Uneven impact: Feminism and pandemic recovery

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The disproportionate, intersectional impact of the pandemic has now been well established, from people in marginalised communities to women bearing the burden of unpaid childcare.

In Canada, two organisations understood this acutely and sought to mobilise research on the inequitable impacts of the pandemic. In 2020, the Institute for Gender and the Economy (Gate), at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, and YWCA Canada partnered to bring together academic research and advocacy, with a view to exploring how the country’s economic recovery from the pandemic can – and should – be feminist.

Gate research associate Carmina Ravanera, and Anjum Sultana, national director of public policy and strategic communications at YWCA Canada, co-authored A feminist economic recovery plan for Canada, which sets out the steps Canadian policymakers should take to ensure a feminist approach to recovery efforts.

“Both of us were inspired by the feminist economic recovery plan from the Hawai’i State Commission on the Status of Women, and thought it was ...