Who’s watching the kids? For many families, the answer falls along predictable gender lines, as women attempt to balance their jobs with unpaid caregiving. In her March 19, 2020 essay in The Atlantic, Helen Lewis contends that this gender divide matters, especially in pandemics. Lewis looks at the current crisis as well as past pandemics worldwide to demonstrate the risks of taking “a gender-neutral approach to pandemics.”
Helen Lewis, “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism,” The Atlantic, 19 March 2020
- Lewis argues that women are more likely to do unpaid “looking after” care than men. Who (and what) need “looking after,” both during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances? What are the economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women? Why is this sometimes called the “second shift?” How does the current pandemic, with its stay-at-home orders, exasperate this long-standing gender imbalance?
- Lewis cites research that shows that gender inequality doesn’t end after pandemics are over. What secondary consequences of pandemics lead to lasting gender disparity? The researchers Lewis includes in this conversation studied the effects of other recent pandemics in West Africa. What were these past pandemics? Why do you think Lewis chooses to expand the scope of her evidence beyond the United States and the current pandemic? Find one place where she presents research from a past pandemic, and describe how she summarizes this research in light of her own argument, as recommended in Chapter 2.
- This argument focuses on dual-income, heterosexual couples with childcare responsibilities. What other perspectives are missing in this conversation? Compose a two- or three-sentence naysayer argument for this missing perspective, following the strategies explained in Chapter 6: introduce the objection, represent the objection fairly, and answer the objection.
- Lewis argues that “a pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities.” This claim is echoed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, an immunologist and lead member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Watch his April 7, 2020 statement here. What disparities does the pandemic draw attention to, according to Fauci? Reflect on other existing inequalities that the current crisis highlights (i.e. class, ethnicity, disability, access to technology.) Use a specific example to describe the inequalities you have noticed, and explain a possible long-term solution that could rectify this inequity.
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I really enjoyed reading Helen Lewis’s article, “Bearing the Burden: Helen Lewis on how Pandemics Affect Women.” Her argument throughout the article is that women are more likely than men to be the one’s caring for children. The problem with this is that people assume women are the caretaker in the relationship. But may I bring up that women are most likely also trying to work their job at home, cooking meals, and cleaning the house. Making women not only having “second shifts,” but also third and fourth shifts in some cases, with no time for relaxation during a pandemic. This leaves the men to focus on their job, but it does not look like to much else compared to the women. From an economic standpoint, most workers in the service industry where they work for tips are women. The majority of those women are not getting paid because of they do not have sick paid leave or even unpaid leave.
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After reading “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism” by Helen Lewis’s I am very intrigued. Her argument is that women are more likely to care for children than the men are.
1. In her article she says that children need “looking after”, both during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. The economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women are because of the social norms. Not only that but because they are considered the child care taker, they have more flexibility than men and also get paid less by men so they are considered the best for the job. It is this sometimes called the “second shift” because it’s like having another job to do. The current pandemic, with its stay-at-home orders, exasperate this long-standing gender imbalance because it shows in better perspective of how women have to take care of the household and do all the domestic things that people expect women to do.
2. The secondary consequences of pandemics lead to lasting gender disparities such as women still being treated as the domestic person in the household and also not getting the recognition they deserve. The other recent pandemics that she included in her conversations are the recent pandemics in West Africa such as Ebola, Zika, and SARS. She chooses to expand the scope of her evidence beyond the United States and the current pandemic to show that even in different places, families are facing the same problems just like families are in the U.S. One example of this is when she goes more in depth about Ebola and she connects/summarizes it in light of her own argument by relating the problems of women caused by Ebola to the problems that are happening to women because of the coronavirus.
3. Other perspectives that the author is missing is talking about how it would be for homosexual couples or if there is a single dad involved. Lewis doesn’t included these and if there’s a situation where there’s only a male or males in the picture she misses on the fact or way of how it effect them considering what she already said about how it effects women.
4. Disparities the pandemic draw attention to, according to Fauci are health disparities in the African american community. Other existing inequalities are health problems that a person already has, disabilities, sexuality, and etc. An example would be someone with social status getting taken care of first rather than someone normal who has been waiting forever to get help. A possible long-term solution that could rectify this inequity would be the simple rule of first come first serve unless it’s an emergency and is death defying.
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To run a house you usually need to keep up with chores and laundry which can add up quickly. Adding children into the mix makes it extra hard because not only do you have to continue cleaning you also have to watch and care for them all the time while keeping everything in some sort of order. At this day and age, it is much more likely that in a heterosexual relationship that men are making more than women so when it comes down to choosing who should be the homemaker the women are usually picked for the job. Also, the stereotype of women needing to be homemakers increases their chances of having to do it during the quarantine. Even if women are given this job they still may have work to do in their normal job referring to the “second shift” because they have to maintain both at the same time. This self-isolation is making the gender imbalance take two steps back because we are forced to make to a classic 1950s lifestyle where the men make the money the majority of the time.
Lewis believes that gender imbalance won’t just go back to normal after the pandemic. By using examples of and Ebola outbreak the zika virus and many more Lewis explains that men are “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” By expanding her evidence to other places in the world that we’re in the past Lewis is broadening the issue at hand which is that pandemic causes great gender equality imbalance and has been for many years.
While this article does bring to light the struggles of a heterosexual household there are so many other households that are struggling. Single parents and other couples struggling are not mentioned. Some people might have the responsibility of taking care of older people or relatives and have to worry about their own jobs. There are also many single-income parents or people that just have to live on their own must still have to difficulty manage during these troubling times.
Gender inequality has always been there and this pandemic is just drawing a bigger light on to it. I think this illuminates the wage gap issue that we should be able to change. It will take time to recover after the pandemic economically but wage should be based on skill and work ethic not on who or what you identify with/as and if we fix this then if this were to ever happen again families would have always chosen the women to be the homemakers because it will only depend on who makes more in a fairway.
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“The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism” is an article constructed by Hellen Lewis on The Atlantic, and was featured fairly recent, on March 19th. As a matter of fact, it was posted exactly one month ago at the time of me typing this. It focuses on the disparities highlighted and caused by this ongoing pandemic. Lewis argues how women are being forced with pre existing expectations to take economic falls, and how the pandemic is creating issues that will not only last during this pandemic but for many years to come. She uses various examples of research, including sources that relate to other epidemics in other parts of the world, such as Africa. I don’t necessarily think that this pandemic is highlighting issues that haven’t already existed before. Some issues are frankly quite baseless. Our focus during this pandemic should be on the health of ALL people of ALL types. It is perfectly okay to fight for equality, but that should not be the main priority when the equality being fought for isn’t that grand in scale. Public health and catering to suffering families of all types should be the main priority of this pandemic, along with efforts to end it.
1. A) When the article refers to people who need to “looked after”, the author is referring to children, those who have fallen ill to not only the virus but anything else, and the elderly. This applies during the pandemic, and on an ordinary day to day basis. B) There are various examples explaining the economic and cultural reasons of why taking the responsibility of unpaid labor falls onto women. Economically, I wouldn’t exactly say them being paid less is why they should take the fall, as I don’t believe the wage gap fully exists. However, as the article states, 40% of employed women work part time as opposed to 13% of employed men. This naturally leads to a built expectation for them to take the fall. Culturally, there aren’t any specific examples, but this social construct of women doing unpaid labor has existed for centuries. Sadly, it’ll likely remain this way even as social movements progress. C) This process is called the second-shift because despite most women already trying to participate in the work force, they’re usually forced to do labor at home as well. This gives them less free time than men supposedly, which is why the name “second-shift” applies, as most women technically work two different jobs. D) I don’t necessarily believe that the pandemic highlights this everlasting imbalance, however, if I had to give an explanation, I would have to say that our pre-existing social constructs have forced women to work significantly more, and peoples conceptions of what women are for (housework, mostly) leaves them in a position where they’re usually the ones forced to take a fall and stop working. It shouldn’t be this way, but that’s how it is to some.
2. A) Consequences that lead to everlasting gender imbalance would include the lock downs, according to the article. The author talks about how these lock downs will and apparently have permanently increased violent and abusive environments. It mainly focuses on the domestic violence against women, even though cases of men being treated poorly also exist, so I don’t see the authors point in using this research. It could also be said that it shows a further stray from prioritizing other issues, which in some cases could be true. Although, most of these issues centered around women also have male victims. B) The other viruses that the author references from West Africa are the Zika and Ebola epidemics. C) The author chose to use these viruses to broaden their credibility and shed more light on gender issues caused by viruses in other parts of the world. They use a statistic regarding the Ebola outbreak from Sierra Leone to argue that these viruses had less female victims than female victims of obstetric complications. She uses this to argue that priority is only cast onto the viruses, and little attention is given to victims of other issues that had risen in occurrence due to said virus, such as domestic violence, etc.
