Harris to American women amid pandemic: ‘You are strong’

Vice President Harris encouraged women who are struggling amid the coronavirus pandemic to know that they were not alone.

“Know you are not alone,” Harris said in a USA Today interview published Friday. “Know that you are supported and know that your voice is strong. It’s strong, and don’t let any circumstance diminish that or take your power from you. You are powerful. You are powerful.”

“You are strong,” Harris continued.

Harris spoke with the newspaper for its Women of the Year project about the impact of the pandemic on women. USA Today noted that more than 2.5 million women left the workforce due to the pandemic, some due to the impact on their industries and others leaving due to child care or caretaking issues.

Harris has been vocal about the pandemic’s impact on women. In an op-ed for The Washington Post last month, she characterized the impact as a “national emergency.” 

While Harris says the pandemic shined a spotlight on those that kept working, she told USA Today that it also exposed inequities in society that were already present prior to the outbreak.

“I think that the pandemic has exposed the failures, the fractures, the fissures that have long existed in our society, and it has made them bigger and more obvious. We had racial disparities long before this pandemic struck,” Harris said.

Harris further said the nation needed a commitment to universal paid sick leave and paid family leave and also called for more affordable child care.

“We have many places in the country, including our rural communities, that are experiencing what we call child care deserts. So even before the pandemic, child care was not available and it certainly was not affordable,” she told the news outlet.