An Untold Pandemic: Triple Burden of Working Women During COVID-19 Pandemic in Dhaka, Bangladesh

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue V, May 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

An Untold Pandemic: Triple Burden of Working Women During COVID-19 Pandemic in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Anika Intesar
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Bangladesh.

Abstract- This anthropological experimentation illustrates the cause and consequence of how triple roles of working mothers in Bangladesh become their utmost burdens. By emphasizing their life experiences through interviewing and case studies, this paper depicts how the recent COVID-19 pandemic, in turn, creates an unreported devastation in their lives. In relation to the study objectives, women from different occupations and age-groups are chosen to demonstrate the background of this study. Traditionally, women perform triple roles including reproductive works by bearing and raring children, household chores, maintaining workplace and community activities. Although these activities require significant amount of time, energy and dedication, they are highly undervalued, unpaid and unnoted. At the same time, these are merely considered as ‘real works’. Moreover, the resent coronavirus issue makes the situation even worse for them. More precisely, this study focuses on an untold affliction of bearing triple burdens of working mothers in this developing country.

Keywords- triple role, triple burden, pandemic, working mother, stress, anxiety.

I.INTRODUCTION

“She is water, soft enough to offer life, tough enough to drown away”, Rupi Kaur, a young poet from Nepal wrote this to portray the image of woman whom she sees around her everyday life. Women, knowing that life has different colors with ups and downs, can adapt well and bounce back quickly in times of difficulty. Though life is not bed of roses for anyone, women dismally face uttermost challenges throughout their lives. Those who work both inside and outside of their homes, experience stressful situations while trying to make a balance between their traditional role of homemaker and extra role of productive worker. Moreover, the ongoing corona virus event increases their vulnerability and become a worsening burden until the pandemic is well under control (McLaren and others, 2020). This is, no doubt, a real pandemic for women which is largely untold and uncounted. This anthropological work, in fact, attempts to locate the nature of that untold pandemic by drawing upon the concept of ‘women’s triple burden’ to theorize their roles in productive, reproductive and community activities in the context of corona virus outbreak in Bangladesh. In a nutshell,

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