, these three issues combined, have massive and some might say

irreversible damage on the progress of gender equality and progress in the United States.

Works Cited:

Bateman, N., & Ross, M.Why has COVID-19 been especially harmful for working

women? ​Brookings.edu​ (2020, October). Retrieved January 6, 2021

Karageorge, E. X. COVID-19 recession is tougher on women [Editorial]. (2020,

September).​Bls.gov.​ Retrieved January 6, 2021

Vesoulis, A. 'If We Had a Panic Button, We’d be Hitting it.' Women Are Exiting the Labor

Force En Masse—And That's Bad For Everyone. (2020, October 17).​Time.com.​ Retrieved

January 6, 2021