Names and things: Covid-19 as experienced by women living in João Pessoa (Brazil) - a case study of Cristina

Abstract

As several studies have pointed out, the Covid-19 pandemic is entangled in the multiple sociocultural
conditions of dierent localities and human groups it aects. Such contexts bring elements that allow us to
signify the pandemic itself and produce the conditions in which the pandemic is experienced. The
long-standing attribution of care to women ends up engendering ways of living and getting sick in the
midst of the pandemic, which deserve to be noticed and understood as public health issues. The purpose of this article is to present and tie Cristina's experience of illness by Covid-19 to the historical production of the genre, based on inequality between men and women. We present the experience of living and getting sick in a pandemic, through the case of Cristina, a urban middle class woman living in the city of João Pessoa, with a nursing degree, who currently works in a pharmacy. In this case study (qualitative research based on interviews) on Cristina's experience, issues such as diagnosis, journeys in search of care, risks, sequelae and narrated sensations in the body dialogue with anthropological narratives with a feminist scope and with the anthropology of the body, health and disease.