Janell Hobson Writes in Ms. on What Black Women’s Histories can Teach about Pandemics

Janell Hobson's Ms. magazine article looks at such historical and modern day pandemic fighters as (l. to r.) Voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, Harriet Tubman and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett.

In a new article published last week in Ms. magazine, Professor Janell Hobson, chair of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, looks at current and past pandemic and illuminates underreported racial and gender realities of today and of history.

One, she writes in “What Black Women’s Histories can Teach Us about Pandemics,” is that women as a demographic have been particularly overburdened by this pandemic, as they have with all others. Two, that there are women today in leadership positions around the globe that have proven to be “more than capable and even exemplars.”