2020
The COVID-19 pandemic exposes and deepens pre-existing structural inequalities, hitting women and other marginalised communities—especially in the global South—the hardest. Lockdowns, the collapse of informal economies, rising domestic violence, and increased unpaid care work compounded existing vulnerabilities. Feminist organisations mobilise rapidly, providing mutual aid, legal and psychological support, and advocating for gender-responsive policy responses.
The crisis also reveals the colonial hierarchies of the global health system. Wealthy states and pharmaceutical corporations resist calls for the #TRIPSWaiver—a temporary suspension of intellectual property rights on vaccines and treatments—leaving low- and middle-income countries with limited access to life-saving technologies. Feminist and health justice movements denounce this as medical apartheid, demanding the decolonisation of global health governance and equitable access to medicines.
Simultaneously, resistance grows against austerity measures that pre-date and are worsened by the pandemic. Campaigns such as End Austerity highlight the gendered toll of decades of neoliberal structural adjustment—privatised health care, weakened public services, and debt regimes that stripped states of social protections. Feminist activists across Latin America, Africa, and Asia argue that pandemic recovery can not be separated from the broader fight against economic injustice, calling for an end to austerity-driven governance. This period underscores the high costs of neoliberal health and economic systems and reaffirms the centrality of feminist analysis and organising in response to global crises.
