Visakhapatnam: Globally, 54 per cent of women lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Columbia University Medical Centre Public Psychiatry Education director and clinical psychiatry associate professor, Dr Stephanie M.Le Melle, on Saturday. She was delivering the keynote address at a global workshop on "Stress Coping: Strategies to de-stress" organized by GITAM Deemed to be University Women Empowerment Cell.
She said COVID-19 is exposing women to greater health risks, threatening livelihoods, exacerbating gender-based violence and forcing women and children into extreme poverty particularly those living in the most marginalized communities.
She said 10 per cent of working women missed work weekly because of childcare needs and added that the COVID-19 pandemic international stressor indicated 75 to 90 per cent of women labourers were unpaid globally which is putting financial stress on families and causing domestic violence. She suggested that equal access to education for girls, reproductive rights, digital inclusion, and access to health care will reduce the stress on women.
Columbia University Psychiatric Integrative Services director Dr. Sasidhar Gunturu said that procrastination, worry about the future, and difficulty in getting things done are called pandemic brain fog and 76 per cent of Americans are facing this problem.
Meanwhile, Dr. Gomathi Jatin, an associate professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, advised maintaining journals that would serve is a reflective space where teachers can reclaim their well-being and become the authors of their own personal and professional narratives.