3. This article primarily focuses on dual-income families, consisting of a man-woman relationship. This article is missing various family types, and this lack of broad perspective takes away strength from the argument. The issue isn’t necessarily a female only issue. There are single parents, including males, that suffer as well. While the article does briefly gloss over them, they do not go into nearly as much depth as standard family types. They also don’t consider other families that may consist of homosexual couples, families that are dual-income but have complications, disabled families, etc.. This article only sheds light on the “suffering of women” and the imbalance caused by this pandemic, but other families are affected just as much. It’s not just an issue for women.
4. In this statement by Fauci, he talks about the disparities regarding the health of the African-American community. Other disparities that this pandemic highlights is children’s education, and the well-being of single income families and disabled families. The immediate shift to online education takes away from a child’s maximum potential for learning, as E-learning structured by normal schools is not structured as well as standard online schools, as they had no time. Disabled families can no longer cater to their own needs due to the closure of vital businesses to them specifically. Another inequality I have noticed is the labor expectations for women. 40% of employed women are part-time workers, and only 13% of men are part-time workers. This causes a social construct that women should step down and take the economic fall during this pandemic and be the house worker.
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After reading “The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism” by Helen Lewis’s I’m very intrigued. Her argument is that girls are more likely to worry about kids than the boys are.
1. In her article, she says that children need “looking after”, both during a virus and in ordinary circumstances. The economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women are due to the social norms. Not only that but because they’re considered the kid caretaker, they need more flexibility than men and also get paid less by men in order that they are considered the simplest for the duty. it’s this sometimes called the “second shift” because it’s like having another job to try and do. the present pandemic, with its stay-at-home orders, exasperate this long-standing gender imbalance because it shows in a better perspective of how women must make sure of the household and do all the domestic things that folks expect women to try and do.
2. The secondary consequences of pandemics cause lasting gender disparities like women still being treated because the domestic person within the household and also not getting the popularity they deserve. the opposite recent pandemics that she included in her conversations are the recent pandemics in the geographic regions like Ebola, Zika, and SARS. She chooses to expand the scope of her evidence beyond us and also the current pandemic to point out that even in numerous places, families face the identical problems similar to families are within the U.S. One example of this can be when she goes more full about Ebola and she or he connects/summarizes it in light of her own argument by relating the issues of girls caused by Ebola to the issues that are happening to women due to the coronavirus.
3. Another perspective that the author is missing is talking about how it might be for homosexual couples or if there’s one dad involved. Lewis doesn’t include these and if there is a situation where there’s only a male or males within the picture she misses on the very fact or way of how it effects them considering what she already said about how it effects women.
4. Disparities the pandemic draw attention to, in line with Fauci are health disparities within the African American community. Other existing inequalities are health problems that someone already has, disabilities, sexuality, and etc. An example would be someone with a position getting taken care of first instead of someone normal who has been waiting forever to induce help. A possible long-term solution that would rectify this inequity would be the easy rule of first come first serve unless it’s an emergency and is death-defying.
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After reading “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism” by Helen Lewis’s I am very interested . Her argument is that women are more likely to care for children than the men are.
1. In her article she says that children need “looking after”. The economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women are because of the social norms. Not only that but because they are considered the child caretaker, they have more flexibility than men and also get paid less by men so they are considered the best for the job. The current situation, with its stay-at-home orders, exacerbate this long-standing gender imbalance because it shows in better perspective how women have to take care of the household so that they can do the things that people expect women to do. Women have a better chance of taking care of the young way better.
2. The secondary consequences of this situation lead to lasting gender disparities such as women still being treated as the main person in the household. Also they are not getting the recognition they deserve. The other recent situation that she included in her conversations are the recent situation in West Africa such as Ebola, Zika, and SARS. She chooses to use outside information so she can better her claim on how this situation relates to the United States situation. One example of this is when she goes more in depth about Ebola and she connects/summarizes it in light of her own argument. She does this to relate the problems of women caused by Ebola to the problems that are happening to women because of the coronavirus.
3. Other perspectives that the author is missing is talking about the single dads that have no choice but to care for their kids. She only talks about the women’s perspective because she is a woman and that’s all she knows. She doesn’t think about how the males that have to step up and care for the kids with no help from the mother.
4. Disparities the situation draws attention to, according to Fauci, are health disparities in the African american community. Other existing inequalities have health problems that a person already has, disabilities, sexuality, and etc. An example would be someone who is not able to do anything getting help rather than someone who has needed help for the longest. The possible long-term solution that could balance this unfairness would be the simple rule of first come first serve unless it’s an emergency and is death defying.
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In both pandemic and normal circumstances, “older people”, “patients”, and “children” (Lewis) need to be looked after, along with the house and other necessities of life. The economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls on women is that this caretaking job is usually attributed to women, which sets the feminist movement back when the role is forced upon in the current pandemic. It is called the “second shift” because it is a job that women now have to take on along with a previous job that they must now work on at home. The current pandemic and stay-at-home orders force this role upon women more, because now they don’t have anywhere to send their kid during the day, and it is already expected of them to take care of those in need anyways. They are forced to be at home and take care of the children, while the men expect this to be the case because of societal norms.
The secondary consequences of pandemics lead to lasting gender disparities such as women still being treated as the caretaker in the house because that is what society has become accustomed to during the pandemic. The other recent pandemics that Lewis included in her examples are well-known pandemics in Africa such as Ebola, Zika, and SARS. I think Lewis chose to expand the scope of her evidence because it provides the reality that this dynamic is nothing new and also not just pertaining to America, but instead pertaining to women all over the world. One example of this is when she describes how following the Ebola outbreak, men recovered more quickly than women. She relates this idea to her current situation by relating how both COVID-19 and Ebola pandemics will have lasting effects on the women’s equality movement.
Other perspectives that are missing in the conversation are homosexual couples and those whose only parent is a father. The article displays the problems in a family where there is one mother and one father, or only one mother, but does not provide statistics on how homosexual families or single-dad families are affected by pandemics. This can be viewed as slightly biased in that the article only wants to focus on the struggles of women, but does not go into depth about the struggles of men during pandemics.
The pandemic draws attention to disparities primarily in the African American community, according to Fauci. A current inequality I have noticed during this crisis is how many students do not have access to the internet at home and are left to suffer as an effect. A possible long-term solution is that the government or providers can give out free wifi routers to families who need it during a crisis like COVID-19
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Babies and children other people that are requiring “looking after“. Economically women are paid less than men so they are more likely to stop working if they are in a heterosexual relationship to take care of the children. Culturally, throughout history women have been known to be a homemaker’s woman in the relationship are the breadwinners. Men are working and women are taking care of the children, it continues to increase the gap between balance between genders in the workplace.
Secondary consequences of pandemics that lead to general disparity are going to be things like cultural and economic differences. She brings up viruses like Zika, Ebola and SARS. Louis wants to expand her research with past pandemics and further on in the United States to represent the predictability and the outcomes that are most likely going to happen from the coronavirus that is taking place now in the world . Sierra Leone is a west African country that Lewis mentions in her article. What Louis mentioned that it is interesting about Sierra Leone is that more women died from obstetric complications in the infectious virus of Ebola about broke out in 2013-2016.
Things not mentioned in the article include diverse couples and children out of school that are self-sufficient and can take care of themselves. Continuously in some households both parents could be working out of the house.
The pandemic has drawn attention to economic, cultural and even political wrongdoings to many different types of people. Ethnicity, class, disability, access to technology, and more are all things that are complications from the pandemic that aren’t necessarily being addressed by people who can make a difference. Some students at school might not be able to get the technology they need to continue to learn off campus. If workers are being cut back at a job, hopefully the decision of who stays is going to be based off of who works the best in the position that they are paid for and not gender or ethnicity.
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Helen Lewis wrote an article called “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism.” She discusses how the coronavirus affects women differently than men. Women are more inclined to have to take care of the children at home than the men are. Traditional roles like the men being the breadwinners and the women being the homemakers are starting to be seen again among dual-income couples.
1. Children need to be looked after during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. During a pandemic, children are home because schools are closed so someone in the household has to look after them. This unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women because it is a traditional role of the household. It is sometimes called the “second shift” because it is an extra job added on to their normal job. The current pandemic has exasperated this gender imbalance because things are going back to the way they were years ago, women are taking care of the children while the men are making money for the family.
2. Lewis uses evidence beyond the United States and the current pandemic to show that this isn’t the first time that a pandemic has led to gender disparity. These past pandemics include Ebola and Zika Virus. Lewis compares the effects of these pandemics to the effects of the recent pandemic.
