Gender is shaping the COVID-19 crisis in real and significant ways. Beyond the direct, visible practices that by now we all should understand—stay home, wash your hands, step back six feet—gender and its interactions with class, race, and immigrant status impact a number of dimensions of this crisis. From epidemiology to the vulnerabilities of front-line health workers, from the distribution of care work within families to the implications of quarantine for domestic violence, we need to reflect critically on these interactions to shape a truly effective policy response to this pandemic.

The rhetoric of war is all around us during the Covid-19 pandemic, from the World Health Organization to historical takes. More critical assessments note that this war, like others, will hurt the most vulnerable. In a recent essay, feminist political scientist Cynthia Enloe takes issue with this rhetoric, pointing to the historic ways in which wars have led to “racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic practices.” Whether or not war rhetoric is helpful at this crucial moment, the current pandemic should be a wake-up call to expand what investments we consider essential to our national security, how we value work, and who gets called a hero.