PERSPECTIVES
Women's roles changed during the 1918 flu pandemic. (National Archives)
Pandemics Change the Workplace and Can Change Society By Lindsey Clark
E
veryone has responded in their own way over the months of the pandemic: Some have binge-watched TV and movies, some have shopped online, some “doomscrolled”; others have taken up new hobbies, like baking, jigsaw puzzles, or home improvement. But, for me, COVID-19 has renewed my love of history. Though it was my undergraduate major, history took a back seat to my other pursuits until now. I’m researching past pandemics, and I can’t help noting what profound effects each pandemic affords society. Especially striking to me, as I compare the 1918 influenza pandemic with our current SARSCoV-2 pandemic, are impacts on the lives of women. As a woman in science – I teach in the UAMS Medical Laboratory Sciences Program – I see both the wins and the losses that come with pandemics: Much is learned, but too many lives are lost. Recent public commentary compares various aspects of the two pandemics – statistics, mitigation efforts, economic impact – but as I look at the past, I’m most interested in the changes in women’s roles when looking at these two pandemics side by side. The 1918 flu pandemic was pivotal in advancing women’s role in the workplace and in promoting women’s suffrage. On the other hand, COVID-19 is charged with causing nearly three million women to drop out of the workforce, including people in the fields of medicine and science. How can one pandemic advance women, and another, just 100 years later, hold women back? What lessons do these two pandemics offer our society and those of us who work in the fields of flu-female-clerks-165-ww-269b-024.jpg[5/25/2021 9:53:00 PM] science and health care?
THE GREAT WAR AND THE GREAT PANDEMIC
The H1N1 influenza pandemic of 1918, incorrectly labeled the “Spanish flu,” hit the U.S. in the spring of 1918. It had a profound impact on troops training for World War I, also known as The Great War, as they moved from camp to camp before being shipped overseas. These troop movements set the stage for extensive spread of the flu virus, first in the U.S. and then in Europe. With young men away at war and a rise in the number of flu deaths, substantial vacancies in the workforce opened up back at home. These vacancies provided an opportunity for women to step into lines of work previously deemed inappropriate or too dangerous, such as the textile industry and manufacturing, science and research, and even occupations in medical laboratories. It’s satisfying to know that many scientific fields opened to women at that time, indicating significant progress on the horizon. Following the war, the number of women in the workforce was 25% higher than it had been previously, and by 1920 women made up 21% of all gainfully employed individuals in the country. In that same year, the 19th Amendment passed. The role of women in society was forever changed by the events of that decade.
FAST FORWARD TO TODAY: NOTE THE NEEDS
In 2021, the world finds itself in the midst of another pandemic. However, instead of making advancements in the workplace as their predecessors did 100 years ago, many women today are leaving, rather than entering, the labor force. This affects women in science and health care just as it does in other fields. ARKANSAS HOSPITALS | SUMMER 2021 47
