PAPER:“Dad, Wash Your Hands”: Gender, Care Work, and Attitudes toward Risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic
“Dad, Wash Your Hands”: Gender, Care Work, and Attitudes toward Risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic
First Published October 22, 2020 Research Article
Abstract
Recent analyses of responses to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have posited that men’s dismissive attitudes toward the risks of the virus reflect their attempts to conform to masculine norms that valorize bravery and strength. In this article, the authors develop an alternative account of the gender differences in attitudes toward COVID-19. Drawing on three waves of in-depth interviews with college students and members of their households (n = 45) over a period of 16 weeks (for a total of 120 interviews), the authors find that men and women in comparable circumstances perceive similar risks of COVID-19, but they diverge in their attitudes toward, and responses to, these risks. Connecting scholarship on gender and care work with research on risk, the authors argue that gender differences in attitudes toward risk are influenced by the unique and strenuous care work responsibilities generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which are borne primarily by women—and from which men are exempt.
Keywords gender, care work, risk perception, COVID-19, pandemic
IMPORTANT QUOTATION:
A large body of scholarship has revealed differences in how men and women perceive risk (Gustafson 1998; Panno et al. 2018; Reid and Konrad 2004), but fewer studies have focused on why gender differences in risk perceptions exist (Marshall 2004). In a review of the literature, Gustafson (1998) found that different research methodologies yield mixed, and sometimes even contradictory, explanations for gender differences in risk perceptions. Quantitative findings indicate that men and women generally worry about the same risks, but “women constantly worry a bit more” (Gustafson 1998:806). Qualitative interviews, on the other hand, suggest that men and women worry about somewhat different risks, with women focusing more on threats to their families and homes, while men worry about threats to their work lives (Jakobsen and Karlsson 1996). There is also evidence to suggest that gender differences in risk perceptions are explained by the fact that the same risk might have different meanings for men and women (Gustafson 1998).
Scholars have indicated the need to investigate further why gender differences in risk perceptions exist (Finucane et al. 2000; Johnson and Gleason 2009). Current research in this area has proposed that women’s socialization and their enactment of traditional roles as nurturers partly explain why they express greater concern about others’ well-being across multiple contexts (Baines 2006; Davidson and Freudenburg 1996).Another possible explanation for race and gender differences in risk, labeled the “institutional trust” hypothesis, posits that white men’s willingness to accept risk is influenced by their power, status, and trust in authorities (Flynn, Slovic, and Mertz 1994).
Risk Management as a Form of Care
Scholars focusing on gender and work have argued that the past few decades have witnessed a “stalled” gender revolution (England 2010; Hochschild and Machung 1989) whereby women have successfully subverted legacies of inequality to enter the paid labor force, but men still lag behind women in contributions to family life. Despite some optimism about the possibility that men will be compelled to adopt great caregiving responsibilities in the near future because of changes in the economy and family structure (Maume 2016), women continue to bear a disproportionate load of domestic responsibilities (England 2010; Hochschild and Machung 1989), even as they shoulder greater professional responsibilities.
The precautions women take are often driven by their roles as mothers (Mackendrick 2014), even though the “maternal thinking” that orients women toward the preservation and growth of children is not exclusive to mothers (Ruddick 1980). Scholars have found that even before they are mothers, women are tasked with managing the risk for exposure for children not yet conceived (Lappé 2016; Waggoner 2013). Both Waggoner (2013) and Lappé (2016) contended that recent shifts in reproductive health recommendations have created opportunities to construct women’s bodies as potentially toxic environments for fetuses. Despite the lack of evidence supporting preconception care interventions, women’s behaviors and lifestyle choices are tied to the health of their “phantom fetuses” (Waggoner 2013). This reproductive framework favors women with middle-class resources and directs blame toward those who have unhealthy or sick children. As MacKendrick and Cairns (2019) argued, women who are responsible for shielding their families from environmental harms bear the burden of individual blame for systemic failures.
In times of environmental crisis, leaders of grassroots activist movements are most often women (Brown and Faith 1995; Kimura 2016; Krauss 1993).In times of environmental crisis, leaders of grassroots activist movements are most often women (Brown and Faith 1995; Kimura 2016; Krauss 1993). Women of color, for instance, are critical actors in mobilizing environmental justice movements to protect the health of their local communities (Gomez, Shafiei, and Johnson 2011; Rainey and Johnson 2009). However, women’s opportunities to act effectively during crisis are also constrained by gender roles and divisions of power. For instance, in Morioka’s (2014) research on responses to radiation exposure following the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant explosion, she found that men were dismissive of the potential dangers, while women, specifically mothers, worried about protecting their children (who are more vulnerable to long-term health effects). Gender differences in perceived risk generated conflict within families and an unequal division of power stymied women from acting on perceived risk (Kimura 2016; Morioka 2014). Crises thus further highlight women’s sense of responsibility to their families and communities, even when they are not explicitly or individually called to action.
