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Towards a ‘virtual’ world: Social isolation and struggles during the COVID‐19 pandemic as single women living alone

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  • Grace Gao
  • Linna Sai

Abstract

This article is a personal reflection of how the current COVID‐19 pandemic affects our working lives and wellbeing, as single female academics who live alone in the UK. We offer a dialogue of our daily lives of being confined at home with lockdown measures extended. In particular, we focus on the experience of, and coping with, isolation and loneliness. Is isolation making us more socially connected? Through ‘virtual’ working and changing learning environments for us as teachers and learners, we explore changes in our working life and subsequent changes in the domestic environment. By capturing our lived experiences, we create an intellectual and safe space to voice our emotional struggles — as ‘invisible’ isolated individuals containing and consuming loneliness on our own. We foster alternative conversations as to how we might engender new perspectives from single female academics to combat social isolation in the workplace.

Suggested Citation

  • Grace Gao & Linna Sai, 2020. "Towards a ‘virtual’ world: Social isolation and struggles during the COVID‐19 pandemic as single women living alone," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(5), pages 754-762, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:27:y:2020:i:5:p:754-762
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12468
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    Cited by:

    1. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2022. "Inequalities in the times of a pandemic," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 37(109), pages 5-41.
    2. Swati Vohra & Mandeep Taneja, 2021. "Care and community revalued during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A feminist couple perspective," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S1), pages 113-121, January.
    3. Aleem, Majid & Sufyan, Muhammad & Ameer, Irfan & Mustak, Mekhail, 2023. "Remote work and the COVID-19 pandemic: An artificial intelligence-based topic modeling and a future agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Elena P. Antonacopoulou & Andri Georgiadou, 2021. "Leading through social distancing: The future of work, corporations and leadership from home," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 749-767, March.
    5. Omar Mazzucchelli & Claudia Manzi & Cristina Rossi Lamastra, 2022. "Women’s Working Conditions during COVID-19: A Review of the Literature and a Research Agenda," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-13, November.
    6. Julia Coffey & Julia Cook & David Farrugia & Steven Threadgold & Penny Jane Burke, 2021. "Intersecting marginalities: International students' struggles for “survival” in COVID‐19," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(4), pages 1337-1351, July.
    7. Emmanouela Mandalaki & Ely Daou, 2021. "(Dis)embodied encounters between art and academic writing amid a pandemic," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(S1), pages 227-242, January.

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