By Madeline Price (she/they)

I know we are all quite tired of hearing, reading and viewing content about the pandemic that is COVID-19. The media reaction to COVID-19 has been varied: from the expected articles on how to identify and handle the health implications of COVID-19, to the ones arguing that COVID-19, and the ensuing crisis, have finally exposed the toxic impacts of neoliberalism, to articles on how health crises are intrinsically linked to capitalism and colonisation, and about the racist language intrinsic to how COVID-19 has been portrayed in the media. Articles have argued the relationship between the pandemic and climate change, and how the changes in education seen within the context of the pandemic could be translated into equitable education for all.

The media overload on the pandemic has been a varied wave of emotions, from factual health-related pieces, to impassioned speeches pushing to bring down capitalism, and, to be honest: I’m exhausted.

Exhausted from the media overload counting the death toll and increases of cases each hour. Exhausted by the ever-changing isolation conditions (and how they vary so greatly from state-to-state). Exhausted by the thought of those who have lost their employment, their educational opportunities, and their lives to this crisis. Exhausted by the long-term impacts of the pandemic – not just the health impacts (and the lives being lost daily), but by the educational disadvantage caused by the wealth disparity between those students with access to technology and online learning, and those without. Exhausted by the impacts this will have upon those who are sleeping rough, or those who are in lockdown with their abuser, or those who are struggling to make ends meet.

I have also been thinking a lot about how we can rebuild a new reality – a new feminist reality – after the global pandemic and crisis that is COVID-19.

The building of a feminist reality has been on my mind for quite some time, if I am to be honest with you. But it really started to take hold at the end of last year – at the end of year training for the One Woman Project team, we delved into the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Feminist Realities Toolkit, which provides resources to spark creative conversations about building a new, feminist future. 

That, coupled with the video A Feminist Future produced by the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA), really made me reflect: what would a world without domination, exploitation and supremacy actually look like?

And how can we build this world, as we rebuild after a global pandemic?

Over the next few weeks, that is the question we are going to be exploring through a series of short blog posts: after the pandemic, what would rebuilding a feminist reality look like? We will explore rebuilding a world without domination, supremacy and exploitation, and we will look at real-life circumstances of where this world has already been made a reality. We will also explore how you can take concrete actions to help rebuild a world that we all want to live in.

We will explore what our feminist future could look like, to give us some hope as we make it through this crisis.  

Let’s rebuild this feminist reality together.