The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated some key aspects of gender inequality, especially among groups already disadvantaged in terms of income, education and class, that intersect and overlap. Our focus is on the ways in which policies and interventions either addressed, neglected, or exacerbated the adverse gendered impacts. The overall evidence points towards a failure of COVID-19 responses to address the gendered norms and power structures that underlie persistent inequalities. LGBTQIA+ populations faced particular disadvantages arising from the stoppage of services, as well as discrimination in terms of rules around lockdowns and contact tracing. There have been some welcome efforts to ensure gender-responsive continuity of services, including sanitary pad distribution, the prioritization of responses to intimate partner violence, and extensions of telehealth. However, fundamental issues of discrimination and gaps in sexual reproductive health remained largely unaddressed, and in some cases, the situation worsened with the rollback of rights, including abortion rights. These patterns may be attributed to persistent gender gaps in power and decision-making, and an inability to acknowledge intersectionality, which limits innovative thinking and solutions, as well as the consideration of more basic measures to avoid the worsening of gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]