{"id":28902,"date":"2021-03-04T14:14:25","date_gmt":"2021-03-04T19:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=28902"},"modified":"2021-03-04T14:14:29","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T19:14:29","slug":"international-womens-day-marks-one-year-anniversary-of-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/international-womens-day-marks-one-year-anniversary-of-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"International Women\u2019s Day marks one year anniversary of COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s a global day that celebrates the achievements of women, recognizes the state of gender equality, and calls on action for women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s International Women\u2019s Day on March 8 is more important than ever, says Andrea Gunraj, Vice President of Public Engagement for the Canadian Women\u2019s Foundation (CWF). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While March marks International Women\u2019s Day, it will also mark the one-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting Canada and the first lockdown. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic early last year, Canada has seen decades of work and progress in gender equality setback, creating what Gunraj called a \u201cgendered pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis virus impacts everybody, it\u2019s one of these things that we are all touched by in our lives whether directly or indirectly, so in that case, it is a universal experience,\u201d said Gunraj. \u201cIn another sense, it is not a universal experience; we\u2019ve seen that women have experienced many profound losses in the pandemic that have to do with gender.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Canada Women\u2019s Foundation has narrowed down four areas of impact that have been gendered about the pandemic which includes gender-based violence, economic stress and instability, increased burden of caregiving and house work, and reduced access to support services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not the only, but they\u2019re really big because they have huge impact on people\u2019s quality of life day-to-day, safety and wellbeing day-to-day, and their ability to be able to weather the storm to get out of the pandemic in a stronger position, is really impacted,\u201d explains Gunraj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s participation in the labour force has seen a historical loss during the pandemic, with the number of women in the workforce the lowest it\u2019s been in 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a report from Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), in April of 2020 more than 30 per cent of Canadian workers had been laid off or had their hours reduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cImmediate employment impacts were most severe in female dominated industries such as food services, tourism, culture, recreation and retail. Schools and child care centres close, challenging education workers and parents alike,\u201d read the CUPE report. \u201cAs a result, more women than men were laid off or had to cut down on paid hours of work to care for loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another report published in July of 2020 by the Royal Bank of Canada shows in the first two months of the pandemic 1.5 million Canadian women lost their jobs and says while they absorbed 51 per cent of job losses, they only account for 45 per cent of job gains in the economy recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that this is just a really strong indication that women’s economic position, was never that strong to begin with before the pandemic, so when the economic system got shook up, that women were really highly impacted and weren’t able to recover in the same way,\u201d said Gunraj.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of their recognition of International Women\u2019s Day, the Canadian Women\u2019s Foundation is running initiatives calling for action to gender justice. The organization is asking people to go online and send letters to their local representatives asking for investments into gender justice, if they have the resources to donate, and to educate themselves on how they can advocate in their own lives and community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis pandemic is very much a gendered pandemic, and we have to take gendered action in order to address it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in just a year, the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken the foundations of 30 years of progress, Gunraj says recovering from these impacts depends on what is done now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’ve many times expected things to happen just by osmosis, or just by the passage of time, things like the gender wage gap\u2026 if we wait for that to happen naturally it will take hundreds of years,\u201d said Gunraj. \u201cWhen we look at the broader issue of gender recovery, it’s really hard to say, it’s hard to predict the future, but we do know that it’s not going to happen naturally on its own in any meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about International Women\u2019s Day, or to donate go to www.canadianwomen.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paula Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a global day that celebrates the achievements of women, recognizes the state of gender equality, and calls on action for women\u2019s rights. This year\u2019s International Women\u2019s Day on March 8 is more important than ever, says Andrea Gunraj, Vice President of Public Engagement for the Canadian Women\u2019s Foundation (CWF).  While March marks International Women\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7wa","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 00:20:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}