A blessing in disguise? The socio-economic impact of Covid-19 on urban women in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic that broke out in 2019 was one of the largest epidemics in human history after the Spanish flu of 1918-1919 (Trilla, Trilla and Daer, 2008). Its spread across Africa, and Zimbabwe in particular, shook economies and disrupted social structures, severely affecting the mental health of the populace. However, calamities like Covid-19 are hardly gender-neutral. While Covid-19 had negative psychosocial and economic impacts on all gender groups, women suffered disproportionately from the socio-economic and psychological toll of the epidemic. Using qualitative research methods based on interviews and observations in Harare Zimbabwe, this article explores the experiences of urban Zimbabwean women during the Covid-19 pandemic. The outbreak of covid-19 and the consequential lockdowns had a marked disruptive effect on urban formal and informal sources of livelihoods than it had on the largely subsistence rural economy. We, therefore, analyse the urban socio-cultural and economic contexts that shaped women's daily experiences in the context of Covid-19 and how this affected their economic and psychological situation. We aver that while Covid-19 made women 'beasts of burden' who had to provide for the household and family, it also served as a means of social reconstruction and provided opportunities for women's social and economic advancement and long-term psychological well-being. Covid-19 broke down and weakened the manipulative patriarchal socio-cultural norms that excluded women from economic and social advancement. Using the neo-dependency analytical framework, this article contends that while crises worsen conditions for vulnerable groups, there should also be space to celebrate the breaking of exploitative social structures that have kept women in subservient positions for centuries. By exposing the weaknesses of patriarchy, Covid-19 signalled the development of a new social order that recognises and celebrates women's courage, strengths, and resilience in times of crisis.