In the light of the COVID-19 crisis, this page provides an overview of publications about the gendered aspects of the pandemic and how media can cover it in a gender-sensitive way.

Last updated on November 12.

Resources

• Gender and media in times of COVID-19: a paper that outlines Free Press Unlimited’s vision to promote gender equality in and by the media during the COVID-19 crisis.

• Violentadas en Cuarentena (Violated in Quarantine) features reporting by 30 journalists in 19 Latin American countries about violence against women during the Covid-19 pandemic.

• The Missing Perspectives of Women in COVID-19 News, a study by AKAS Ltd. uncovers a substantial bias towards men’s perspectives in both newsgathering and news coverage of the pandemic, September 2020.

• COVID-19 has increased gender inequalities in the media, IFJ survey finds, July 23.

• How to amplify the voice of women in newsrooms in a post-COVID world: Elizabeth Shilpa, WAN-IFRA, July 7.

• In COVID-19 coverage, female experts are missing: Article by Teresa Carr, June 29.

• Covid-19 used as smokescreen to undermine gender rights globally: Article by Women’s Media Centre, June 23.

• Women Journalists Are the Most Credible Voices on Covid-19: Article by Phillip Meylan and Lucina Di Meco, June 15.

• Reporting on gender-based violence during quarantine: Article by Marjuli Matheus-Hidalgo, Chicas Poderosas, June 10.

• Justice for women amidst COVID-19: This rapid assessment by UN Women examines how the impacts of COVID-19 are threatening women’s ability to access justice.

• Women journalists are suffering greater stress due to COVID-19: A study by IFJ shows that two thirds of women journalists, as opposed to half of men, have experienced increased anxiety and stress due to the pandemic. At the same time it shows that women tend to be equally or less impacted by the pandemic when it comes to for example loss of revenue and jobs, lack of equipment and difficulties in finding independent sources.

• Call for a feminist covid-19 policy: a statement endorsed by nearly 1300 individuals and women’s networks and organisations globally, from more than 100 countries, to demand States to adopt a feminist policy to address the extraordinary challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in a manner that is consistent with human rights standards and principles. It outlines a number of key focus areas, including access to information.

• The news media’s reporting on a pandemic spike in violence against women. It might actually be declining, by Mala Htun and Francesca R. Jensenius, the Washington Post, April 24 2020.

• COVID-19: Guidelines to Report Safely by The Coalition for Women in Journalism provides guidelines on how to safely report on COVID-19 as well as a map of women journalists reporting on the crisis around the world.

• COVID-19: Emerging gender data and why it matters, by UN Women provides an overview of relevant gender data about COVID-19, April 7, 2020.

• Media, Remember Gender in Your Covid-19 Coverage, article by IMS, March 26, 2020.

• Coronavirus puts women in the frontline by EIGE gives an overview of the gendered aspects of the COVID-19 crisis, March 25, 2020. EIGE also has a webpage that aims to raise awareness about some of the gendered impacts that Covid-19 is having on our society.

• Covid-19: Women Front and Centre, statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and UN Women Executive Director, March 20, 2020

• The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism, article by Helen Lewis about how pandemics affect men and women differently, in the Atlantic, March 19, 2020.

• How Will COVID-19 Affect Women and Girls in Low-and-Middle – Income Countries?, article by David Evans, Centre for Global Development, March 16, 2020.

• Covid-19: the gendered impact of the outbreak, by Clare Wenham, Julia Smith and Rosemary Morgan, The Lancet, March 14, 2020.

• The COVID-19 Outbreak and Gender: Key Advocacy Points from Asia and the Pacific, by UN Women, Asia-Pacific Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group

• COVID-19: “Waging War” Against a Virus is NOT What We Need to Be Doing, article by Cynthia Enloe. “To mobilize society today to provide effective, inclusive, fair and sustainable public health, we need to learn the lessons that feminist historians of wars have offered us. To do that, we need to resist the seductive allure of rose-tinted militarization”.

For more tips, go to our post on Safe and responsible reporting on COVID-19, or to our page on gender-sensitive reporting in the Gender & Media Resource Guide.