The coronavirus is having a huge impact on all our lives. Yet, so far, women and girls in the UK have been largely invisible from the debate and excluded from decision-making.

Hundreds of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money are being spent without considering the specific challenges women are facing. Fawcett is working in partnership with other feminist organisations, and with you, to ensure women aren’t left behind or ignored.

Read on to find out more about the problems women are facing, what we're doing and how you can get involved.

The impact on women

Existing gender inequality means that the challenges caused by the outbreak are affecting men and women differently.

• With schools and nurseries partially open, it is women who are taking on most of the unpaid care work, reducing their hours or giving up paid work, turning the clock back on gender equality.
• Many women are on the frontline, delivering essential services, usually the lowest paid or in insecure work.
• Many women will be trapped in their homes, self-isolating with an abusive partner.
• It's women who are also more likely to care for older or disabled relatives and neighbours.

We are working to ensure that women and girls in all their diversity are seen and heard, and that policymakers act.

What we're doing

Now, and throughout this crisis, we will be conducting vital research on the impacts of coronavirus on women, hosting discussion and debate, bringing people together and campaigning for change.

Read below to find out more and get involved.

#MakeWomenVisible - Our joint call to the UK Government

With over 65+ women's and charitable organisations we're calling for action to ensure that women and girls in all our diversity are not left behind by the UK Government’s approach to lifting lockdown. Women and their families must be protected from poverty and the likelihood a second wave.

Read our recommendations for the UK Government here.

Read our key messaging document here. 

When the crisis began, we united with charities across the sector to call for urgent action from the UK Government to support women and girls during the Coronavirus outbreak. Read our full list of asks from the beginning of the crisis here.

Our research and briefings

We are working in partnership with other feminist organisations, academic experts, and you to publish research on the gendered impact of the outbreak. Read more about the research we've published so far.

Read our briefings and calls for the government to act.

• Coronavirus: The impact on parents (17 August)
• Coronavirus: The impact on disabled women (16 June)
• Coronavirus: The impact on BAME women (5 June)
• Exiting lockdown: The impact on women (1 June)
• Urgent call for action (23 March)
• Coronavirus: The impact on parents (20 August)
• Pushed to More Precarity: The Uneven Impact of Lockdowns on Mothers and Low Income Parents (February 2021) 
• Disabled mothers three times more likely to have lost work during the pandemic (17 March 2021)
• Coronavirus: Impact on Young Women on Low Income (23rd August 2021)
• Coronavirus: Impact on young people (26th August 2021)

#CoronaConversations

#CoronaConversations is our new online event series.

Watch our CEO, Sam Smethers, in conversation with industry experts about how Coronavirus is affecting women and girls in the UK and what we can do.

Watch the recording of previous events:

• Build Back Better: Levelling the playing field for women in the regions (15 July)
• Coronavirus is deepening racial inequalities: what needs to change? (17 June)
• 50 years of the Equal Pay Act: Time to start valuing the care sector (26 May)
• Women Voters: What's the verdict so far? (20 May)
• Struggling to survive: women, work and welfare (28 April)
• Why we need to make women visible (7 April)

Coronavirus appeal

To fund our campaigning and awareness-raising work during the Coronavirus pandemic we urgently need your help.

If you can, please make a donation today.

Donate now