3. Although there has been no gender analysis yet, it is expected that “domestic-violence rates to rise during lockdown periods.” This is important to know because we are currently going through a pandemic.
Other perspectives that are missing are different types of families. There are families with only one parent in the household and other families that have their grandparents living with them. These should be included because other families besides heterosexual couples with children are struggling during this time.
4. The current crisis highlights the inequality of access to technology because some students are unable to access technology at home. They had the option of using technology at school or at the library, but now that is not an option. The school provided Chromebooks to students though, which fixes the problem of a student not having technology at home.
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Helen Lewis discusses how coronavirus pandemic will impact women, just as any other pandemic has in the past. She is hopeful that it could be different this time but claims that the government will not pay attention to the existent issue. She explains the economic issues that have occurred, domestic violence cases, the inconsiderateness of pregnant women and much more. She believes that the pandemic should not mask the reality: pandemics always have impacted females more, yet they’ve been considered last.
1. Children, babies, and the elderly need to be looked after during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. This unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women because in the past, that is what was always expected. Men have money-making jobs and women to tend to the home and the children. It is sometimes called the “second shift” because it is considered less significant than the job that men to out and do. Due to the pandemic, the care of the children will likely fall on the woman of the house since statistically, men get paid more and they need to make enough to provide for their entire household with one person’s income.
2.Consequences that lead to everlasting gender imbalance the curfews that have been put in place. Lewis explains that cases of domestic violence will increase due to women’s inability to leave their homes and avoid violence. She also includes pandemics that occurred in West Africa like Zika and Ebola. She includes these examples to appear more inclusive, as the article is centered on women, she does not want to seem self-absorbed. Also, to make it known that this is a global issue, not an American issue.
3. She is leaving out homosexual relationships and households where only one person works. In the point of view of a stay at home mom, she’d disagree with a lot that Lewis says. For example, it’s not all bad that the woman stays at home. Some choose to and on the other hand, men do get paid more statistically. Also, a child is more inclined to their mother and has a different connection than the father does. Men simply are not capable of the duty of staying at home and taking care of children 24/7. Males are more inclined to depression and also substance abuse (compared to women) which leads to violence. This could cause harm to children.
4. Disparities the pandemic draws attention to, according to Fauci are health disparities in the African American community. Other existing inequalities are health problems, disabilities, sexuality, and etc. An example would be someone of higher status being tended to before someone with a lower status but needs help more. A long- term solution for this could be treating people in order of severeness of the issue.
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Helen Lewis’s article “The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism” talks about the gender inequalities brought to attention through pandemics such as coronavirus. Lewis mentions the sacrifices women have to make and their “second shift” they take part in that is automatically their job because of societal standards.
1. The house needs to be looked after in the sense of being cleaned and if the couple has children that is something else left for the female to handle. Culturally women have always been the ones to have to look after their children. In many religions, it still is that way woman fought for years to earn the rights they have now and the ability to work. One thing that hasn’t changed id the responsibility of the children falling on the women in the relationship. Taking care of other things around the house and caring for children is sometimes referred to as a “second shift” because of the amount of time and energy that needs to be put into it. There are people in society who do the same things as their job used to earn their salary. The coronavirus has made it so women have to do their job that they have to earn a salary and then take care of their kids and the tasks around the house. The pandemic exasperates this gender imbalance because the “second shift” has now become a twenty-four-hour job on top of their paid job.
2. Lewis mentions that in many cases partners have to decide who will be laid off from their job in order to have one of them to take care of their kids and complete the second shift. The past pandemics in Africa that Lewis mentions were Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2015-16, and the recent outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and bird flu. Lewis most likely chose to expand the scope of her evidence beyond the united states to prove that that the gender imbalance is a worldwide issue and has been happening for a lot longer than the corona pandemic. When using research from the Ebola outbreak Lewis used quotes from people that best supported her argument such as, “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income.” This quote was proof that men’s needs were met before the needs of women.
3. Lewis only talks about discrepancies in heterosexual couples during the pandemic but she doesn’t mention the issues in the lgbtq+ community. They face discrimination every day because of who they love, the chances of them being denied of something or rejected are high for them. Although Lewis is talking more so about inequalities in the house which there is still a chance of being the same.
4. Dr. Anthony Fauci states that coronavirus draws health disparities in the African American community to attention. There are huge disparities among classes that have been brought to light through the coronavirus pandemic. People of a higher class have access to better help and treatment. Those in poverty and those that have been struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic deal with a larger struggle and burden because they can’t afford the necessary materials to make it through so they have to rely on the government.
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Lewis is conveying that children must be looked after during both pandemics and ordinary circumstances. The cultural reason for women to carry unpaid labor is because females in a relationship are the primary caretakers of the children traditionally, while the economic reason is that men are primarily carrying the most jobs compared to women in the workforce and are known to be paid less than men in the workforce, meaning that they are not paid for all of their hard work making it unpaid. Taking care of the children is called the second shift because women culturally carry a primary role to tend to the house while the children are in school and their husband is at work in “heterosexual relationships” and have to take care of the children after they come home signifying that the first part of their day has concluded and the next task has commenced dubbing it the “second shift” as the work of the female and mother is not done. The stay at home orders exasperates gender roles as women now have to tend to the house, buy groceries and help the children with online schoolwork and take care of the children, while the husband will work digitally or physically giving the increasing the females list of tasks while their male significant other carries nearly the same workload that they carried before the pandemic leaving the female at a disadvantage.
Lewis wants to infer that the secondary consequences consist of little to no changes between the imbalance between the male and female role post-pandemic. Lewis references the Zika virus from Africa as a reminder that the coronavirus is not the first virus outbreak the world has faced and that the Zika virus outbreak affected multiple countries such as increasing domestic violence as individuals aligning with how families spend longer periods of time together in quarantine, these comparisons signify that Lewis is trying to explain that times like pandemics are stressful for everyone and to strengthen her argument with outside evidence of events that transpired outside of America, expressing that Lewis acknowledges the fact that the coronavirus is affecting people other than herself.
The arguments Lewis fails to reflect on consists of that of mono income and homosexual relationships. Mono income families only have one family member receiving money for the family this can stress the working family member as they have to work harder to receive the money they need to provide for their families despite the parent who is tending to the home and children. In a homosexual relationship, both partners are of the same sex as the couple may not have children at all, on both accounts Lewis’s argument can be deemed invalid under a homosexual relationship, as the same-sex partners regardless of working or at home both partners would be considered equal even if they have children, in addition, the lgbtq+ community carries a history of mistreatment by society giving them their own conflict compared to heterosexual gender inequality.
Dr.Anthony Fauci infers that the pandemic brings light to the disparity of the major gaps between the people of America via discrimination and racial tension, those who experience adversity due to their financial circumstances and access to medical assistance or technology for online schooling, these individuals suffer tremendously as they may be the most susceptible to the coronavirus and ruin. A possible long-term solution can be special programs to provide to the unfortunate who need the internet or a computer to operate through school and centers to assist those without a medical plan or insurance to provide medical assistance, as well as arrangements to give them food when they need it.
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Having Read Kate Hardin’s Article about her opposing to Al Franken having to resign his position I wanted to disagree with her.Hardin believes that Al Franken should not be made resign because he as of when she wrote the article only one girl alleged that she was assaulted by Al Franken. She says that instead he should be an ally to women.That he should take part in other things so that he will be able to uplift women and be an example to others.I think he should be made resign.People in higher power are always let off easy.He himself said he was guilty for the offense.Having everyone know what happened and even know he said he was guilty but still have him stay in his position would be a contradiction and will just let people see that nothing will be done for their wrong doing.She even writes ¨Then, when (okay, if, but like I said: I’m a realist) another Democratic politician’s sexual misconduct is revealed, we can ask the same of him.¨ Referring to other men who are in political standing just having to ¨stand up¨ for women and be allies.Which i think isn’t enough because that will just show other men how they will have no consequences for their actions except having to be ¨allies¨ to women.It seems like something that would be suitable to do in a perfect world where having them men show other men what is right would work.I just don’t think that would work for us.
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Lewis argues that women are more likely to do unpaid “looking after” care than men. Who (and what) need “looking after,” both during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances? What are the economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women? Why is this sometimes called the “second shift?” How does the current pandemic, with its stay-at-home orders, exasperate this long-standing gender imbalance?
Women usually look after the home, that includes, the children, the housekeeping, the food shopping as well as the shopping of other needed home item, the laundry, if there is an elderly parent, or in law, or even an acquaintance, or a neighbor.
Throughout history men have been the bread winners. Although there has been an exceedingly small change in modern culture men remain the high earners in society.
It is called the second shift because women who work outside the home still must come home and cook dinner, help the children with homework, bathe the children and put them to bed.
