Special issue: Feminist Analysis of COVID-19

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we reeled from mounting death counts, a series of drastic lockdowns, sudden massive shifts to online teaching and learning, and inadequate information about the virus, we also began an urgent conversation within our editorial collective about feminist approaches to understanding our new condition. Given the sudden physical constriction of our social, work, and activist lives, it felt important to reach outward rather than retreat into the concerns closest to home. Such a task entailed exploring geographic and policy differences in response to the pandemic around the globe. It meant asking who got to stay home, who was obliged to work outside the home, and what “home” meant for those vulnerable to family coercion. It also required closely tracking new meanings that were being forged—how societies deemed specific kinds of work “essential,” how physically maintaining distance (now termed “social” distancing) was practiced, and why mask-wearing seemed controversial. The Feminist Studies editorial collective decided to craft a call for short commentaries that would reflect a range of feminist research, analysis, and experience around the globe. The result is this special issue. We intend it not only to serve as an intellectual hive—a buzzing collection of ideas—but also as a personal resource that inspires readers by demonstrating feminist responses to these unprecedented times.

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Heather Fowler
The Carrier (Short story)
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The Effects of the Pandemic

Amita Baviskar and Raka Ray
COVID-19 at Home: Gender, Class, and the Domestic Economy in India
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Andrea Quinlan and Rashmee Singh
COVID-19 and the Paradox of Visibility: Domestic Violence and Feminist Caring Labor in Canadian Shelters
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Juliet Allen, Daniella Jenkins, and Marilyn Howard
Crises Collide: Capitalism, Care, and COVID-19
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Maisam Alomar
Crisis, Care, and the Terror of Uncertainty
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Shaneda Destine, Jazzmine Brooks, and Christopher Rogers
Black Maternal Health Crisis, COVID-19,
and the Crisis of Care
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Elora Halim Chowdhury
The Precarity of Preexisting Conditions
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Activist Responses

Constanza Tabbush and Elisabeth Jay Friedman
Feminist Activism Confronts COVID-19
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Carolina Moraes, Juma Santos, and Mariana Prandini Assis
“We Are in Quarantine but Caring Does Not Stop”:
Mutual Aid as Radical Care in Brazil
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Alexia Arani
Mutual Aid and Its Ambivalences: Lessons from Sick and Disabled Trans and Queer People of Color
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Tania Rispoli and Miriam Tola
Reinventing Socio-Ecological Reproduction, Designing a Feminist Logistics: Perspectives from Italy
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Erica S. Lawson, Florence Wullo Anfaara, Vaiba Kebeh Flomo, Cerue Konah Garlo, and Ola Osman
The Intensification of Liberian Women’s Social Reproductive Labor in the Coronavirus Pandemic: Regenerative Possibilities
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Zainab S. Cheema
“It’s the Same Cause”: Climate Change and COVID-19 in the Perspectives of Environmental Feminist Activists
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Eve Ng
Unmasking Masculinity: Considering Gender, Science, and Nation in Responses to COVID-19
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Practices of Self-Care

Altheria Caldera
Challenging Capitalistic Exploitation: A Black Feminist/Womanist Commentary on Work and Self-Care
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Anita Girvan, Baljit Pardesi, Davina Bhandar,
and Nisha Nath
Poetics of Care: Remedies for Racial Capitalism Gone Viral
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Judy Rohrer
“Where Life Is Precious”:
Intersectional Feminism in the Time of COVID-19
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