Nieuws

In the second issue of Transnational Feminist Dialogues, the Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender Studies invites this summer term 2020, scholars and activists to an online discussion about perspectives and challenges that the current Corona crisis brings along from a feminist and transnational point of view.

In the current crisis, issues that have long been critically discussed and researched by gender studies scholars, e.g. care work, domestic violence, gendered division of labour, etc., suddenly become frequently discussed topics in the political and public sphere. At the same time, the Corona crisis drastically shows once again how patriarchal patterns continue to shape people’s thoughts and actions: Crisis management and expertise are linked to masculinity and care work to femininity. Although the virus itself may not discriminate, it is associated with different aspects of vulnerability that feminist scholars underline from an intersectional/diversity perspective. During the lockdown, sexualized violence reaches alarming levels. Migrant and refugee women, homeless people but also nurses or other blue collar workers who have to take the crowded underground trains every morning are much more threatened by the disease; poor women with children are suffering job loss or have to cope with the double burden under lockdown conditions. Feminist activists and researchers continue to be attacked since the coronavirus crisis began, the pandemic is being used as an argument to reinforce the backlash against gender studies and feminist politics.

This event is organized by the Margherita von Brentano Center for Gender Studies. In cooperation with the MA Program Gender, Intersectionality and Politics at Freie Universität Berlin, Academy in Exile and Academics for Peace.