Gender-responsive social protection post-COVID-19.

Investment in gender-responsive social protection systems and evidence is key to a more equal future post-COVID-19.

Feminist Activism Confronts COVID-19

The UN Secretary General's policy brief analyzing the gender impact of the crisis was released on April 9, 2020.11 It was quickly followed by a multitude of UN agencies rolling out rapid gender impact assessments,12 as well as providing technical advice for countries to adapt their services to reach victims of gender-based violence, ensure access to sexual and reproductive rights during lockdown, protect women's economic security, and reduce their unpaid care workloads as part of national emergency and reactivation packages.13 To spur action and offer important insights on what governments are doing to protect women from the negative impacts of COVID-19, feminist social scientists at UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme developed a global policy gender response tracker analyzing more than 2,500 measures taken by 206 countries.14 Those governments open to women's and lgbtqi demands have given feminist bureaucrats leeway to incorporate gender components into rescue packages. The Feminist Alliance for Rights, which brings together feminists "from the Global South and from marginalized communities of the Global North" in order to develop a shared global policy agenda and keep governments and international organizations accountable on issues of women's human rights, published the petition "A Call for a Feminist coviD-19 Policy" on March 20, 2020.16 Endorsed by over 1,600 individuals and organizations from more than one hundred countries, it demands intersectional, rights-informed responses in nine areas: food security, health care, education, social inequality, water and sanitation, economic inequality, violence against women, access to information, and abuse of power. "18 The Association for Women in Development, with its 5,000 members from nearly every country, also promoted an online "#FeministBailout Campaign" from June 1 through June 5, 2020.19 This campaign sought to "bail out the people holding our societies together" - that is, "domestic workers, sex workers, undocumented workers, underpaid & unpaid care workers, migrant workers, seasonal agricultural workers" - rather than corporations.20 Transnational activism has also taken place at the regional level, where the Latin American Regional Feminist Articulation, representing feminist ngos, published a report monitoring the impact of state pandemic responses on women's rights, including gender justice policy recommendations.21 In support of such initiatives, more established organizations and foundations are committing to rapid response funding for an enormous range of relief and advocacy projects.22 On the ground, women-led grassroots activism in Latin America has swiftly expanded its reach in myriad ways, creatively repurposing activities to help communities respond to the pandemic as well as demanding accountability and action from governments.23 Although a turn to direct support in times of crisis may seem like a falling back from the barricades of transformative politics, women's community activism is often deeply intertwined with popular feminism.24 Such work in "establishing active solidarity" has a "prefigurative dimension," setting the foundation for longer-term systemic change.25 As described by Laura Marquez, a teacher and feminist activist in Argentina, "the olla [soup kitchen] is much more than an act of solidarity- [it] is a space for political transformation. "35 It is state abandonment that, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, forces women in marginalized communities to put their lives on the line to fill gaping holes in public services. Because pandemic-era transnational and grassroots organizing are inseparable from digital tools, ranging from email, to Twitter, to webinars, decades of thoughtful feminist tech deployment is now bearing fruit.