Has Covid Accelerated Fifth Wave Feminism?
By Charlotte Christian
The drastic change to normality that Covid brought has highlighted many inequalities and opened people’s eyes to how much change is needed in society – this may provide the necessary momentum to propel the fifth wave of feminism. The fifth wave builds on the intersectionality of the third wave movement, which considered ‘class, race, age, ability, sexuality and gender as intersecting loci of discrimination’ (Zimmerman, 2017). This is central in the fifth wave’s call for action.
Currently, 93% (Wittenberg-Cox, 2020) of the world is governed by men. However, research has shown that statistically, countries led by women ‘were quicker to lockdown and had fewer Covid fatalities’ (Garikpati,, 2021). Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina’s response to the pandemic was plauded as ‘admirable’ by the World Economic Forum, and Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-Wen was praised for her swiftness of action in closing the borders. Acknowledgement of these achievements can be pointed to as evidence of an improved attitude toward female leaders as capable and effective, but is acknowledgement enough?
This acknowledgement is double ended. Whilst it highlights women’s capabilities as leaders, it also draws attention to their position as a minority on the global leadership stage. Shirley Graham states that such political underrepresentation is, in the US at least, a symptom of an ineffectual “system that doesn’t help minorities gain access to political power” (Hubbard, 2021). The adoption of gender quotas within political systems of over 50 countries (Krook,, 2008) has clearly not been sufficiently effective as only 7% of global leaders aren’t men, indicating the need for a new approach or, indeed, the new world order the fifth wave of feminism would entail.
In an attempt to further explain why Covid-19 has/is accelerating the arrival of fifth wave feminism, other factors can be looked at. Recent media coverage and research have pointed to an alarming increase in domestic violence disproportionately affecting women during the pandemic: UN projections predict an additional 15 million cases of gender-based violence for every three months lockdown continues (UNFPA, 2020). Although those experiencing domestic violence can use the infrastructure created by the fourth wave to speak up about assault, the reality is that the ‘Stay Home, Save Lives’ mandate is endangering to some.
The devastating murder of Amy-Leanne Stringfellow by her fiancé in June 2020 underlined both the pandemics role in providing cover for her fiancé’s abuse and a failure of the justice system in protecting her. The pandemic has reduced prevention and protection efforts, social services and care globally. Here in the UK, the government has announced £8.1 million of funding for around 1500 refuge spaces (Lewis, 2020), a relatively limited solution given the size of the problem. Finding a place in a refuge is already particularly difficult for women with multiple children, women from minority ethnic backgrounds, and disabled people, yet the government solution to this is minimal. Does this not highlight a failing system and indicate a need for the projection of marginalised voices in shaping the next feminist wave?
Domestic violence alone cannot be attributed to the recently reignited fury funnelled against male violence, which grew most noticeably in light of the aftermath of Sarah Everard’s death and the #ReclaimTheseStreets movement. But how does this tie in with fifth wave feminism and the question of whether its arrival has been accelerated by the pandemic? The cultural climate in the UK has become one of anger and frustration at a justice system that only prosecutes 1.4% (Hinsliff, 2021) of accused rapists, that answers the Black Lives Matter movement with legislation proposing tougher sentencing for toppling statues, and that fails to class misogyny as a hate crime. Although the pandemic alone hasn’t started such social movements, it is intensifying existing inequalities that the fifth wave seems suited to counter.
Racial biases have only been emphasised by the pandemic. In Chicago, 72% of Covid-19 related deaths are African American, despite African Americans comprising only 30% of the population (Laughland, 2020), and this is a pattern that is replicated throughout the country. Senator Elizabeth Warren explained it as “government-sponsored discrimination and systemic racism”, which is leaving “communities of colour on the frontlines of this pandemic” (ibid). In conjunction with BLM calls to defund the police, the polarising effect of Covid has underlined just how damaging failing to fix a broken system can be. BLM and fifth wave feminism go hand in hand. BLM has always placed LGBTQ+ voices at the centre of the conversation (Salzman, 2020), realising the importance of intersectionality in creating meaningful cultural change.
