Gendered pandemics:suicide, femicide and COVID-19

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to offer a collocation of COVID-19 alongside two adjacent calamities that will likely increase during and after public health responses to the pandemic: suicide and femicide. Both of these forms of violence are patterned and predictable, both of them will manifest in divergent and distinct ways during the chaos of COVID-19, and both are highly gendered. In this article, we characterize the virus, theoretically align suicide and femicide as preventable forms of violence due to the circumstances of the pandemic, and suggest a way forward. We assert that suicide rates will increase for women and girls to unprecedented levels as a direct result of pandemic public health measures and it is also our contention that the gendered impact of COVID-19 will lead to an upsurge in another harm induced by the global health order to stay at home: femicide. In a landscape of competitive catastrophe, we call attention to two social facts that kill: suicide and femicide, and we urge global leaders to attend to prevention now, because for many women and girls, even though we have found a vaccine, it may be too late.

Feminicide Violence Before and During the COVID-19 Health Emergency

“…Gender roles reinforce and exacerbate the psychological and domestic burdens, or as indicated, the home becomes an insecure space of subordination, increased work, and situations of violence against women (Maribondo Albuquerque et al 2020). Feminicide violence is violence at its extreme, or as it is said, the final link (Standish and Weil 2021), which is based on misogyny that aims to end the lives of women. Our study has verified that physical violence and psychological violence are antecedents that are closely related to the occurrence of feminicide violence, and discriminate between periods of the pandemic, which agrees with Pérez-Vincent et al (2020).…”

“…(Hentschel et al 2019). Murdering women due to their roles, identity, or condition of women are classified as feminicide or extreme violence against women (Standish and Weil 2021).…”

Systematic Review of Arts-Based Interventions to Address Suicide Prevention and Survivorship in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America

“…Recent studies have also begun to highlight how increasing stress and social isolation related to COVID-19, including medical morbidity/mortality, quarantines, and social disparities, have been associated with rising levels of depression, anxiety, suicidality, and mental health emergency room visits, including for children and youth (Czeisler et al, 2020;Leeb et al, 2020). Increased rates of suicide have been documented in relation to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, as well as the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 2003 (Standish, 2020;Yip et al, 2010). Given these historic patterns, and the higher prevalence of COVID-19 among Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, and the negative impacts of COVID-19 on mental health, it is anticipated that rates of suicide may increase following the pandemic, particular among COVID-19 survivors and those with psychiatric disorders (Sher, 2020).…”

Personal Peacebuilding and COVID-19

“…In addition, the pandemic is creating and exacerbating conditions that can lead to future suicides. The levels of social isolation, anxiety, unemployment, depression, lack of social support, and grief are all factors that lead to suicide (Gunnell et al, 2020;Standish & Weil, 2021). The need for independent, individual, and personal forms of peacebuilding, to prevent suicide, means that in the absence of social and interpersonal support, many of us will increasingly need to rely on "ourselves" for support (Standish, 2020c).…”