COVID-19 intersectional gender analysis paper
A five to seven page report on the current state of the COVID-19 crisis in the US, entering through gender but reasoning intersectionally about one particular group, following the supplied four-part outline and using at least four credible sources with direct quotes.
Editorial process
Last reviewed · August 13, 2026
Intersectional means narrower, not broader
The instruction that shapes the whole paper is the one about intersectionality, and the prompt spells out what it means with two examples: not women but undocumented women, not men but men working in the service industry. Intersectionality here is a narrowing operation. A paper about how the pandemic affected women will be broad, generic and drown in sources; a paper about how it affected undocumented women working in domestic care will have a specific set of mechanisms to trace, from exclusion from relief payments to the impossibility of remote work to fear of presenting at a clinic. Choose the group in the first week, because the choice determines whether you can find disaggregated data at all. Some intersections are well documented and others are barely counted at all, and picking one that nobody measured will leave you asserting rather than evidencing your way through five pages of a seven-page paper.
The outline supplied is not a suggestion, and the page allocations tell you where the weight goes: roughly two pages describing the crisis, one to two on your chosen group, and one to two on how others could help. That last section is the one to plan rather than improvise, because reflecting on how others could help slides easily into generalities about kindness. Ground it in the mechanisms you have already traced: if the problem was exclusion from a relief programme, the help is a policy change with a name; if it was language access at vaccination sites, the help is an operational fix someone could implement. The prompt also requires direct quotation from at least four credible outside sources, which is a genuine constraint on how the descriptive section gets written, so collect quotable passages as you read rather than paraphrasing everything and then having to go back through your sources hunting for the words.
Likely learning objectives
Inferred from the brief — check these against your own rubric.
- 01Apply intersectionality as a narrowing analytic move rather than a list of identities.
- 02Locate disaggregated data for a group defined by more than one characteristic.
- 03Distinguish a mechanism of disadvantage from a description of it.
- 04Use direct quotation as evidence rather than decoration.
- 05Translate an analysis into specific, actionable help.
Read the full question
Review every instruction before using the planning guidance that follows.
Course-wide instructions that accompany this question
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes. Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages. Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor. The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
Turn the brief into deliverables
- 01An introduction, which may use a narrative to explain where we are today.
- 02A description of the crisis using descriptive language and direct quotes, about two pages.
- 03A discussion of the chosen group, one to two pages.
- 04A reflection on how others could help, one to two pages.
- 05At least four credible outside sources, quoted directly.
- 06A reference page, with the paper running five to seven pages excluding it.
The four sections the prompt specifies
Introduction
A narrative or framing paragraph establishing where the pandemic stands today.
Describing the crisis
The state of the pandemic in the US, evidenced and quoted, about two pages.
Choosing the group
The intersection you are analysing and why it is analytically tractable.
Mechanisms of disadvantage
How the pandemic reached this group specifically, from work to status to services.
How others could help
Specific interventions aimed at the mechanisms already identified.
Sources that disaggregate
Recommended databases
- UN Women Data Hub
- WHO
- CDC data portals
- Peer-reviewed sociology journals
- National news archives
Search sequence
- 1.Shortlist two or three candidate intersections and check which has published disaggregated data.
- 2.Read a gender-and-pandemic overview to identify the mechanisms already documented.
- 3.Search for labour, immigration or care-work data covering your group.
- 4.Collect quotable passages as you read, with page or paragraph locations.
- 5.Look for a policy analysis naming a programme that excluded or included your group.
Reference shortlist
These are authoritative starting points, not a ready-made bibliography. A qualified reviewer must confirm that each source fits the assignment and supports the claim beside which it is cited.
Nothing here is cleared for citation until you have read it.
- 01
COVID-19 and gender: What do we know; what do we need to know?
UN Women Data Hub · 2020
The gendered mechanisms already documented, and an honest account of where data is missing.
- 02
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
World Health Organization · 2024
Baseline epidemiological framing for the descriptive section.
- 03
Social Determinants of Health
Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion · 2024
The structural domains through which the pandemic reached particular groups.
- 04
Key Facts about the Uninsured Population
KFF · 2024
Coverage data disaggregated by group, if your intersection turns on access to care.
Review before submission
Common mistakes
- Writing about women or men as a whole, which the prompt explicitly warns against.
- Choosing an intersection for which no disaggregated data exists.
- Paraphrasing throughout when the prompt requires direct quotes.
- Letting the description of the crisis crowd out the analysis of the group.
- Ending with general appeals to compassion instead of specific interventions.
- Ignoring the outline's page allocations and unbalancing the paper.
Submission checklist
- The chosen group is defined by at least two intersecting characteristics.
- All four outline sections are present in order.
- Direct quotations from four or more credible sources appear.
- The mechanisms affecting the group are named, not just its outcomes.
- The help section proposes specific, actionable measures.
- The paper is five to seven pages excluding the reference page.
Use this guide to plan and review your own work. Follow your institution's rules and read our academic-integrity policy.
Written by
Aaron Bishop
MA, Education
assignment interpretation and research-methods coaching across disciplines
Aaron leads the EssayCrackers editorial desk. He works on how assignment briefs are read — what a rubric is actually asking for, and where students most often answer a different question than the one set.
Reviewed by
Dr. Nathan Cole
PhD, Rhetoric & Composition
Argumentation and thesis development
Nathan teaches first-year composition and directs a university writing center. He reviews EssayCrackers guides for argumentative soundness and citation accuracy.