Description
The story of the pandemic is the story of women. This riveting narrative offers an account of COVID-19, reminding us of women's leadership and resilience, reflecting back hope and humanity as we all figure out a new normal, together.
Throughout history, men have fought, lost, and led us through the world's defining crises. That all changed with COVID-19. In Canada, women's presence in the response to the pandemic has been notable. Women are our nurses, doctors, PSWs. Our cashiers, long-haulers, cooks. In Canada, women are leading the fast-paced search for a vaccine. They are leading our provinces and territories. At home, they are leading families through self-isolation, often bearing the responsibility for their physical and emotional health. They are figuring out what working from home looks like, and many of them are doing it while homeschooling their kids. Women crafted the blueprint for kindness during the pandemic, from sewing masks to kicking off international mutual-aid networks. And, perhaps not surprisingly, women have also suffered some of the biggest losses, bearing the brunt of our economic skydive.
Through intimate portraits of Canadian women in diverse situations and fields, Women of the Pandemic is a gripping narrative record of the early months of COVID-19, a clear-eyed look at women's struggles, which highlights their creativity, perseverance, and resilience as they charted a new path forward during impossible times.
About the Author
Lauren McKeon was the editor of Canada's progressive, independent This Magazine from November 2011-October 2016. Always fierce and feisty, This is like the Mother Jones of the North and has been named one of the most influential Canadian magazines of all time—publishing the country's best and brightest thinkers in its 50-year history, including Margaret Atwood, Naomi Klein, and more. While at This, Lauren helmed one of the bestselling issues in recent years "Why Canada Need More Feminism," and also organized the corresponding sold-out event, which headlined a diverse, intersectional roster of speakers. Before leading This, Lauren worked as a reporter, editor and writer in the North for several years, living in Yellowknife, and travelling Canada's territories and northern Alberta. While there, she wrote about award-winning work about everything from prisons to pipelines.
Today, she is a contributing editor at Toronto Life magazine, Canada's largest circulation city magazine, where she recently wrote about her experiences with sexual assault in the memoir 15 Years of Silence. In response, Lauren has heard from dozens of women around the world who've shared their own experiences—some for the first time—and was prominently featured in the documentary PTSD: Beyond Trauma, which aired in January 2017 on David Suzuki's The Nature of Things. Her personal essays, which tackle the world and her experiences through a not-so-rosy feminist lens, have twice been featured on Longreads.com, a popular site dedicated to "helping people find and share the best storytelling in the world." Her longform work has won her several Canadian National Magazine Awards, including three honorable mentions, one silver and, in 2015, a gold in the personal journalism category for her Toronto Life piece "Save me From My Workout." She teaches longform writing at Humber College and has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Non-Fiction.
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