Women bore the brunt of the pandemic’s failures, from frontline exposure to widening inequality — Roz Foyer says those lessons must shape how Scotland values and protects women today.

Anniversaries and notable events often see the playing out of well-trodden lines, but they do importantly give us a chance for reflection and consideration.

This weekend saw two anniversaries that were, if you’ll excuse the oxymoron, simultaneously linked and distinct.

International Women’s Day was yesterday, as was the Covid-19 day of Reflection.

Why are they linked? Because if the pandemic reinforced anything, it’s that it revealed the deep, structural imbalances and inequity between men and women.

Across the labour market. Across the workplace. Across society.

If we can’t recognise that on International Women’s Day and learn the lessons that the pandemic taught us, we will be consigned to repeat our mistakes.

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What we have learned, through our submissions to both the UK and Scottish Covid-19 Public Inquiries, is that women were disproportionately impacted due to the jobs they do, the caring responsibilities they have and their reliance on public services.

The prevalence of infection – the higher proportion of women workers who were put in harm’s way - absolutely had both a gendered and class divide.

Research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, referenced by the STUC during both the Scottish and UK Covid-19 Inquiries, indicates that people working in the care sector, the majority of whom are women, accounted for a disproportionately high share of Covid-related........

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