The current economic crisis is unraveling before us faster than even the most pessimistic of experts predicted just a few months ago.

The effects are already trickling down to ordinary working people. In the Asia Pacific the International Labour Organization has projected that tens of millions more people could become unemployed this year, forcing 140 million in the region's developing economies into extreme poverty.

Yet what is so far lacking from many of the debates on how countries should respond is a realization that this crisis has a gender bias. Here in Asia, working women will be affected more severely, and differently, from their male counterparts.