Economic disparities between genders have been worsened. With schools and day-care providers closed, once more the burden of childcare more likely falls upon women who are already prone to being in part-time employment pre-Covid (40% of working women) (Scott, 2020). Mothers are 47% more likely to lose their jobs than fathers in the pandemic. Such backsliding is symptomatic of a system that has failed to adequately support many women in such a difficult time.
These inequalities are shocking, but there are ways in which Covid has shifted some power dynamics for the better. Frontline essential workers and sectors that are often female-dominated – nurses, teachers, childcare providers – are rightly being elevated in status. Previous feminist movements have been defined by ‘victim’ (women) versus ‘common enemy’. When the ‘victims’ are playing a major role in protecting the entire population and the ‘enemy’ becomes both Covid-19 and a system failing so many, the fifth wave feminist call to create a new system and world order becomes the next logical step.
What can we expect from the fifth wave in the future? Fifth wave feminism is forming itself now; it is expected to continue using social media to organise coordinated strategies to forge systematic change. The shadow pandemic of domestic violence, treatment of protestors and intensified gender inequality have highlighted the shortcomings of states globally and is contributing to calls for the defunding of the police. The fifth wave realisation of a new world order may still be a long way off, but the pandemic has intensified inequalities and accelerated the onset of fifth wave feminism.
Although I believe that Covid has accelerated the arrival of fifth wave feminism, what this article doesn’t fully explore is the extent that class, sexuality and economic position have on people’s pandemic experience. Perhaps the most important question to be asking, and the one I will end on, is this: how will the fifth wave of feminism achieve a gender-equal world?
Bibliography
Coronavirus: A Case Study In Women’s Effective Leadership (forbes.com)
Frances-White, D., 2018. The Guilty Feminist. Virago.
Garikipati, S. and Kambhampati, U., 2021. Leading the Fight against the Pandemic: Does Gender really matter? Feminist Economics, pp.1-18.
Hinsliff, G., 2021. The vigils were not just about Sarah Everard, but about the whole justice system. The Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/15/vigils-sarah-everard-women> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Hubbard, K., 2021. Around the World, the Greatest Gender Disparities Are in Politics. U.S. News, [online] Available at: <https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2021-04-13/the-greatest-gender-inequality-in-the-world-is-in-politics> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Krook, M.L., 2008. Quota laws for women in politics: Implications for feminist practice. Social Politics, 15(3), pp.345-368.
Laughland, O., 2020. Why is coronavirus taking such a deadly toll on black Americans?. The Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/25/coronavirus-racial-disparities-african-americans> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Lewis, H., 2020. The Shadow Pandemic How do we help domestic-violence victims who stay with their partners?. The Atlantic, [online] Available at: <https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/08/are-refuges-only-solution-domestic-violence/614392/> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Salzman, S., 2020. From the start, Black Lives Matter has been about LGBTQ lives. abc news, [online] Available at: <https://abcnews.go.com/US/start-black-lives-matter-lgbtq-lives/story?id=71320450> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Scott, L., 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/how-coronavirus-is-widening-the-uk-gender-pay-gap. Guardian, [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/07/how-coronavirus-is-widening-the-uk-gender-pay-gap> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
UNFPA, 2020. [online] Unfpa.org. Available at: <https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/COVID-19_impact_brief_for_UNFPA_24_April_2020_1.pdf> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Wittenberg-Cox, A., 2020. Women Leaders’ Competence On COVID: The Proof. Forbes, [online] Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/avivahwittenbergcox/2020/09/08/women-leaders-competence-on-covid-the-proof/?sh=1a29500b6fb6> [Accessed 17 April 2021].
Zimmerman, T., 2017. # Intersectionality: The Fourth Wave Feminist Twitter Community. Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice, 38(1), pp.54-70.