More than two million women left the workforce in 2020, which accounted for nearly 54 percent of overall net job losses since the start of the crisis. And without a concrete childcare infrastructure in place and a lack of progressive work-family policies, more and more working mothers are being forced out.

“There’s this invisible crisis brewing as we look at the COVID moms who are trying to do it all,” says Catherine Orr, a critical identity studies professor. “There’s groups of women whose lives have fallen off a cliff.”

Read more in Orr’s Vogue and USA Today interviews about the resilience of women during the pandemic, how gender norms have been affecting working mothers, and ways to remove these stereotypes from society.