Let’s say that the male parent can work from home, they will give priority to their job, because it is understood that he gets paid more money, therefore his job is more important.
I really enjoyed reading Helen Lewis’s article, “Bearing the Burden: Helen Lewis on how Pandemics Affect Women.” Her argument throughout the article is that women are more likely than men to be the one’s caring for children. The problem with this is that people assume women are the caretaker in the relationship. But may I bring up that women are most likely also trying to work their job at home, cooking meals, and cleaning the house. Making women not only having “second shifts,” but also third and fourth shifts in some cases, with no time for relaxation during a pandemic. This leaves the men to focus on their job, but it does not look like to much else compared to the women. From an economic standpoint, most workers in the service industry where they work for tips are women. The majority of those women are not getting paid because of they do not have sick paid leave or even unpaid leave.
The post above is very poignant to the article as to how the pandemic affects women in general.
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1) Lewis argues that women are usually more likely to do the “looking after” of children rather than men during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. For most of history, in society, women are usually paid less than men and are considered housewives. This term “housewives” usually relates to women taking care of the house and her children when men are out getting paid while working. Women are considered the caretaker for their children unless they just do not take any partake in their children’s lives. Especially right now, during quarantine, parents are having to watch their children because the nation is shut down. The social normality of the situation is that women stay home with the child and the man goes and continues to work. This is sometimes called the “second shift” because women still continue to have jobs to support their families on top of physically taking care of their children. Women will work during the day and then come home and have to watch their kid/s so it is called a “second shift” because there is no break. It’s like having a second job back to back. This pandemic has really put into perspective the gender imbalance because there are lots of people unemployed and children are having to stay home because schools are closed so parents have to watch their kids 24/7 and in this case it is the women. Like Lewis mentioned, this could shine light and finally changed for women because this crisis has shown that times are going back to how they were in the early ages where women stayed home as housewives and men went out to make the money.
2) Lewis provides that secondary consequences of pandemics have led to lasting gender disparity including financial difficulties, stress, and alcohol consumption can trigger violence and for lock down to be in place this could be taken out on. To relate his findings in the United States, Lewis included effects of other recent pandemics in West Africa like Zika and Ebola. Lewis is broadening the situation brought up about women during this pandemic to other nations to point out that it is a bigger issue not just in this nation. It expresses that gener imbapande is in other countries. One example of this is when she mentions Ebola to further express that gender imbalance is occurring elsewhere but Lewis asserts “more women died of obstetric complications than the infectious disease itself.” and she related this back to people not taking this more seriously because it is not noticed enough.
3) Most of Lewis’s examples mentioned are dual-income, heterosexual relationships with children and this article is missing the fact that some families only have a mom or vice-versa. It is also missing that their could be homosexual couples during this pandemic. There are many single parents having to take care of their children right now and manage having a job which Lewis does not consider. These single parents could include males which sheds light on the opposite situation because of course this is not just a problem for women. Males could be going the-rough similar problems with income and caretaking during this pandemic along with women
4) According to Dr. Fauci, this pandemic has drawn a lot of attention to health disparities. These include asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are the underlying principles that ultimately hurt suffering coronavirus patients especially for the African American community. HIV and AIDs had been very popular at one time but because there was courage and strength in the LGBTQ community they changed the stigma. Other existing inequalities that are highlighted during times of crisis is one with a disability. Especially during this pandemic, whenever one is sick, it is like all compassion for others is unknown to some because they believe they are top priority. One long-term solution for this inequality could be the implication of registering in line rather than expressing that one’s needs are higher than others in lines.
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In Helen Lewis’, “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism”, Lewis argues that the coronavirus affects women more than it affects men as they naturally have lower wages. Women tend to be the caretakers in times such as a pandemic as a result of these lower wages. Lewis also believes that many other movements, such as anti-racism movements and anti-abuse movements, are being hindered as a result of the lockdown. Overall, I believe that what Lewis is stating is correct, as it is significantly more difficult to fight for rights when one is trapped at home.
1.) Lewis argues that women most likely will end up doing the unpaid “looking after” of children, older people, the sick, and their homes. In ordinary circumstances, they wouldn’t need to stop working to care for children as schools would have them and the elderly would be in elderly homes. Economically, this task falls to women as their wages are lower than men so it is more practical to have women caring for a home and children. Culturally, there are “social norms of women performing care roles”, as stated by Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics. This is commonly referred to as the “second shift” as caretaking appears to be a job that women have taken on alongside their monetary job. Their first shift would be them working their job, and once they are home, the “second shift” starts. The pandemic reveals the imbalance between genders because women are forced to stay at home to care for children who would normally be in school. During the Ebola outbreak, women’s wages returned to normal far after men’s wages, something that may reoccur in the coronavirus outbreak. Domestic abuse rates and maternal mortality rates will rise as a result of being stuck at home and resources being diverted elsewhere.
2.) A secondary consequence of pandemics is the lasting image of women as caretakers. An economic consequence revealed during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was that “men’s income returned to what they had made pre-outbreak faster than women’s income”. This further proves pandemics have lasting effects on the gender imbalance. Lewis chose to include other viruses, including Ebola, Zika, and SARS, and she does this to be more credible. By speaking on these other viruses, Lewis has direct evidence that women are more affected than men in pandemics. One example of her using information from the Ebola pandemic is from the quote, “School closures affected girls’ life chances, because many dropped out of education… Domestic and sexual violence rose”, which exposes ways women can be affected by pandemics.
3.) Other perspectives that aren’t covered in this article are homosexual couples and single-father families. The lack of multiple perspectives makes this article seem less reliable and almost seem as though it was haphazardly created. The author was focused on the struggles of women during the pandemic but didn’t mention anything about single fathers, which makes the argument biased. There is no rebuttal for the argument that this article is biased as it doesn’t explore other arguements and refute them.
4.) According to Fauci, the pandemic draws attention to the disparities primarily in the African American community. The pandemic has created a great number of disparities, and especially so for learning environments. Some students have better access to the internet at home than others, and some have little to no internet access. Those who have extravagant homes find it easier to stay put, whereas people in cramped apartments feel the need to leave. A long-term solution for students would be providing them with proper technology to do their school work, and even distribute Wi-Fi sources. A solution for those with smaller homes is to give them advice on how to find fun in their homes.
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In Helen Lewis'”The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism”, an article on The Atlantic, and was featured fairly recent, on March 19th.Lewis argues that the coronavirus affects women more than it affects men as they naturally have lower wages.Lewis argues that women are more likely to do unpaid “looking after” care than men. Who (and what) need “looking after,” both during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances? She is hopeful that it could be different this time but claims that the government will not pay attention to the existent issue.
1.In her article she says that children need to be cared for, both during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. The economic and cultural reasons why this unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women are because of the norms of domesticity. In ordinary circumstances, they wouldn’t need to stop working to care for children as schools would have them and the elderly would be in elderly homes. Economically, this task falls to women as their wages are lower than men so it is more practical to have women caring for a home and children. Culturally, there are “social norms of women performing care roles”, as stated by Clare Wenham, an assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics.
2. Lewis provides that secondary consequences of pandemics have led to lasting gender disparity including financial difficulties, stress, and alcohol consumption can trigger violence and for lock down to be in place this could be taken out on.Lewis references the Zika virus from Africa as a reminder that the coronavirus is not the first virus outbreak the world has faced and that the Zika virus outbreak affected multiple countries such as increasing domestic violence as individuals aligning with how families spend longer periods of time together in quarantine.
3.While this article does bring to light the struggles of a heterosexual household there are so many other households that are struggling. Single parents and other couples struggling are not mentioned. Some people might have the responsibility of taking care of older people or relatives and have to worry about their own jobs. There are also many single-income parents or people that just have to live on their own must still have to difficulty manage during these troubling times.
4.Dr.Anthony Fauci infers that the pandemic brings light to the disparity of the major gaps between the people of America via discrimination and racial tension, those who experience adversity due to their financial circumstances and access to medical assistance or technology for online schooling, these individuals suffer tremendously as they may be the most susceptible to the coronavirus and ruin. A possible long-term solution can be special programs to provide to the unfortunate who need the internet or a computer to operate through school and centers to assist those without a medical plan or insurance to provide medical assistance, as well as arrangements to give them food when they need it.
