Earlier in 2020, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned the world saying, “COVID-19 could reverse the limited progress that has been made on gender equality and women’s rights”. With the gloom and doom in the past year, his words seem less like a warning and more like a prediction.

The impact of the pandemic has largely been gendered. When we talk about impact, it is important to differentiate between the infected and the affected. While the virus didn’t seem to affect one gender more than the other, the pandemic sure did. It has deepened pre-existing inequalities, if not creating new ones, thus exposing the vulnerable within our society.

So far, everything about the pandemic seems to be like a dark cloud hovering over the lives of women in India, and indeed, around the world.

With women in India trying to juggle between work and household chores, the challenge of invisibility and the burden of unpaid work due to social expectations have become more apparent than ever.

While women were already doing most of the unpaid care work, it dramatically increased during the pandemic. This was a result of homes turning into work stations as well as school for children, with no access to house-help. As dining rooms turned into conference rooms, women suffered from a greater lack of acknowledgement for their work in this patriarchal environment. While closed doors meant more family time for the privileged, to some others, it meant silently bearing the brunt of domestic violence.

But, most of this is already well documented in the media, and certainly requires no additional comment.

While these negatives were evident and obvious like dark clouds, there were also some silver linings.

Beauty: From impressing the other to embracing the self

In the Before-Covid (BC) era, social standards have pushed women to confirm to a cesspool of beauty stereotypes. This definition of beauty has found its meaning in impressing the ‘other’, whether it be the male gaze or social sanction.

But forced time at home has made women question whether these beauty standards were really their own. Through the course of the lockdown, women on the internet started speaking up about how having hairy legs is normal. Beauty influencers jumped onto this conversation as well. Bushy eyebrows, hairy legs, pyjamas on work calls, no bras and straight out of bed looks became part of the new normal. Looks that were once considered uncouth by most, are being embraced and normalised.

Most women dressed up because they were conditioned to believe that they must do so. The lockdown has changed this. Putting on makeup or dressing up has become more about feeling good about oneself than impressing others. And choosing the other way is no longer conditional to looking beautiful.

Work: From work restrictions to passion paying bills

While the world was getting shut indoors, doors of opportunities opened up for women. The lockdown provided an opportunity for homemakers to convert their passion into profession.

While most wouldn’t consider the lockdown period to be a lucrative time to start a business, women across India converted their passions into small businesses, be it cooking, baking, sewing or designing face masks. In fact, a large number of entrepreneurs who started their businesses during the pandemic have been women.

Social media played a huge role in helping these women set up and market their business. In many cases, promotion of these ventures became a family affair, with messages about home-made pickles, papads, cupcakes and biryanis being forwarded on WhatsApp.

It’s not just entrepreneurship that the pandemic boosted. The lockdown also proved to be a blessing in disguise for women from conservative families who weren’t given the freedom to work. WFH allowed these women to un-pause their dreams and become part of the corporate world, from the comfort of their homes. Finally some relief to those being burdened by the these regressive practices.

Relationships: From independence to co-dependence

Women have been fighting the battle for independence for decades now. While this war hasn’t been won yet, they have taken strides towards a more free and equal world. In the past decade, many campaigns, movements and organizations have focused efforts on empowering women.

But the pandemic has made all of us realise that even independence needs some co-dependence.

While women have taken on multiple roles in their lives, they continue to the be the homemakers in most Indian families. There has always been some chatter about shared responsibilities at home, but these conversations were never put into action.

However, with all members of the family cooped up at home for months and no access to domestic help, responsibilities got reorganised, especially in urban households. With few homes equipped with dishwashers, vacuum cleaners or washing machines, tasks that were traditionally seen as a woman’s job, are now being gender neutralized. Men have started to lend a hand with cooking, cleaning and attending online classes with their children.

While women are still doing most of the work, there has been a significant increase in the time spent by men on domestic work. So, will the lockdown be the great leveller for Indian gender relations or will this merely be a passing trend?

With evidence that these winds of change that started blowing within Indian homes will continue in a post-pandemic world, we can only hope that homes may finally be on the way to becoming more gender neutral.

Health: From care to vigilantism

In India, women have been always considered to be the designated care-givers of the family. While holding their own lives together, they have also been put in charge of the family members’ physical and emotional well-being. And they have been fulfilling these responsibilities for generations. They ensured that their families eat, sleep and play right, mostly with emotional blackmail, supported by the power of traditions.

However, in these pandemic times, demonstration of care has gone through its own transformation. Caring now comes with hyper-awareness and constant vigilantism. Right from leaving footwear outside the house, to following medical protocols, to altering the diet and lifestyle, they are setting strict rules for the family. Going from blindly showing care to now reasoning with it, they are enforcing hygiene backed by knowledge, not mere traditions.

While much adversity was faced by women behind closed doors, there were also a few ceilings being broken at the same time. So with tongue firmly in cheek, we talk about the silver linings. We talk about how, in the face of adversity, women always #ChooseToChallenge. Self-love, passion careers, co-dependence and health vigilantism, these are just some silver linings in the dark pandemic clouds that affected women in India.

Clearly no benefit could outweigh the negatives of pandemic. But trying to the make the best of a bad situation makes it more tolerable. This one did too. Hopefully, by IWD 2022, these changes to take deeper root, especially among those who have not been affected by the silver linings yet.