According to one survey only a third of women feel both comfortable and able to return to work, compared to more than a half of men. Perhaps that’s not surprising. Women are more likely to be juggling the complicated practical consequences of the Covid crisis, and the way many women have been coping has been little short of heroic – even more reason for Government and employers to make sure women’s voices are being heard.
Women make up the majority of the health and social care workforce battling this virus on the frontline, as well as the essential shop workers keeping services open. Many have been managing without the childcare or help from grandparents they usually rely on. Others have been balancing work with home schooling and running errands for relatives who couldn’t get out, madly multitasking to keep everything, and everyone, afloat.
Women have become home teachers, home entertainers, personal shoppers, carers and delivery drivers – all in addition to their normal shifts or in-between office Zooms. My children are now teenagers, but I can’t be the only parent who cheered with admiration watching women journalists and doctors manage complex TV interviews from home while their young children tried to join in.
That juggling has been complicated. And it isn’t over – with local outbreaks, ever-changing rules and different school hours. It makes it even more important that women’s voices are heard when crucial decisions are being made on the future of work.
Too often the opposite is happening. Many women report being sidelined; half of working mums said a lack of childcare during the crisis had a negative impact on the way they were treated or perceived by their employer. At the heart of the Government it is even worse. Of the 92 ministerial speeches at Government press conferences during the height of the crisis, an incredible 89 were given by men. Where were the women ministers? Little wonder that so little consideration seems to have been given to the pressures on working parents if, when crucial political decisions were being taken and communicated, women were left out.
Ironically, the world leaders who have been most applauded for the way they made decisions, communicated them and built confidence with empathy and openness have been women – especially New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern and Germany’s Angela Merkel.
The problem is that it isn’t just about coronavirus – and it isn’t new. Even though more women are involved in politics, public services and business than ever before, they are still less likely to speak in corporate meetings or at public events; they are less likely to be heard at conferences or on conference calls.
It’s time to tip the balance back. For centuries women have been speaking out and changing the world. I’ve included 40 of them in a book of women’s speeches – from Boudicca to Greta Thunberg, as well as Michelle Obama and the Queen – because I thought it was time we did more to amplify women’s voices. My favourite speech in the book – by civil rights activist and poet Audre Lorde – is honest about the fact that speaking out is ‘never without fear’ but she also says that being visible makes us stronger and empowers others too.
Brilliantly resilient and resourceful women got us through the first six months of the Covid crisis. So their voices should be at the heart of the back-to-work decisions being made now. ‘She Speaks: Women’s Speeches That Changed The World’ by Yvette Cooper is out now.