New Teaching Tool from the GenderSci Lab on Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes
Author: Ann Caroline Danielsen
The “Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes” guide and toolkit is an open-access Google Slides presentation offered by the Harvard GenderSci Lab for adoption in introductory-level gender studies, feminist science studies, and health sciences courses. The presentation helps students develop a critical and intersectional understanding of sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. Learn more about this project here.
1. The “Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes” teaching presentation
The teaching presentation provides an analytical toolkit for unpacking apparent sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes. The presentation leads students through a series of questions about the causal primacy granted to biological sex in attempts to explain the gender/sex gap in COVID-19 mortality. Gender and other social and demographic factors are offered as an alternative way of understanding, investigating, and talking about inequities in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data and case examples are drawn from the United States, but the analytical principles illustrated in the teaching toolkit can be applied to query sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes in other contexts.
2. The “Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes” user guide for instructors
The user guide provides an introduction to the teaching materials and specific guidance for instructors for adapting the teaching presentation to different classroom contexts and conducting breakout activities. A detailed presentation outline, terminology guide, and timing estimates for each section of the presentation are included in the user guide. We also offer suggestions for assigned readings to pair with the presentation.
Why teach about sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes through a critical lens?
A focus on biological sex may underplay the contribution of gender-related and other social factors to COVID-19 disparities, misdirecting public health efforts. An additional concern is that decontextualized statistics about sex differences in cases and deaths from COVID-19 can reinforce biological sex-essentialist stereotypes.
Both biological and social factors, and interactions between the two, may play a role in shaping the observed patterns of COVID-19 outcomes. Discussions of sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes often emphasize biological factors, even suggesting differential treatment avenues or vaccine regimes for individuals of different sexes. However, as this presentation emphasizes, evidence from prior infectious disease epidemics, including closely-related coronaviruses, demonstrates that gendered factors such as occupation, lifestyle, and comorbidities, along with interacting social variables such as racism and socioeconomic class are likely the primary contributors to apparent sex disparities in COVID-19.
Overview of the “Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes” teaching presentation
The presentation consists of an introduction to the topic, plus three parts that can be covered together or offered individually. Four break-out activities are also provided.
Introduction
Why is attending to gender and other closely related social variables important amidst the COVID-19 pandemic?
Part 1: Are there sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes?
Part 1 examines variation in sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes across time, place, and social group. Data are less settled than often portrayed and there is strong evidence that COVID-19 sex disparities vary widely in response to many social and contextual factors.
Part 2 : How can we theorize the role of gender-related factors in COVID-19 outcomes in men and women?
Part 2 illustrates the role of gender in past infectious disease outbreaks and offers a framework to theorize how gender and other social factors could contribute to generating gender/sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes.
Part 3: What is at stake?
Part 3 is a guided discussion about the public health implications of considering (or failing to consider) gender alongside sex in responses to the pandemic.
Statement of intellectual labor
The teaching tool grows out of our Gender/Sex and COVID-19 Project, and reflects months of research and labor by the whole lab. Ann-Caroline Danielsen conceived and led the teaching tool project, drawing up the initial draft, integrating lab member comments and edits during the revision process, and drafting the guide and blog post, in close collaboration with Sarah Richardson and Heather Shattuck-Heidorn, who advised the project. Capri D’Souza, Nicole Noll, Mimi Tarrant, and Helen Zhao helped develop the overall plan and objectives of the teaching project. Many people contributed to the content, visual design, and drafting and revision process, including Danielsen, Richardson, Shattuck-Heidorn, Marion Boulicault, D’Souza, Annika Gompers, Katie Jillson, Noll, Meg Perret, Tamara Rushovich, Tarrant, and Zhao. Juanis Becerra helped format the final presentation and developed a dissemination plan for the teaching tool.
Recommended citation
Teaching tool: GenderSci Lab (2020) “Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes: Guide and Toolkit by Harvard University’s GenderSci Lab”. Retrieved from https://www.genderscilab.org/gender-sex-in-covid19-teaching-module
Blog post: Ann Caroline Danielsen. “New Teaching Tool from the GenderSci Lab on Gender/Sex Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes”, GenderSci Blog, September 28, 2020, https://www.genderscilab.org/gender-sex-in-covid19-teaching-module
Interested in having a member of the GenderSci Lab join your virtual classroom?
For the 2020/2021 academic year, the Lab will consider invitations to do 20-minute Q&A sessions to discuss gender/sex disparities in COVID-19 outcomes and the wider work of the Lab with your class, via Zoom. To enquire about availability, please contact us at genderscilab@fas.harvard.edu.