Pop Culture in the Pandemic // Grace Fowler

We can all agree that we have probably heard enough about COVID-19 and the daily updates about the prognosis of the world can feel exhausting. Yet we are endlessly fascinated with pop culture representations of disasters and diseases. As the seriousness of the pandemic has increased, so has the prevalence of people searching for pandemic movies on Google. Perhaps there is an odd comfort to catastrophizing our own experience through movies, as if to contextualize an invisible threat into the very visible world Matt Damon and Goop herself. As mental health professionals, we typically tell our clients to practice their safe coping skills whenever they begin to catastrophize to reduce their anxiety.  In this situation, however, throwing ourselves head long into the panic of another world might be the best we can do to cope. At least in the movies, we have a reassurance that the story will be wrapped up and answers will be had.

A quick review of top disaster movie lists revealed that many of our favorite panic movies are male-centered. Maybe it’s too difficult to pass the Bechdel Test when a tsunami is hurtling toward the shore or a pandemic threatens the globe. Or maybe these films reflect a harsh reality in our lives: disaster impacts are highly gendered. The last few times a virus or illness has swept through the globe, women’s earning ability took longer to recover than their male counterparts. As many people are forced to shelter at home and schools close down, women are more likely to be called on to provide care for the whole family, sick or not. In situations like this pandemic, the second shift never ends; boundaries between work life and home life are so continuously blurred that women may find it difficult to delineate between all the responsibilities they hold. We still have a long way to go before we reach the end of the particular crisis, but I urge you dear readers, enjoy your pandemic movies while dividing up labor in an egalitarian way. Just because society has ground to a halt does not mean that feminism must.
                                                                                                                      - Grace Fowler

Self-Compassion During Coronavirus: A gendered issue? // Kylie Steinhilber

Picture from: Zaie / Adobe Stock https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/205935674/zaie

As I sit down to write this article, I feel that writing about anything other than the global coronavirus crisis would lack the critical awareness we all need at this moment. We know that coronavirus, as with all health issues, impacts people in ways that benefit some groups and disadvantages others due to disparities in the distribution and access to resources, such as health care, food, housing, etc. Moreover, coronavirus has impacts far beyond its impact on physical health.

Media is also bringing to light the ways in which precautionary practices and coping can be a gendered and racialized issue, as reflected in the concerns of Black men who fear for their safety if they were to wear bandanas or face coverings (Aviles, 2020). These concerns bring to light how suggested ways of protecting oneself against coronavirus are misaligned with the reality of racism in America.  Additionally, feminist scholars have called coronavirus a “Disaster for Feminism”, as self-isolation has threatened women’s financial impendence and pushed them into increased unpaid labor tasks within the home that are tied to traditional feminine gender roles (Lewis, 2020). Therefore, race and gender have a large influence on the ways in which people cope in response to coronavirus and are often misaligned with the “best practices” proposed.

Each person’s experience during this time is individualized and unique, but a common thread is that it is difficult, distressing, and exhausting, to cope. As a coping strategy, self-compassion is much needed – and many have encouraged others to practice it. Self-compassion involves having kindness towards oneself, a sense of common experience across humanity, and mindfulness. Self-compassion is a message spread around social media, even by myself, in hopes of assuaging people’s undue guilt, shame, and/or self-criticism about not coping well. (But perhaps the idea that one can swiftly cope well in response to such an unprecedented issue, may be a façade in and of itself.) Some have compared this time as grief process and have suggested self-compassion as a way of processing our grief (Berinato, 2020). But, is self-compassion also a gendered issue?

A meta-analysis has found that across studies, men are more self-compassionate than women (Yarnell et al., 2015). Authors of the meta-analysis actually suggest that the socialization of women towards care-taking roles may not transfer over towards self-compassion. Rather, women self-sacrifice at their own expense. Because self-compassion is also associated with better well-being, this may mean that women’s wellbeing, is negatively impacted more than men in the long-term. However, research has also indicated that this is not due to one’s self-identified gender alone. Rather, those who more highly endorse traditionally feminine and masculine gender roles report higher self-compassion (Yarnell et al., 2018). Therefore, those who find themselves somewhere in-between, or egalitarian, are less likely to be self-compassionate. So what does this mean for women, amid coronavirus, especially feminist women who typically reject traditional gender role division?

On the one hand, this may indicate that we need to practice self-compassion even more, strengthening that muscle. On the other hand, perhaps self-compassion is not the right coping tool for everyone. Or, perhaps self-compassion is only one part of the puzzle… In response to coronavirus, we must be mindful that the strategies proposed to mitigate the spread of the illness and to cope in the face of it may not be easy, relatable, or accessible to practice for all.

                                                                                               
                                                                                                          - Kylie Steinhilber

References:

Aviles, G. (2020, April 9). Black men fear homemade coronavirus masks could exacerbate racial profiling. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-men-fear-homemade-masks-could-exacerbate-racial-profiling-n1179236

Lewis, H. (2020, March 19). The Cornavirus is a Disaster for Feminism. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/feminism-womens-rights-coronavirus-covid19/608302/

Yarnell, L. M., Stafford, R. E., Neff, K. D., Reilly, E. D., Knox, M. C., & Mullarkey, M. (2015). Meta-analysis of gender differences in self-compassion. Self and Identity, 14(5), 499-520.

Yarnell, L. M., Neff, K. D., Davidson, O. A., & Mullarkey, M. (2019). Gender differences in self-compassion: Examining the role of gender role orientation. Mindfulness, 10(6), 1136-1152.