Crisis response

Deborah Bosner was gobsmacked the first time she tuned into Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s near-daily coronavirus briefings and heard his health director, Dr. Amy Acton, speak.

The Upper Arlington business owner spent 13 years working for Battelle and said Acton’s “calm voice” and “digestible explanations” were “just sort of a lighting rod of everything I hold dear in terms of science and evidence-based decision making.”

Ethiopia’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde, spoke to FORBES AFRICA’s Managing Editor, Renuka Methil, on the country’s plans to combat Covid-19 and resuscitate one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.

Zewde, listed as one of Africa’s ‘50 Most Powerful Women’ in the March issue of FORBES AFRICA, says while the virus didn’t warrant the nation going into complete lockdown, it has hit some sectors of the East African country’s economy, affecting its GDP growth.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, African feminists have been essential in responding with care to the challenges facing their communities.

Life during the coronavirus lockdown has reinforced gender inequality across Europe with research emphasising that the economic and social consequences of the crisis are far greater for women and threaten to push them back into traditional roles in the home which they will struggle to shake off once it is over.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms captured the nation’s attention when she addressed the civil unrest occurring in her city after George Floyd’s death.

“I am a mother to four black children in America, one of whom is 18 years old,” Bottoms said Friday in a rousing speech watched and praised across the country. “When I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother.”

Boris Johnson has been reprimanded after laughing when he was asked about a lack of female decision makers in the government’s coronavirus response.

Appearing before the House of Commons liaison committee, the prime minister was told by chair Sir Bernard Jenkin: “It’s not a joking matter.”

The coronavirus pandemic is having a devastating effect on gender equality and could set women back decades, experts have said on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act.

In a week during which it was revealed that women are bearing the brunt of extra childcare and housework and are losing jobs in greater numbers than men, campaigners, politicians and work experts said a dearth of female voices at the heart of government also risks putting 50 years of progress into reverse.