“It’s Not Just about Work and Living Conditions”: The Underestimation of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Black Canadian Women

Melanie Knight, Renée Nichole Ferguson and Rai Reece
Additional contact information
Melanie Knight: Department of Sociology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada
Renée Nichole Ferguson: Department of Social Work, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 1G6, Canada
Rai Reece: Department of Sociology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has increasingly been defined as the shecession for its disproportionate debilitating impact on women. Despite this gendered analysis, a number of health activists have called on governments to account for the experiences of Black communities as they are disproportionately suffering the effects of this pandemic. In the media’s address of the impact of the pandemic, we ask, what experiences are represented in news stories and are Black women present in these representations. Performing a content analysis of 108 news articles, a reading of media discourses through a racial lens reveals a homogenization of women’s experiences and an absence of the Black experience. In the small number of news stories that do focus on Black women, we see that the health disparities are not simply the result of precarious work and living conditions, but also the struggle against anti-Black racism on multiple fronts. In critiquing, however, we also bring forth the small number of news stories on the Black experience that speak to the desire and hope that can thrive outside of white supremacist structures.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; media representation; Black Canadian women; Black Canadian Feminist Thought; misogynoir (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/6/210/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/6/210/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:6:p:210-:d:567597

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().