Maestripieri Lara
Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Laboratory of Social Policies, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
Front Sociol. 2021 Mar 26;6:642662. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.642662. eCollection 2021.
Covid-19 has been a disrupting event in contemporary social life but is far from being a great equaliser. Preliminary studies have put in evidence how different social groups faced a differentiated risk of contagion and coped differently with the various consequences of the emergency. Evidence shows how minorities and migrants face disproportionally higher risks of contagion than the white upper and middle class, and how vulnerable communities are more exposed to deaths and the rapid spread of the virus. At the same time, societies are coping with social distancing measures and their disruptive social and economic consequences, which have a more significant impact on the most vulnerable segments of societies: women, children, low-income classes and ethnic minorities. This article argues that an intersectional framework allows an understanding of what is occurring in the current pandemic, both in terms of its social determinants and social consequences. To open the black box of inequality, intersectional scholars analyze the intersections of multiple structures of inequalities (such as gender, age, class, ethnicity), which have a multiplying effect when disadvantaged positions intersect in the same individual. Covid-19 is a clear example of an intersectional phenomenon: the impact of individual and community exposure to Covid-19 is the results of multiple and interrelating structures of inequality. Up to now, research in social sciences has underestimated the role of intersectionality in analyzing the social and economic consequences of this pandemic.
新冠疫情是当代社会生活中的一个破坏性事件，但远非一个巨大的均衡器。初步研究已证实，不同社会群体面临着不同的感染风险，并且应对紧急情况的各种后果的方式也有所不同。证据表明，少数族裔和移民面临的感染风险比白人中上层阶级高得多，以及弱势群体更容易受到死亡和病毒快速传播的影响。与此同时，社会正在应对社交距离措施及其破坏性的社会和经济后果，这些措施对社会中最脆弱的群体：妇女、儿童、低收入阶层和少数族裔，产生了更大的影响。本文认为，一个交叉性框架有助于理解当前疫情中正在发生的事情，无论是从其社会决定因素还是社会后果方面来看。为了打开不平等的黑匣子，交叉性学者分析多种不平等结构（如性别、年龄、阶级、种族）的交叉点，当处于不利地位的情况在同一个人身上交叉时，会产生倍增效应。新冠疫情是交叉性现象的一个明显例子：个人和社区接触新冠疫情的影响是多种相互关联的不平等结构的结果。到目前为止，社会科学研究低估了交叉性在分析这场疫情的社会和经济后果中的作用。
