Event to show how pandemic burdens have fallen largely on women’s shoulders

That has become even more evident in the past year during the Covid-19 emergency. The Scottish Women’s Convention and the Scottish Parliament will hold a virtual event tomorrow from 6pm-8pm to mark the day.

Professor Linda Bauld, the Bruce and John Usher chair of Public Health in The Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, will be speaking at the event. She fears that the economic impact of the pandemic will be felt particularly harshly by women.

She said: “I think we’ve seen in terms of unemployment during the pandemic that women have been ­adversely affected. They’ve worked in sectors that have had to be shut down like the tourism sector.

“In teaching, in primary schools teachers are overwhelmingly female. And in secondary a significant majority are female, they’ve had to shift to teaching our young people online.

“And then the care for older people and children has fallen disproportionately on women.

“There’s been a big contribution by women. They’ve also been front-facing in retail, we mustn’t forget that

“What I think we’ll find is that if you look at the inequalities that will emerge from this pandemic, women, along with a lot of young people and ethnic and minority communities, will be adversely affected.”

Bauld believes that with families spending more time at home during the various lockdowns women have been forced to take on more of the heavy lifting.

She added: “A lot of the changes to our daily lives, such as home schooling and health care, has meant that that has fallen upon women.

“There still is an unequal burden of domestic labour that falls on women.’’

And she thinks, too, that more can be done in the virtual workplace to put work/life balance first and to ­accommodate family life.

She said: “Many employers have a culture of out-of-hours meetings and not organising working time around women’s availability so those are ­ongoing issues.’’

Bauld believes that education is the key for the future. She added: “It’s about shifting social norms in ­society and trying to change that through education for men and young boys as well as young girls.

“Over this past year we have had women leading the response to ­Covid. We have a woman First Minister, a woman Health Secretary, ­Professor Anna Dominiczak who set up the Glasgow Lighthouse Lab, and many, many women leaders.”

Bauld’s views are echoed by ­actress Elaine C Smith who will also be speaking at the event.

And she highlighted her heroines of Covid. “When I look at

who came up with the vaccine in ­Oxford, it was ­Sarah Gilbert, a woman with ­children, and other women doctors.

“These are women working in labs on things that are going to, in effect, save mankind, having to iron their kids’ school uniforms before they went into the lab. I don’t think there would be many men in a similar ­position doing that.’’

The actor ­believes strong female examples ­inspire the next generation.

She said: “I can’t tell you the amount of women over a 40-year ­career who have come forward ­saying, and not all of them actors or anything, that I chose to do what I’m doing because I came to see your show, and just to see women there.”

The actress recalls too how ­attitudes to women have changed in her line of work from the days of ­Naked Video and Rab C Nesbitt.

She added: “I remember asking on Naked Video why I couldn’t be the doctor in this sketch? And I was told that people would think if we made you the doctor instead of the nurse, they’d think it was going to be a joke about a woman doctor. I don’t think that would happen nowadays.

“When we started on Two Doors Down I remember looking around one day at all the other women in the cast and in production thinking I’m in a parallel bloody universe. And we were allowed to be funny.

“It is the exception though rather than the rule.

“Phoebe Waller-Bridge, of all people, would say to you how difficult it was, and women invariably have to go and write their own stuff to get on. It’s better but still not a level playing field at all.

“The attitudes are better now but they’re still prevalent so that’s why you need a women’s convention.”

Agnes Tolmie, chair of the Scottish Women’s Convention is looking forward to an engaging event. She said: “Women make up more than 50% of the Scottish population and have been hardest hit by Covid, but looking at the wonderful work women in Scotland have been doing, we thought we should use our event to celebrate them.”

Alison Johnstone, Scottish Green Party MSP for Lothian Region and co-founder of the Women 50-50 campaign for equal representation with men among MSPs in Holyrood will also be speaking.

She said: “If we look at the Scottish Parliament it has stalled in terms of representation, we’re meant to be a representative democracy and obviously a 50-50 parliament would only be one step.

“It’s really important it’s not just figureheads or leaders of parties but that it’s backed up.

“I think one thing about the pandemic is that we can be more flexible and this gives us an opportunity to do things differently.”

To register to participate and put questions to The Scottish Women’s Convention, visit Eventbrite at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/international-womens-day-2021-tickets-136593893011.