Abstract
Female lives are disproportionately affected by the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic (McKinsey 2020). Policies adopted to fight Covid-19 have, however, been largely blind to the gendered effects of the pandemic (Mantouvalou 2020).To protest against this gender-blindness and the resulting strain on female lives, women worldwide led collective initiatives that criticized school closures, the strengthening of traditional gender roles and the rise in domestic violence. Gendered experiences became a source of joint identity of many of these movements. This paper investigates female collective action during and following the Covid-19 lockdown in Northern Italy. It draws on 15 semi-structured interviews conducted with women who were key players in social movements which either emerged or gained momentum because of the pandemic, from feminist discussion boards and online petitions to women-led public demonstrations. The paper explores, first, women’s motivations for, but also barriers to becoming collectively, and publicly, active -- some for the first time in their life (Della Porta and Dani 2006). Secondly, it explores aims and strategies of female-led movements, highlighting the interaction of gendered experiences and gender-blind policies during life in the pandemic.
Times of deep crisis such as the pandemic disrupt established systems, but always carry the potential for deep-rooted change, for “alternative but possible futures” (Della Porta 2020). By exploring the collective strategies and mechanisms women employ to deal with the uneven effects of the pandemic, this paper contributes to understanding how women-led social movements imagine and shape such possible futures.