Abstract
The recent COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that new and acute burdens tend to fall on women in a time of crisis because society defaults to structural gender-normative roles. Even before the pandemic, women had a long history of facing structural inequities in the workplace and at home. Such inequities are fueled by implicit biases, expectations, and stereotypes. The fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic worsened gender inequities. For women, it disproportionately increased domestic obligations and it had a disproportionate effect on female-dominated occupations—threatening to roll back decades of progress.
This Article will discuss the problem of gender inequity in the workplace, the role of implicit bias, how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing inequities, and how we might address such biases and inequities. I propose a strategy for achieving more equitable occupational outcomes through a “conscious transformation.” One that can help reform implicit biases, stereotypes, false assumptions, and perceived inadequacies. The Article uses the legal profession as a way to demonstrate the pandemic’s effect in a particular industry and proposes how a conscious transformation might apply.
Recommended Citation
Blassing, Marissa J.,
GENDER INEQUITIES, THE COVID-19 SHECESSION, AND THE NEED FOR A CONSCIOUS TRANSFORMATION,
63 Santa Clara L. Rev.
189
(2023).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol63/iss1/6