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1) Lewis argues that women are usually more likely to do the “looking after” of children rather than men during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. For most of history, in society, women are usually paid less than men and are considered housewives. This term “housewives” usually relates to women taking care of the house and her children when men are out getting paid while working. Women are considered the caretaker for their children unless they just do not take any partake in their children’s lives. Especially right now, during quarantine, parents are having to watch their children because the nation is shut down. The social normality of the situation is that women stay home with the child and the man goes and continues to work. This is sometimes called the “second shift” because women still continue to have jobs to support their families on top of physically taking care of their children. Women will work during the day and then come home and have to watch their kid/s so it is called a “second shift” because there is no break. It’s like having a second job back to back. This pandemic has really put into perspective the gender imbalance because there are lots of people unemployed and children are having to stay home because schools are closed so parents have to watch their kids 24/7 and in this case it is the women. Like Lewis mentioned, this could shine a light and finally changed for women because this crisis has shown that times are going back to how they were in the early ages where women stayed home as housewives and men went out to make the money.
2) Lewis provides that secondary consequences of pandemics have led to lasting gender disparity including financial difficulties, stress, and alcohol consumption can trigger violence and for the lockdown to be in place this could be taken out on. To relate his findings in the United States, Lewis included the effects of other recent pandemics in West Africa like Zika and Ebola. Lewis is broadening the situation brought up about women during this pandemic to other nations to point out that it is a bigger issue not just in this nation. It expresses that gender imbalance is in other countries. One example of this is when she mentions Ebola to further express that gender imbalance is occurring elsewhere but Lewis asserts “more women died of obstetric complications than the infectious disease itself.” and she related this back to people not taking this more seriously because it is not noticed enough.
3) Most of Lewis’s examples mentioned are dual-income, heterosexual relationships with children and this article is missing the fact that some families only have a mom or vice-versa. It is also missing that there could be homosexual couples during this pandemic. There are many single parents having to take care of their children right now and manage to have a job that Lewis does not consider. These single parents could include males which sheds light on the opposite situation because of course this is not just a problem for women. Males could be going the-rough similar problems with income and caretaking during this pandemic along with women
4) According to Dr. Fauci, this pandemic has drawn a lot of attention to health disparities. These include asthma, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity are the underlying principles that ultimately hurt suffering coronavirus patients especially for the African American community. HIV and AIDs had been very popular at one time but because there were courage and strength in the LGBTQ community they changed the stigma. Other existing inequalities that are highlighted during times of crisis is one with a disability. Especially during this pandemic, whenever one is sick, it is like all compassion for others is unknown to some because they believe they are a top priority. One long-term solution for this inequality could be the implication of registering in line rather than expressing that one’s needs are higher than others in lines.
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Summary:Lewis argues that there are many people being oblivious to how social distancing and working from home is as simple as said. Women are seen as primary caretakers in the family and have to take care of the children. This pandemic will cause women to have more responsibilities. Louis used that the pandemic will cause there to be more “looking after” And this job is frequently induced on women.
1.There are many people That need taken care of during this time like children, sick family, and pets. Usually economically and culturally unpaid extra labor falls predominately to women because of gender roles. This is sometimes called the second shift because it’s like having another job at home. This is why there are jobs specifically to take care of children, the sick, and pets. Therefore that is why it is conveyed to be called the second shift. During this time the pandemic is going to have a long lasting gender and balance because the typical rules women would have before or more now and only push this more upon the woman then the men.
2. This pandemic will leave secondhand consequences to long lasting gender disparity because of how you still have a woman as the primary caregiver, this will only make it more of a social norm. The past pandemics in west Africa we’re about a bola crisis. Mainly about how in west Africa and events that are not priority or canceled and the skin that’s a fact maternal mortality or access to contraception. This is bad because as research says Black women are more likely to die during childbirth and white women. Louis advocates the Ebola crisis as a resemblance towards the current pandemic and claims that this crisis in Africa could be overcome although many would say that the pandemic that is going on now is more extensive and easy to spread.
3. The argument is focused on women and their situation during this pandemic and not adolescents or men who could be single fathers these people suspected are left out. Of course many will probably disagree on who in the world is taking the most backlash during this time. There is a huge lack of people like single fathers that are being affected during this time and should be known. This makes the article extremely biased since there is no counterclaim, Which makes it seem like the writer is oblivious to other perspectives during this pandemic that are being affected drastically as well as women.
4. Fauci Explains how the pandemic rated disparities especially to those who are in African-American communities. Many people are being affected those who live in small homes are more likely to find it so I was on the stay home which means that they need to find more ways to entertain themselves.
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Children need looking after in ordinary circumstances, especially because the pandemic happened to take place near summer, where most children would have been out of school anyways. However, during the pandemic children especially needed looking after because most were out of school for the pandemic when school was still in session and was then taking place online. Economically, one could argue that the wage gap is a factor, if given two options to choose from that decides who provides for the family when only one can be chosen, the higher paid one, most likely men, will get chosen. So, the women get stuck at home looking after the children. Likewise, culturally, women have always been the care-givers and the people staying at home, hence the term “stay-at-home-mom”. This is sometimes called the “Second shift” because motherhood is often thought of to be a job in itself, if the woman is also working, it would be like having two “jobs”. Now with men predominately working, and with women staying at home, the gender imbalance has flopped backwards. It’s like being stuck back in the 1900s and earlier where the women would stay home and take care of the children, because they could not work, while the fathers worked to keep food on the table.
Lock downs are what lead to everlasting gender imbalance according to the article. Lock downs will have permanently increased violent and abusive environments with a main focus on domestic abuse against women from their husbands. Other references from West Africa are the Zika and Ebola pandemics which scared the world as well. They use the mention of these viruses to gain credibility through giving context and a broader sense of understanding.
This article mostly focuses on family wheres both parents are already working, and where there are both parents in the mix at all with a heterosexual relationship. The article doesnt include and deviation from these assumptions, making the point moot to a lot of different families, especially in the US where tolerance is high and so is divorce. It focuses mainly on the “suffering women” (of double income man-women couples with children).
Fauci alludes to the education of children, who are not trapped in their homes, single income families, the disabled, and the health of African-Americans. Shifting from interactive learning to staring at a screen is dramatic, and minimises the childs ability to learn. Schools had no time to formulate an effective plan right away, and things got messy.
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1.) Lewis claims that women are more likely to “look after” the children and the house during the pandemic and in normal circumstances. The reason why this unpaid extra labor falls on women is because it has always been that way ever since we can remember. The husband is seen as the one to work and provide for the family while the wife is seen to stay home and take care of the family. This is seen as the “second shift” because now women have jobs and have to work those jobs and then come home to take care of the family. The current pandemic and stay-at-home orders force this role upon women more, because now children have nowhere to go because of online schooling forcing the mother to look after them for the whole day while the husband has to work in order for the family to stay stable.
2.) Lewis believes that gender imbalance will not just go back to normal after the pandemic. She uses examples of past pandemics in West Africa such as Ebola and Zika to back up her claim. This is to show that these roles are not only being played in this nation but everywhere else in the world also.
3.) Other perspectives that are missing are single parents whether they are men or women. These people are not seen as being affected by the pandemic, however they are affected more than couples that are still together and are able to provide for their family. This perspective shows that the writer has not thought about the different types of people living in this world and how they are being affected more than couples that are still together.
4.) According to Fauci, the pandemic draws attention to disparities primarily in the African American community. I have noticed that many students have no access to the internet at home and are being taken care of. A possible long-term solution is internet providers can give out free or cheap internet to suffering families in order to maintain a strong education.
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Summary: Helen Lewis stresses that the coronavirus is carrying a major effect on women, this consists of tending to children as the primary caregiver, in addition to already maintaining the house creating chores the role of a wife has became harder due to the coronavirus pandemic.
1. In the article “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism” Lewis is conveying that children must be looked after during both pandemics and ordinary circumstances. The cultural reason for women to carry unpaid labor is because females in a relationship are the primary caretakers of the children traditionally, while the economic reason is that men are primarily carrying the most jobs compared to women in the workforce and are known to be paid less than men in the workforce, meaning that they are not paid for all of their hard work making it unpaid. Taking care of the children is called the second shift because women culturally carry a primary role to tend to the house while the children are in school and their husband is at work in “heterosexual relationships” and have to take care of the children after they come home signifying that the first part of their day has concluded and the next task has commenced dubbing it the “second shift” as the work of the female and mother is not done. The stay at home orders exasperates gender roles as women now have to tend to the house, buy groceries and help the children with online schoolwork and take care of the children, while the husband will work digitally or physically giving the increasing the females list of tasks while their male significant other carries nearly the same workload that they carried before the pandemic leaving the female at a disadvantage.
2. Lewis wants to infer that the secondary consequences consist of little to no changes between the imbalance between the male and female role post-pandemic. Lewis references the Zika virus from Africa as a reminder that the coronavirus is not the first virus outbreak the world has faced and that the Zika virus outbreak affected multiple countries such as increasing domestic violence as individuals aligning with how families spend longer periods of time together in quarantine, these comparisons signify that Lewis is trying to explain that times like pandemics are stressful for everyone and to strengthen her argument with outside evidence of events that transpired outside of America, expressing that Lewis acknowledges the fact that the coronavirus is affecting people other than herself.
