Women and Care: Reflections on the Lived Experience of COVID-19 Sufferers.

Abstract

Women play a crucial role in the care and response to the COVID-19 pandemic, whether in paid or unpaid work. This article looks into the lived experience of some of these women infected by COVID-19 while doing their job as care providers. We selected nine women from Cebu City, Philippines. We presented their lived experience through van Manen's phenomenology of practice. Themes of the lived experience reveal pain and separation, suffering and caring, stigma of discrimination, caring response, and supportive relationship in the midst of a health crisis. Our reflections reveal that even in serious vulnerability and sustained domestic burden, women remained steadfast in their caring character. Their caring attitude has turned the quarantine facility into a liveable space where empathy, reciprocity, and relationality dwell and thus help everyone survive the COVID-19 ordeal.