Feminism, school closures and coronavirus

A comment from March 2020

Covid school closures

Britain about to follow Ireland’s example and close schools. This will create a massive childcare crisis for working families. And the fact that it is this that dominates the discussion rather than the ‘crisis of learning’ — kind of demonstrates what schools are primarily for. But the crisis also shows something more profound. The now routine, ubiquitous expectation of double-income families with a working mum has been driven sometimes (but not always) by what women want, but also by the intersection of economic necessity and the emphasis of feminist politics on career over motherhood. In our society dominance of formal economy over ‘livelihood’ (i.e. the informal unquantified/invisible unpaid and/or untaxed activity centred on home and hearth) drives growth which is great for GDP and tax receipts, but bad for ecology and sustainability. In the words of @GallileoPrinciple, ‘we have maximized for economic efficiency and traded family, happiness and security (physic…