3. The arguments Lewis fails to reflect on consists of that of mono income and homosexual relationships. Mono income families only have one family member receiving money for the family this can stress the working family member as they have to work harder to receive the money they need to provide for their families despite the parent who is tending to the home and children. In a homosexual relationship, both partners are of the same sex as the couple may not have children at all, on both accounts Lewis’s argument can be deemed invalid under a homosexual relationship, as the same-sex partners regardless of working or at home both partners would be considered equal even if they have children, in addition, the lgbtq+ community carries a history of mistreatment by society giving them their own conflict compared to heterosexual gender inequality.
4. Dr.Anthony Fauci infers that the pandemic brings light to the disparity of the major gaps between the people of America via discrimination and racial tension, those who experience adversity due to their financial circumstances and access to medical assistance or technology for online schooling, these individuals suffer tremendously as they may be the most susceptible to the coronavirus and ruin. A possible long-term solution can be special programs to provide to the unfortunate who need the internet or a computer to operate through school and centers to assist those without a medical plan or insurance to provide medical assistance, as well as arrangements to give them food when they need it.
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Summary: Helen Lewis stresses that the coronavirus is carrying a major effect on women, this consists of tending to children as the primary caregiver, in addition to already maintaining the house creating chores the role of a wife has become harder due to the coronavirus pandemic. Male partners are continuing to maintain their occupation with little to no new responsibilities at all. Helen Lewis then compares the coronavirus outbreak with the Zika and Ebola virus outbreak explaining their differences on how it affected the public compared to the coronavirus. Helen believes that the coronavirus is not only a danger to public health but feminism and other social movements hindering their progression. Lewis also stresses the negative effects of lockdown such as the escalating chances of domestic violence. Lastly, Lewis concludes by suggesting that the coronavirus has a chance to create positive changes in the world.
1. In the article “The Coronavirus Is a Disaster for Feminism” Lewis is conveying that children must be looked after during both pandemics and ordinary circumstances. The cultural reason for women to carry unpaid labor is because females in a relationship are the primary caretakers of the children traditionally, while the economic reason is that men are primarily carrying the most jobs compared to women in the workforce and are known to be paid less than men in the workforce, meaning that they are not paid for all of their hard work making it unpaid. Taking care of the children is called the second shift because women culturally carry a primary role to tend to the house while the children are in school and their husband is at work in “heterosexual relationships” and have to take care of the children after they come home signifying that the first part of their day has concluded and the next task has commenced dubbing it the “second shift” as the work of the female and mother is not done. The stay at home orders exasperates gender roles as women now have to tend to the house, buy groceries and help the children with online schoolwork and take care of the children, while the husband will work digitally or physically giving the increasing the females list of tasks while their male significant other carries nearly the same workload that they carried before the pandemic leaving the female at a disadvantage.
2. Lewis wants to infer that the secondary consequences consist of little to no changes between the imbalance between the male and female role post-pandemic. Lewis references the Zika virus from Africa as a reminder that the coronavirus is not the first virus outbreak the world has faced and that the Zika virus outbreak affected multiple countries such as increasing domestic violence as individuals aligning with how families spend longer periods of time together in quarantine, these comparisons signify that Lewis is trying to explain that times like pandemics are stressful for everyone and to strengthen her argument with outside evidence of events that transpired outside of America, expressing that Lewis acknowledges the fact that the coronavirus is affecting people other than herself.
3. The arguments Lewis fails to reflect on consists of that of mono income and homosexual relationships. Mono income families only have one family member receiving money for the family this can stress the working family member as they have to work harder to receive the money they need to provide for their families despite the parent who is tending to the home and children. In a homosexual relationship, both partners are of the same sex as the couple may not have children at all, on both accounts Lewis’s argument can be deemed invalid under a homosexual relationship, as the same-sex partners regardless of working or at home both partners would be considered equal even if they have children, in addition, the lgbtq+ community carries a history of mistreatment by society giving them their own conflict compared to heterosexual gender inequality.
4. Dr.Anthony Fauci infers that the pandemic brings light to the disparity of the major gaps between the people of America via discrimination and racial tension, those who experience adversity due to their financial circumstances and access to medical assistance or technology for online schooling, these individuals suffer tremendously as they may be the most susceptible to the coronavirus and ruin. A possible long-term solution can be special programs to provide to the unfortunate who need the internet or a computer to operate through school and centers to assist those without a medical plan or insurance to provide medical assistance, as well as arrangements to give them food when they need it.
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I think a lot of this burden is deeply rooted in the anti feminism of capitalism. Although now women are expected to work they also com home to ¨the second shift¨ of cleaning, cooking, and child care. Under capitalism women are veiwed as the means of production for the new workforce and often nothing more than that. This idea was born in the early begginings of capitialism in europe where there was actually a roll back in womens rights from the feudalist society before the plauge and the emergence of early capitalism.
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I think women are underpaid in many aspects of life especially during pandemics. Women often make less money than their husbands so when push comes to shove and someone has to step down from their job and take care of the children, it often falls on the women. Women pick up that ‘second shift’ even when they don’t quit their jobs. They have to go to work and then come home and take care of the children, house, and animals. Women are natural born caretakes but all the responsibilities shouldn’t have to fall back on them. Some would say pandemics are reflecting the 1950s. Women are at home cooking a hot meal for their husbands when they get home and the children are already taken care of as well. Women are affected more financially then men’s when it comes to pandemics and their sanities also are affected a lot more.
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I think that women take on the caregiving a lot of times because it is human nature for themselves. This pandemic has shown that because it is causing division and problems within households because children can no long be in childcare with it being either closed or a danger to the spread of Covid. With this issue it is making parents having to choose who stays at home and who keeps working. And it has been seen that mother are the ones who are stepping up to take that “second shift” and working, taking care of the children, and trying to make a normal life in this crazy time. This pandemic is just pushing women back in our equality like it was in the 1950’s because they are back in the house cleaning and taking care of the kids while the husband is working. Not saying that is a bad thing because a stay at home mother is a big job, but why does it always have to be the mother, I think fathers can sacrifice too not just the mothers.
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1.) Lewis says that kids and older people need looking after during a pandemic and in ordinary circumstances. No matter what the scenario is taking care of someone else will always be seen as a woman’s responsibility and not the mans. Unpaid extra labor falls on the women because in some cultures or in the past that is how it went. The women would stay at home clean, cook, look after kids, buy groceries and have dinner ready by the time there husbands got home from work. Women get paid less as well so if a family is needing the money then the one who stays home is usually the person who makes less. In this case the woman.
It is called the second shift because even though woman work and have a job they always have to come home and still do all the work a stay at home mom would like clean, cook, take care of kids, go grocery shopping, and make dinner for the family.
There has and will always be a gender imbalance, but with this pandemic what woman have fought for is set back and even after the pandemic is over there is long lasting effects on woman every where.
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Helen Lewis argues that the Covid pandemic has set back the feminism movement. To prove her point she uses Shakesphere and Issac Newton, stating that although these men did some of their best work during the plague they also did not have children to care for. Also neither had to worry about money or food because it was provided. Lewis explains how with school and daycare closures that mostly women have to suffer the burden of caring for the kids. Stating that a pandemic just heightens the already existent inequalities. Especially for a single mother, who does not have a two income home to fall back on with the cutting of hours. Rather it is due to buisness need or to care for her children and help with their studies.
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I agree with this post alot i think women are more likely to do the care taking of the children than a man is and i find it not fair women do all the labor with the children.
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Due to the social norms women are care takers. Men usually get paid more than women, so the women are usually the ones caring for the children and household. While the man of the family is responsible for the financial part. It became a “norm” for dad to get off work to come home to a cooked meal and clean kids. Some past pandemics were swine flu, bird flu, and Ebola. Lewis choose to expand the scoop due to how the world was during these past pandemics. She states that “its not just about the social norm of women performing care roles but it is also about practicalities”. A woman’s job is considered a lower priority and our job as a women never ends, calling it “second-shift”.
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Well, this was a very interesting article and points out some things that I don’t the mainstream media has. Obviously, there is a wage gap even without the virus, and now that virus is here and the new norm it can drastically alter women’s future careers or their current ones. Even before the pandemic women had less lesuire time and had to work “second shifts”. Obviously, there is mental stress here too, they’re short on money, their career potentially ruined, and they’re still looked at to take care of the kids and do the cooking/cleaning. It’s not right or fair and my condolences are out there for all the women working so hard in this weird time we are in.
