Collective Action for Collective Survival:

Gendered Risks, Paradoxes, and Opportunities in the Covid Crisis

Abstract

  Disasters present opportunities to think anew about how we are connected to others in a society. This piece will draw on feminist analyses of disaster recovery, essential work, and the importance of coalition building to think about how Covid as a complex disaster exposed us to the reality of our shared vulnerability, and also heightened awareness about particularly vulnerable populations. This awareness may make it possible for us to confront long-standing paradoxes in our societies in a way that emphasizes neither absolute security nor individual responsibility but collective action across diverse interests and groups with an aim, not to promise absolute security, but to focus on collective resilience and survival.