Friday October 30th 2020
11a.m. - 1 p.m. EDT
Register here.

This year, the Cornell Law Review will host, Women on the Frontlines: COVID and Beyond, an online symposium that examines the political, economic, social, and legal status of women. The Center for Bioethics is a co-sponsor for this event and Center faculty member Louise King is a featured speaker.

The symposium makes interventions along the lines of sex, race, and class to understand the persistence of women’s inequality and invisibility at a critical juncture in American history marked by both the 150th and 100th year anniversaries of the 15th and 19th Amendments, respectively, as well as troubling contemporary times demarcated by the COVID-19 pandemic, political turmoil, and racial unrest. As the authors show, the pandemic exacerbates underlying systemic patterns of discrimination against women.

The symposium brings to light the various ways in which women consistently labor and serve at the forefronts of society, constituting the foundation of essential workers, performing critical services from child to medical care. Yet, even during pandemic, women, especially women of color, suffer persistent economic constraints; health and death disparities; obstruction of rights; and the troubling perceptions of fungibility and expendability. The symposium takes up these compelling issues and more to elevate the discourse about the role of women and pathways toward a more just society.

Joining in collaboration for this important event are a series of co-sponsors, including the Harvard Medical School, Center for Bioethics; Harvard Law School's Petrie Flom Center; the American Society of Law, Medicine, & Ethics; The Hastings Center; Ms. Magazine; and the University of California, Irvine Center for Bioethics and Global Health Policy.