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I think women are most likely to do unpaid looking after jobs because of the way society has made the jobs of women seem. When it comes to looking after things, it is a lot more than just children, or pets. The household has to be taken care of along with meals, and cleaning. With the current pandemic we are in I believe it gives the world another excuse to push extra household work onto women rather than the men. I also believe this is sometimes called a “second shift” for a women because majority of the women today hold a full time job while still coming home to do household things.
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I feel women are underpaid and underappreciated in general. Women are always expected to do the dirty work in the family. Cook, clean, and taking care of the kids. Some women want to do these things but often they are expected to do them. Women are natural caretakers but the burden shouldn’t alwys fall on them.The coronavirus has had a huge effect on women.This is hendering movements like feminism. The stay at home orders exasperates gender roles as women now have to tend to the house, buy groceries and help the children with online schoolwork, while the husband will work digitally or physically giving the increasing the females list of tasks while their male significant other carries nearly the same workload that they carried before the pandemic leaving the female at a disadvantage.
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When discussing the pandemic, in this article “Bearing the burden: Helen Lewis on how the pandemics affect women,” Helen Lewis argues about the pandemic comes with many difficult problems that human beings face. Whether it is being economically despair, jobless, becoming homeless, gender inequality, or even trying to survive in this epidemic. In the article by Helen Lewis, she argues about the affect’s women are facing in the pandemic. Helen’s article says that children who are at home from school needs “looking after” and that unpaid caring will rely more on women. The economic and cultural reasonings on why the work would fall mainly on women is because data states that women are paid less than men in our society. In support of Helen argument, she states, “In heterosexual relationships, women are more likely to be the lower earners, meaning their jobs are considered a lower priority when disruptions come along.” With women bringing in less income in the household, the job of looking after the kids falls upon them. (Lewis) This is called a “second shift” because it is like having a second job. The current pandemic frustrates the fact that in society women are expected to stay home to cook, clean, and look after the kids while the man brings home to money. This current situation in this gender imbalance shows that women are expected to do this instead of them bringing home the money.
Secondary consequences of the pandemic that lead to lasting gender disparity is during lock down periods, stress, alcohol consumption, and financial problems which comes from home. Lewis supported evidence in his argument emphasize, “In both rich and poor countries, campaigners expect domestic-violence rates to rise during lockdown periods.” Men facing financial problems and women who are the caretaker at home are frustrated from lack of work and bringing money in the household creates major problems in the relationship. The past pandemics were the Ebola, Zika, and swine and bird flu. She expanded her research to discuss all the pandemics to compare and show how in some similar way do they effect families and their household. The viruses like the coronavirus affects pregnant woman, Lewis admits. She also observes how the Ebola affect teen girls and will see similar effects in the current pandemic.
Other perspective that are missing from the conversation are when speaking on heterosexual couples with childcare responsibilities we forget that single parent is struggling to withhold that great responsibility. There are single dads who face even harder decisions with multitasking with work and taking care of the children. Society believes that only mothers raise kids by themselves and that is what Lewis portrays when there are fathers who also stay home and provide for their kids alone. In Lewis argument she claims, “and in Britain today, a quarter of families are headed by a single parent, more than 90 percent of who are women.” Lewis does not claim how men can be affected just as much as women can be as well. On one hand, I agree with X that women are affected during the pandemic because they must take care of the household. But on the other hand, I still insist that her overall conclusion that it is just women who struggle and deal with the task of being the caretaker of the children is blindly wrong. Men who are single parents must deal with the same struggle as women.
The disparities the pandemic draws attention to is towards the health condition in the African American community. Other existing inequality that the current crisis highlights would be financial difficulties for lower classmen, mental and health issues, and education for household who cannot afford the technology for online schooling. The inequality that I have noticed is someone with good financial standing then a person of lower class would be able to get help anywhere based on their social economic status. A possible long-term solution to change would be schools giving students in need computers to access online work they need to complete. Another solution would be, help the lower class just how they would provide help for the upperclassmen.
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Reading “The Coronavirus is a disaster for feminism” By Helen Lewis was hit right on the spot for me. I was talking about how the coronavirus affects women differently from men that even though most of us women have jobs most women are stuck with the house duties and have less lesiure time than their male partners. it stated that couples around the world have had to figure out basically who was leaving their job to stay at home with the kids and cutting down to living off one persons income. The blog was comparing the COVID pandemic to the SARS, swine and bird flu. Talking about how our “normal lives” are put on hold, schools are now closed and women are stuck at home doing everything with little to no income
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The article,” The Coronavirus is a Disaster for Feminism”, by Helen Lewis is about how the hardships of COVID-19 and other pandemics fall mostly on women. Lewis discusses how COVID-19 affects women with young children, single parent households and women’s wages.
In the article, Lewis argues that pandemic patients, older people who are self-isolated, and children kept home from school are all in need of “looking after”. Majority of those responsibilities fall on women because of the “existing structure of the workforce”. Most women fulfil caregiver roles because women get paid less and are viewed as more flexible. These caregiver roles (whether it’s taking care of children, the elderly, or a household), is referred to as the “second shift”. In heterosexual relationships, compared to their male counterparts, women are paid less, so when there is a pandemic, their jobs are considered “low priority”, therefore furthering the disproportionate gender equality. Lewis points out the West’s failure to learn from previous incidents dealing with infectious diseases and the misinformation being spread about the coronavirus. Researchers have found that the Swine Flu, Bird Flu and Ebola have had “deep, long-lasting effects on gender equality.” The article also sheds light on how 90% of single parents are women, so with schools closed, they’re going to have to take on the responsibility of the provider and earner. Looking at the statistics on the Ebola outbreak, we can see that domestic and sexual violence, dropped education rates, and teen pregnancy, all increased. The coronavirus will be the first outbreak “where gender and sex differences are recorded, and taken into account by researchers and policy makers.”
“The Coronavirus is a Disaster to Feminism” by Helen Lewis is a great viewpoint for the struggles women face during any disease outbreak. Like Joshua Pinckney, I agree that Helen Lewis failed to include how mono income households can affect gender equality especially when the male in the relationship is the sole provider. Having more information on how female health workers and their significant others deal with the pandemic, seeing how some health workers have to self-isolate from their families, and what effect it has on their relationship would be beneficial.
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I find this article very interesting because women are often overlooked and ignored in society despite being the backbone of every historical event. I, myself, didn’t even consider how much of a burden this pandemic may have placed on women, and how it may lead them to be vulnerable to stress, alcohol consumption as well as finical difficulties, and domestic violence with little to no help or support from the government. This goes to show what little value and resources are placed towards making sure that women are physically and mentally stable. Women’s health is not a priority, and that needs to change. In the event of this pandemic, the effect of each policy, rule, and decision that are made by the government should somewhat include child-care provision, economic security, and financial stimulus paid directly to families. Especially for the women who can’t afford to stay home, and after work they have to make sure their children’s homework is done, that they take their showers, brush their teeth, and that a meal is prepared for them as well as making sure the house is clean. I know there are some fathers that might help out, but a majority of mothers do tend to do this on their own and it sounds quite exhausting and very unfair.
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Helen Lewis discusses how throughout history to current day women are heavily impacted by pandemics in more ways than just physically. One example is how when economic crisis hits and if a parent has to leave a job, it usually results down to it being the women. If children have to do school work from home, that responsibility usually falls on women also. Sometimes that includes working full time and coming home to take care of the children, schoolwork, and dinner. Gender inequality has always been an issue. Helen Lewis explained how in heterosexual relationships, women are more likely to be the lower earners, meaning their jobs are considered a lower priority when disruptions come along and sometimes women’s lifetime earnings will never recover. Helen Lewis also argued how men have more leisure time than women. Even if both work a full time job, women do more housework. Single parents take an even harder hit because they have to juggle it all.
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In the article Helen reminds us that women are more likely to look after the children and the home more than the men while in this pandemic. It falls on women because the world feels our men counterparts earn more, or to masculine to do “women work”. The effects can last way past the pandemic, because if the world gets back to normal it would take women much longer to get back to the salary that she had before the pandemic, its much harder for her to even get back into the workforce.
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In this article, Helen Lewis writes about the troubles of the coronavirus pandemic that she believes will harm the women of our country as a whole. Lewis says that since women have always been more culturally flexible with their time, they will have to shoulder the work of caring for all of the people effected by the pandemic. The elderly, pandemic patients, and children kept home from school because of the lockdowns will all need caring for in this time. This is called the “second shift” by Lewis because she says that women who work jobs would have to do this caring for in their time off. Lewis goes on to write that for years politicians have been expecting the female citizens of their country to bear the burden of fixing the economic downfalls of the pandemics and lockdowns that befall them. The author is concerned for the women of this time and is urging others to share her concern.
