Structural Gendered Racism Revealed in Pandemic Times: Intersectional Approaches to Understanding Race and Gender Health Inequities in COVID-19

Abstract

The pandemic reveals; the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has brought the historically rooted inequities of our society to the forefront. We argue that an intersectional analysis is needed to further help peel back the veil that the pandemic has begun to reveal. We identify structural gendered racism—the totality of interconnectedness between structural racism and structural sexism in shaping race and gender inequities—as a root cause of health problems among Black women and other women of color, which has been amplified during the pandemic. We show that women of color occupy disadvantaged positions within households, occupations, and health care institutions, and therefore face heightened risk for COVID-19 and lowered resources for mitigating the impact of the deadly virus. Intersectional analyses and solutions must be centered to also reveal, we hope, a new way forward.

Excess mortality among Latino people in California during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Our current study's finding that excess mortality during the pandemic was even higher for particular Latino subgroups underscores the need for updated and nuanced conceptual models to understand mortality experiences among Latinos during the pandemic ( Sáenz & Garcia, 2021 ). Intersectionality theory, especially recent elaborations by Brown ( Brown, 2018 ) and others ( Laster Pirtle & Wright, 2021 ), provides an excellent starting point for conceptualizing how measured factors such as nativity, educational attainment, and occupation, overlap with non-measured factors such as undocumented status, language isolation, and indigeneity to differentiate health experiences for Latinos.…”

“…These are examples of how intersecting marginalized identities may compound risk of COVID-19 death in non-linear ways. Recognizing that gender shapes health inequities within the larger system of structural gendered racism ( Laster Pirtle & Wright, 2021 ), the experiences of Latina women during the pandemic are distinct from the experiences of Latino men and distinct from the experiences of women and men racialized in other ways.…”

“…Similarly, educational disadvantage can restrict job opportunities and earning power, sorting people into less protected occupations and limiting the flexible social resources people can marshal to protect their health. Drawing on Crenshaw's intersectionality framework, these factors are best conceptualized as axes of stratification that intersect with racism to structure the positionality of various Latino identities in social hierarchies with consequences for health, and in this case, for mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic ( Crenshaw, 1990 ; Laster Pirtle & Wright, 2021 ).…”

Structural Intersectionality as a New Direction for Health Disparities Research

“…These lines of research have measured structural dimensions of racism, sexism, and economic inequality separately but have yet to consider how they may intersect. Thus, several scholars have recently highlighted the need for a synthesis of intersectional and structural approaches (Agénor 2020; Gkiouleka et al 2018; Green, Evans, and Subramanian 2017; Pirtle and Wright 2021).…”

Immigrant Health Inequities: Exposing Diversions and White Supremacy

“…These high rates are the result of legacies of white supremacy, which have historically, and contemporarily, disenfranchised entire communities, while privileging others. COVID-19 has explicitly brought to the forefront years of disenfranchisement, neglect, and systemic racism, contributing to health inequalities and making certain groups more vulnerable to contracting and dying from COVID-19 (Garcia et al 2021;Laster Pirtle and Wright 2021). Because of this, we return to the COVID-19 pandemic on multiple occasions throughout this paper to exemplify our concept of diversions.…”