Women at the Forefront of COVID-19’s Global Response
by Tiago Noce
The COVID-19 crisis confronted societies all around the world with challenges to practices and habits once considered as default. According to John Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center, worldwide 35,874,626 have been confirmed and 1,050,974 deaths were registered. Since COVID-19 is quite an unknown virus many countries worldwide were caught off guard to fight a global pandemic with such fast and continuous escalation. The quick spread of the virus caused debates on what governments were supposed to be doing for the population’s safety. In this context, countries such as Vietnam and Denmark were praised internationally for their fast and effective answer to the virus. Another debate raised by this health crisis is the fact that countries led by women such as Germany, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Iceland, dealt better with the crisis and were able to prevent mass contamination. Such a fact confronts male dominance in the political sphere and openly challenges an international social organization based on machismo.
New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinta Arden answered quickly to the coronavirus by closing the borders and mass testing the population. She also held regular and clear public communications that contained instructions on how to stay safe and how to deal with the virus. (World Health Organization, 2019). Arden’s decisions and actions to mass testing, isolation, and tracking of close relations prevented the fast spread of the virus and the mass contamination of the population. The major success of those actions soon turned the country into a reference in dealing with the global pandemic. According to Johns Hopkins University & Medicine on October 7th, 2020, the country registered only 1.861 cases and 25 deaths, which is less than New Zealand’s neighbor Australia that took longer to take action against the virus and now registered 27,182 confirmed cases 897 deaths.
Iceland’s prime minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir answered equality fast to the global pandemic. Her government offered free testing for all citizens, not only those with symptoms. In addition, she opened clear communications paths between government and citizens creating a reliable information source for prevention against COVID-19. Jakobsdóttir’s quick actions and great populational accession to the testing made it possible for the country to not close schools, and get the educational year going. (Henley & Ainge Roy, 2020). Those early successful actions reflected positively on contamination rates numbers. According to the Johns Hopkins University & Medicine on October 7th, 2020, Iceland registered 3,081 confirmed cases and only 10 deaths. However, the same cannot be said of Iceland’s neighbor the United Kingdom, where the political crisis and the large bureaucracy made the country register 532,779 cases and more than forty thousand deaths. Now Iceland and so many other European countries are getting ready to fight the second wave of the virus and protect their populations.
Women in some countries around the globe are legally, socially, and culturally prevented from ascending to higher positions in many areas due to social construction that perpetuates them as the weak link of societies. In other words, they are prevented from entering male-dominant fields, such as politics and engineering, because of discrimination and prejudice towards both their physical and cognitive abilities. The Covid-19 crisis is yet another example of how women’s leadership is different than men’s. Arden’s and Jakobsdóttir’s government styles are marked by empathy, trust in science, and active listening rather than the usual commanding and over-controlling style of men governors, present in Trump’s and Bolsonaro’s government, for example. But change it’s already happening. For instance, this year’s election in Brazil for city council and mayor marked a record number of women running for political positions reaching XX candidates. (Bragon, Garcia & Faria, 2020). The rise of women in politics, and many other areas, brings a new leap of faith for the future politics, governments, and social organizations. It brings to light the extreme necessity for gender equity in all fields and aspects englobing all societies around the world. It is time to recognize and change machista behaviors worldwide and for women to rule freely being given the correct respect and participation in an equal society.
By Tiago Noce
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Bibliographic
Bragon, R., Garcia, G, & Faria, F. (2020. September, 27). Eleição tem recorde de mulheres candidatas e, pela 1ª
vez, mais negros que brancos. Folha de São Paulo. Retrieved from https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2020/09/eleicao-tem-recorde-de-mulheres-candidatas-e-pela-1a-vez-mais-negros-que-brancos.shtml
Henley, J. & Ainge Roy, E. (2020. April, 25). Are female leaders more successful at managing the coronaviruscrisis? The Guardian. Retrieved from
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World Health Organization. (2020. July, 15). New Zealand takes early and hard action to tackle COVID-19.
Retrieved from https://www.who.int/westernpacific/news/feature-stories/detail/new-zealand-takes-early-and-hard-action-