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After reading this article, I feel that I have learned many new things. I am going to focus mainly on responding to question number one. In this article, she explains how the “unpaid labor” falls mainly on women. During a pandemic like this, children need looking after, and parents are having trouble deciding how to split up the work load. In most cases, women have the lower paying job; therefore, they are usually the ones who take off work to look after the kids since their job isn’t the higher priority. Women have always been seen in the “childcare” role in the world. The basic view of a woman is that they cook and clean, but in this case, women only have time to do some of those things. Even after the pandemic is over, women may not be able to financially recover. It may be a single mom who had to stop working to watch their child and isn’t able to recover enough to pay her bills. The gender imbalance issue goes far past the pandemic, and this article gave me a great look at that from the inside.
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1) Children need looking after due to the closings of schools and childcare services. Elderly family member also needs looking after due to their age and not being able to do everything for themselves. Women are looked at as nurturing and caring so of course, they are going to be looked at as the ones to take care of them. Men make “more money” in their jobs than women and it results in the women having to lose their job instead of their partner. Women have fought so hard for years for equality and now they are just falling right back into the gender roles of the past. they are expected to care for the children, clean the house, and have dinner cooked for their partner.
2)Lewis wants to show that nothing will go back to normal right away after the pandemic. She uses the example from when the Ebola outbreak happened in Africa when the men’s pay went back to normal right away while the women did not. Many young women started dropping which caused the child labor deaths to increase. I think she chooses to inclus=de research from other pandemics to show the severity of how women’s rights decline during the outbreaks. in the article, she talks about how 29 million papers were written out the past outbreaks but less than 1 percent talked about how gender is affected she plans on writing a paper about how the coronavirus is affecting the genders.
3) In the articles, she doesn’t include homosexual and divorced families. she doesn’t talk about the struggles of a homosexual family with children and the struggle of them trying to figure out who is going to stay home. she also doesn’t talk about how divorced parents are dealing with having to keep their children. T+She could’ve added how divorced parents are trying to figure out how they keep the children on their week that they get them.
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Children and elderly who are unable to care for themselves but also, the what part of this answer, is the many household chores that will fall to women because, economically speaking, they usually make less than the male in the home so the family chooses to drop the womens career during this time. Also, culturally speaking, women have historically been the caretakers of the home and are more nurturing than men usually. The “second shift” because women who work come home from their “first shift” jobs to work more when they get home.
These past pandemics include bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, and SARS. This is a worldwide gender issue reaching far beyond the US and COVID 19. She writes about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and how men’s income returned to pre pandemic earnings much sooner than the women’s did.
Single parent households and homosexual dual income homes were left out of this conversation. She touches on single mothers but I would be interested to hear the statistics on the effects on these different households.
Disparities this pandemic has drawn attention to, according to Dr. Fauci, are underlying health conditions in the African-American community. Poorer people may not have access to a computer at home during this time of school shutdowns. I think an answer to this would be to set aside funding for laptops for these people.
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Traditionally, it has always been women that have taken care of children. The people who need to be taken care of are children, the elderly and the disabled. The “second shift” is from women having to work from home and then attending to their children and house responsibilities. According to commenter, Bryce K., he does not “believe that the pandemic highlights this everlasting imbalance.” It is now a year and something later, the imbalance depends on the situation the family is in. Some families’ have both parents who lost their jobs and some families where only one parent has lost their job. There was no relation to gender, it was just how the pandemic affected an individual family.
It’s not so much gender that takes a hit as it does the economy that affects who stays home. For example, some people found that staying home was a better money saving alternative to childcare than going to work. While other people can’t stay home due to bills that require two incomes. According to a commenter, Bryce K, another last impact of the pandemic was the increase of domestic violence and abuse. The past pandemics were Ebola and Zika in West Africa. We think she chose to expand her research because to show the comparisons of past pandemics and to strengthen her arguments.
A great example of what is missing was said by commenter Bryce K. He mentions that it lacks homosexual couples, disabled families, and families that have two incomes but one might have complications. He also mentions that, “This article only sheds light on the “suffering of women” and the imbalance caused by this pandemic.” We believe single parents in general were also affected by the pandemic.
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I really enjoyed the article “The Corona Virus Is A Disaster For Feminism.” The problem with society is that woman are classified as the caretakers of the household while keeping up with all the duties that they are responsible for. Woman have always been labeled as the “housewives” and care taker of the children. Woman are stay at home wives while the husbands went to work. Single women are affected by the pandemic financially because they are having to take off work because they do not have childcare. They are losing money and causing a lot of stress during the pandemic.
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Bearing The Burden by Helen Lewis,
Helen Lewis used this article to explain how pandemics play a role and effect women. Women are already seen as the caregivers of a family. When a pandemic occurs these roles are pushed onto women even more when difficult decisions are made. she talked about when the school school and most parents that stayed home with the kids were mothers. A reason to this is because men usually have higher paying jobs therefor a women’s lower paid job is not seen as on the same level and the mans job takes priority. She also stated that during a pandemic that violence is home rises due to studies done with the Ebola outbreak. This can be cause be financial, mental stress that’s comes from the difficult decision making cause by the pandemic. She talk about the possibility of testing how gender roles are effected during the corona virus as we. This article had a lot of good information in it.
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The children and older people are who need the “looking after”, this has predominantly fallen on women as women are seen as the caretakers in our society. This is sometimes called a “second shift” because after the mother and father both get off of work, the mother cooks dinner, cleans the kitchen, and takes care of the children. Women across the world, even those with jobs, statistically have less leisure time. With the current pandemic, women are assuming the roles of teachers and daycare workers, while their husband does the working.
Lewis believes that gender inequality will continue after the coronavirus pandemic, and shows us past trends with the Ebola and Zika viruses to prove this point.
3.The author leaves out single parents, male or female, that have had no choice but to quit their jobs because of the pandemic because they have to watch their children. This demographic being left out shows that the author was more focused on domestic issues between parents as a result of the pandemic, but failed to mention single income households.
Fauci mentions the disparities that a pandemic has on the black community. Many predominantly African American neighborhoods have smaller homes and less access to internet, therefore kids and parents cannot work remotely. I’ve noticed this as I graduated remotely in 2020, a lot of my friends did not have access to their schoolwork and as a result failed.
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1.According to Lewis, women usually earn less than men. Therefore, their jobs are regarded as less important hence they have to abandon their jobs and concentrate on child care. Furthermore, women are perceived as care givers in many cultures and therefore the role of caregiving falls on them. According to Lewis, pandemics usually worsen existing gender imbalances. As a result, existing issues that are affecting women such as pay inequality between men and women will worsen during the pandemic.
2.Lewis argues that pandemics worsen existing gender imbalances. These gender imbalances take a long time to be rectified hence creating issues that continue to fuel gender imbalances between men and women. Lewis uses the examples of other pandemics such as Zika Virus, Ebola Crisis, SARS, Swine Flus and Bird Flue outbreaks to demonstrate the impact of pandemics on gender. It was important for Lewis to expand the scope of her study beyond the United States to illustrate the impact that pandemics have on other countries besides the United States. For instance, she illustrates how the outbreak of Ebola Virus in West Africa lead to increased cases of sexual abuse, girls dropping out of school, low vaccination rates and lack of proper maternal care for women.
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This article “The coronavirus is a disaster for feminism” by Helen Lewis, really caught my attention. She makes the argument that women are more likely to worry about the kids than the men are. It’s sad but is true. I guess it’s just mothers intuition.
In this article Helen Lewis states that the children need “looking after”. Not just during the pandemic, but also in regular circumstances. The Cultural and Economic reasons as to why this unpaid labor falls to women is because of the social normal for caretaking to fall on the women. If you look back decades and decades ago, it has always been this way. This is usually called the “second shift” because it is an extra job added on top of their normal job. The pandemic has brought back this gender role. Statistically men make more then women, so the men work while the women stay home and care for the children/home.
Helen Lewis uses evidence to show that this isn’t the first pandemic, that has led to gender disparity. Some of the past pandemics include the Ebola and Zika viruses.
Another perspective that I think should have been added is single parents. Single parents still have to work to care for their families. Along with trying to find adequate care for their children. The pandemic has made it very hard on them.
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In the article “Bearing The Burden,” they talked about how the children needed “looking after” during the pandemic. Some of the economic and cultural reasons extra labor falls to woman is because of society making it normal. It is called the “second shift” because it’s like having another job. The current pandemic exasperate the long standing gender imbalance. It shows how women take care of the household. The pandemic caused health disparities in African American community. Health problems a person already has disabilities, sexuality, and etc. Woman are underrated in many ways. They sometimes make less money than men. Women are hurt financially when the pandemic hit. Mostly workers in the service industry, they worked for tips was women. The pandemic has really expanded on the significance of women and what their worth is.
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