WHEN CHOCOLATES AND FLOWERS JUST WON'T DO

If there is any one year when mothers, literally and figuratively, deserve not just one day of familial salute, it's 2020, no matter which month we celebrate them.  It took a pandemic to have the world realize the 'essential' nature of what is often referred to as women's work, when 'caregiving' has taken on multiple layers of meaning.

            Like the Italian artist, Milo Manara, who began painting women in their various roles of personal and societal caregiving he came to see during this health crisis, so have others globally come to the same understanding.  His drawing of a nurse, hands on her hips, defiantly and daringly facing a giant coronavirus bigger than she is aptly capsulizes what the media, the United Nations and the OECD have underscored in their reports – that women are at the epicenter of this pandemic.

            I did not know that women are over 70% of healthcare workers globally, but when one thinks of all those who make hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, pharmacies, and in-home care services function, that number may not even be big enough.  Does it include the women who clean up these facilities to make sure the virus doesn't spread?  What about those women who prepare and serve the food to patients?

            Outside of health facilities, the only other permissible place those of us on lockdown can go to are grocery stores or food outlets, and there too you will find women workers aplenty.  The food banks that have become a necessity for the millions of unemployed lined up daily are mostly staffed by women.  If you go further down the food chain, you will find that women are the majority of the world's farmers, who cannot bring produce to market in this season of closed borders.

            None of these workers can work from home.  Instead, many of those in healthcare have not seen their homes, some preferring to stay at health facilities so as not to infect their families.  For them, Mother's Day may be absent of hugs and gifts this year, if they are even able to be home that day.  However, recognition of these sheroes, especially those on the frontlines of care, has been plentiful, with neighbors, firefighters, policemen clapping their hands, banging on pots and pans, singing inspirational songs and restaurants sending food for those whose patient loads deny them time to search for meals.

            For those mothers "lucky" enough to work from home, there is no communal applause for caretaking chores society assumes they must do.  This Mother's Day, their families must provide the deserved applause, because the ongoing stress of juggling work-from-work and work-at-home is intensified by stay-at-home mandates that also entail providing three meals a day, and supervising their children's education now gone virtual.  Spouses and partners willing to share the load now see the importance of caregiving and realize that it is indeed hard work!  These partners may be the key to a post-pandemic shift in gender roles that equalizes the burden that women have long held alone.

            Admiration and applause may be appreciated by women at the frontlines of healthcare, food production/distribution and family care, but their work has long been unrecognized, undervalued and underpaid.  Many of these women are at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder – the grocery cashier, the hospital cleaner, the nursing home attendant, the in-home care worker and many more tend to be minimum wage, part-time or contractual workers who are deprived of benefits, let alone healthcare.  They are the most vulnerable during economic shocks brought on by pandemics, natural disasters or conflict. 

            While the coronavirus opened our eyes to the vital work women do that keep our lives going, governments and society at large must open their eyes in turn and give more than applause.  Instead, they must address the gender inequities that make these women's lives more difficult – pay gaps that limit the income they bring home; lack of access to leadership roles that can bring higher pay; inflexible work schedules that don't allow family care; and above all, access to affordable health care.  These are ongoing challenges for which women worldwide have long clamored for resolution.  Addressing them would make for better Mother's Day gifts that accrue not only to women, but to those of us who benefit from what they do year in and year out.