Gender, Climate Change and Disaster

Climate change is already increasing the intensity and magnitude of such natural hazards as floods and storms, droughts and other severe weather events. These impacts are expected to further deteriorate in the future. Sea levels may rise, low-lying delta areas might be flooded and salt-water intrusion may increase. Although natural disasters happen all over the world, they have a much greater impact on developing countries than on industrialised ones. Their economies are less powerful and therefore less able to prevent disasters or to cope with the losses.

This holds true in particular for those parts of the population which lack the ability to prepare for the impacts because of economic limitations or cultural factors. Extreme weather events, including hurricanes and floods, such as Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005, indicate that in industrialised countries it is again the poor parts of society that are most affected by natural disasters.

Gender Dimension

It is widely known that in many respects women and men are affected differently by disasters, depending on culture and socio-economic contexts. Natural disasters directly impact women in their roles as producers and providers of food, water and fuel, income earners, household managers and care givers. Food security and family well-being are threatened when the resource base on which women rely to carry out their roles and to obtain supplementary incomes is undermined. Gendered impacts of disasters affect emergency response, reconstruction and recovery efforts after disaster events as well as the prevention and mitigation of disasters.

Men and women are both affected by disasters, but biological, social and economical differences generate varying afflictions. In their reproducting function pregnant and lactating women are particularly at risk due to heightened needs for water and food and their limited mobility. Disasters affect women’s social role by reducing autonomy and decision-making power. Increasing care-giving efforts may double or even triple women’s workloads. Men on the other hand have a higher risk of morbidity and mortality because of their social role as protector and defender of family and household, while women are more at risk due to cultural restrictions. Due to the lack of financial resources women - who make up the majority of worlds poor - are in particular concerned through and after disasters. When disasters damage or destroy local environment women especially in the Global South can loose their entire living and working space and additionally their capital equipment.

Although women’s home based businesses are often destroyed, they are in post-disaster phases less supported than men. They have less access to reconstructing jobs, credits and facilities. Several studies pointed out that women’s suffering after disasters has more long-term consequences than men’s.

The post disaster migration effects increase women’s burden; they are less mobile due to their caring responsibilities. Migration may lead to demographic changes in a population and a higher share of female-headed households with limited provision of adult labour and higher responsibilities for family managing, community organizing and income-making issues.

Forecasting information networks or early warning systems oriented towards males often don’t take into account women’s possibilities and channels to get information. Due to their limited access to information, women are less able minimize risks.

Women are key to prevention of disasters: their local knowledge is useful during and after disasters, and they have survival and coping skills in emergencies, including food preservation or physical and mental health care skills.

Natural disasters sometimes provide women with unique opportunities to challenge and change their gendered status in society: As a result of their disaster response efforts, women might be able to develop new skills and to take an active role in what are traditionally considered 'male' tasks. This can have the effect of changing society’s conceptions of women’s capabilities.

Response

There is a wide range of knowledge about gendered impacts of disaster management and risk reduction. In order to learn from their experiences, gender and disaster experts should be mandatorily involved in the development of national and local adaptation plans .

New ways of thinking about disaster risk are needed which support democratic, environmentally and socially sustainable, and disaster resilient communities. A greater reflection of differences at women’s and men’s everyday realities will push an integrated and holistic approach and focus on community involvement, mitigation, prevention and social equality.

Women’s initiatives should considered, ranging from local level coping and adaptation methods to political advocacy, policy intervention, and political organizing. These concerns must be integrated into global women’s movements.

There should be systematic community-based consultations of women who live in different high-risk environmental, political, cultural, and economic contexts and therefore have differing access to resources like energy and water. Specific attention should be paid to include non-indigenous and indigenous women.

Gender-sensitive training modules about risk communication, mitigation, socially just reconstruction policies and others concerns, targeting different audiences could help to raise awareness among planners, politicians and practitioners.