Who can we blame for Covid-19? Over in the US, Trump is still desperately trying to make ‘the China virus’ and ‘the Wuhan flu’ stick. There can be no doubt where his finger is pointing. The United Nations, on the other hand, has a different target. The UN’s Twitter account notified the world yesterday that, ‘The #COVID19 pandemic is demonstrating what we all know: millennia of patriarchy have resulted in a male-dominated world with a male-dominated culture which damages everyone – women, men, girls & boys.’ So, forget China. Coronavirus is an opportunity to bash the patriarchy.
Trump’s China-blaming may have a basis in reality, though he no doubt welcomes any excuse to turn the spotlight abroad. But the patriarchy? Back in March, Michael Gove told us that ‘coronavirus does not discriminate’. Only then we found out that it does. It discriminates according to age, ethnicity, wealth and gender. Covid-19 disproportionately kills men.
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