ABSTRACT
This introduction to The Routledge Companion to Gender and Covid-19 provides background on the importance of bringing an intersectional gender lens to the COVID-19 pandemic, an outline of the book, and an overview of chapters. The chapter explains how, from the start of the pandemic, questions emerged as to how sex and gender were related to COVID-19. It previews the different gender dynamics that emerged and how, in numerous ways, globally, the pandemic exacerbated preexisting gender inequalities in most areas of life. This introduction explains the volume's organization into several significant topics relating to gender and the pandemic: Training a Gender Lens on the COVID-19 Pandemic; Families and Communities; Economy, Labor, and Social Reproduction; Health; Reproductive Health; and Politics and Political Leadership. Although this volume uses these organizing categories to help guide readers, cross-cutting themes emerge, such as how the pandemic exposed and made worse the lack (in many political systems ) of a care infrastructure.
