COVID-19 Points of View: Tracey Rizzo, Surveys of the Past and Projected Future

Professor and Chair of the History Department Tracey Rizzo

“My evolving book ‘Gendering Comparative Revolutions’ now begins with scholars’ speculations about the role of catastrophes in triggering political instability, especially in societies with high wealth inequality, poor social supports, and corrupt leadership. Each of these is gendered, as is the response to the pandemic.

Often missed in our surveys of the past, and therefore in our projections for the future, is the role of gender. In our current crisis, we see gender on display at every turn: the matriarchal scientist, bombastic heads of state, differential survival rates among men and women, restrictions on reproductive healthcare. We see the gendered labor of mothers, nurses, unemployed service workers, volunteers. We don’t see the suffering of the invisible–the very poor and the displaced. We struggle to prevent upticks in domestic violence and joke about a COVID-19 baby boom because the experience of catastrophe is

embodied. Whether or not we fight and love and die privately, or claim the power that comes from recognizing that the personal is political—and gendered, we must look to past suffering, resilience and strategies.”

Gendering Comparative Revolutions is co-authored with Aldo Garcia Guevara, ’99,  associate professor of history and political science at Worcester State University.