Disasters Are Gendered: What’s New? - Reducing Disaster: Early Warning Systems for Climate Change - page 258

Such magnitudes of difference may seem surprising, and the gender, class, and
race dimension of each disaster needs close analysis and specifi c explanation.
Feminists working in relief agencies and the United Nations, for example, identifi ed
several specifi c factors that explain the gender skew in the 2004 tsunami deaths
(Oxfam International 2005 ): sex differences in physical strength that meant men could
more easily cling to trees or climb to safety; prevailing ideologies of femininity that
infl uenced the extent to which women were encouraged to - or allowed to - develop
physical strength and capacity, and that meant, among other things, that women and
girls were not taught to swim; the different social roles and locations (metaphorical
and literal locations) that men and women occupied, particularly with regard to
responsibility for children or elderly family members. In a fast-moving storm surge,
children slow things down; mothers who stop to fi nd and gather up children lose valu-
able time, and with children in their arms they cannot swim, climb, or hang on.
In the 1993 Latur earthquake in India, women died largely because (conforming
to patriarchal conventions) they slept indoors and were more likely to be trapped in
or killed by collapsing buildings. Similarly, in an earthquake the same year in the
North West Frontier Province in Pakistan, despite the violent shaking of buildings
and concrete walls collapsing, cultural requirements to cover themselves before
they left the house meant that many women did not fl ee to the relative safety of the
streets as quickly as they should have. Even slow onset disasters such as droughts
affect women more than men. For example, during the past decade when the Maha
Akal drought was at its peak in the Indian state of Rajasthan, women ate less than
men in 82 % of hamlets (Oxfam 2008 ). Women eating less is an almost universal
household coping strategy in the face of food shortages produced by disaster,
drought, and climate change; globally, it is the case that women buffer the house-
hold impact of crisis, and especially the impact on children, through decreasing
their own food consumption (Holmes et al. 2009 ; International Food Policy Research
Institute 1995 ; Quisumbing et al. 2008 ).
Despite the specifi city of each disaster, it is universally true that disasters occur
within - are mapped onto - pre-existing gendered social arrangements and norms.
Disasters happen within the context of “normal” gendered patterns. Gender inequal-
ity magnifi es vulnerability. Elaine Enarson ( 2006 ) offers a list of “common” gender
differentiated contexts within which disasters occur. Noting that there will be sig-
nifi cant differences among and between women in different social locations, it is
nonetheless the case that women are more likely at the time of an extreme environ-
mental event to: (1) live below the poverty line; (2) rely upon state-supported social
services; (3) lack savings, credit, insurance; (4) lack inheritance rights, land rights,
control; (5) be unemployed or work in the informal economy; (6) be self-employed,
home-based, contingent workers; (7) reside alone, or be rearing children alone; (8)
depend on functioning caregiving systems; (9) depend on public transportation, and
most travel is with dependents; (10) reside in public housing, mobile homes, rental
housing, informal settlements; (11) live at risk of assault and abuse, be displaced
into domestic violence shelters; (12) be responsible for others (family, kin, neigh-
bors) as paid and unpaid caregivers; (13) physically depend on others due to preg-
nancy, recent childbirth, age, chronic illness; (14) be subject to gender norms