WOMEN IN THE LOCKDOWN IN EUROPE. MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN “PHASE 1” OF THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC

How have women been portrayed during the initial phase of the coronavirus pandemic? What issues were discussed across European newspapers when women were at the center of the narrative during the lockdown? This paper aims to provide some initial answers to these questions by looking at a bulk of 462 articles collected across 5 different European countries during the so-called “phase 1” of the COVID-19 pandemic when strict stay-at-home policies were imposed to contain the spread of the virus. Results show that four frames were mostly used by the media: women as a vulnerable group, women as actors in the pandemic, women’s health, and women as a transformative force in society. Implications of these findings will be discussed and the emergence of a “women’s narrative” in the coronavirus crisis will be proposed.