Gender and Care Work during COVID-19
In this section, we explicitly link the unique care work generated by the COVID-19 pandemic to women’s fearful attitudes toward risk. We present our findings in two parts. First, we describe the novel caregiving responsibilities that have emerged during the pandemic, highlighting how women are disproportionately managing these responsibilities. Next, we connect these responsibilities to women’s narratives of fear and anxiety.
Conclusion
In early July, as COVID-19 remained uncontrolled in the United States, the president commanded the nation’s 3.5 million teachers, 76 percent of whom are women, to return to the classroom in September. Of course, this is not the first time women have been asked to sacrifice their safety during a pandemic. In their research on women’s roles in Brantford, Ontario, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, Godderis and Rossiter (2013) found that a gendered “duty of care” placed women at higher physical and emotional risk when city leaders exhorted women to volunteer as nurses. In examining differences in attitudes toward the risks posed by COVID-19, this article extends Godderis and Rossiter’s (2013) findings by revealing the gendered emotional, social, and psychological toll of this current pandemic.
We have argued that gender differences in attitudes toward, and subsequent responses to, the risks of COVID-19 are shaped by the inequitable division of the unique care work obligations that have emerged during the pandemic. Specifically, the findings indicate that both men and women take the risks of COVID-19 more seriously when they have caregiving responsibilities. During the pandemic, however, women have taken on a disproportionate share of these responsibilities. As a result, they experience greater distress when contemplating the potentially devastating consequences of COVID-19 to themselves and those around them. Men, on the other hand, are not compelled (whether by external expectations or an internal sense of obligation) to adopt comparable responsibilities. We contend that the distance that men enjoy from close caretaking relationships protects them from the fear and anxiety that women reported. These findings paint a different picture from existing analyses that argue that men’s attitudes toward COVID-19 reflect their conformity to a rigid model of masculinity (Ewig 2020; Palmer and Peterson 2020). Although our sample does not rule out the importance of masculinity norms in shaping men’s attitudes toward COVID-19 (Glick 2020), there was little evidence in our sample of men’s efforts to be “tough” and “strong” when contemplating the risks of the virus (Palmer and Peterson 2020). It is important to note, however, that masculinity norms may explain why so few men embrace care work in the first place. We thus do not deny the significance of masculinity in conversations regarding COVID-19; rather, we argue that inequitable gender divisions of care work more fully explain the gender differences in attitudes toward COVID-19 in our sample.
Our research contributes to existing literature on gender, care work, and risk management by drawing attention to how a global pandemic generates uniquely burdensome care responsibilities that are borne primarily by women, including those who have yet to enter conventional caregiving roles (e.g., motherhood) and who have thus far been neglected in studies on women’s domestic responsibilities during COVID-19 (Collins et al. 2020; McLaren et al. 2020). Perhaps most importantly, the findings we have outlined underscore the dangerous public health implications of men’s exemption from care work. Insofar as both men and women with caregiving responsibilities expressed greater concern about the risks of COVID-19, the findings suggest that disease prevention would be more successful if men accepted an equal burden of care work during the pandemic and were therefore more invested in the well-being of others.
As our sample consists mostly of college students, our study also illuminates an aspect of educational inequality during the pandemic that is often eclipsed by more immediate concerns of a “digital divide” and families’ financial distress (Eshoo 2020; Sorenson Impact 2020). Although all college students are experiencing disruptions to their education because of COVID-19, our study shows that more women students have care responsibilities that are competing for their time and attention. The disruptions caused by women’s disproportionate care work responsibilities may have lasting impacts on future employment and educational opportunities, and institutions of higher education should thus consider care work challenges as they develop and hone their support services.
Future research should investigate populations in different life stages to understand how gendered care demands change over the life course and how these changes might shape responses to risk. To advance scholarship on the “social inequality effect” (Olofsson and Rashid 2011), it is also important to examine how economic advantages that allow individuals to reduce care burdens (e.g., by hiring private nannies, tutors, and/or housekeepers) might shape collective efforts to prevent disease. Finally, while our participants’ self-described gender identities oriented us toward comparing men and women, it is important to investigate how other gender identities might shape care work management and in turn influence individuals’ experiences of the pandemic. To improve national responses to the present and future pandemics, it is critical to understand how differential experiences and attitudes influence the efficacy of public health recommendations.
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