Structural Barriers to Disaster Resilience: Gender I

1
Structural Barriers to Disaster
ResilienceGender I

• Session 11

2
Session Objectives

• Understand how gender relations affect peoples
  everyday lives
• Explain how gender relations affect women and men
  in disaster contexts
• Relate gender to others social dynamics affecting
  disaster resilience
• Understand the relevance of gender to a social
  vulnerability approach

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Significance of Gender

• Gender identity has biological foundations in sex
  difference, but is also shaped by other factors
• Gender patterns vary over the life course
• Gender norms are interactive
• Gender stratification structures peoples life
  opportunities and social status
• Gender relations are not universally
  disempowering to women
• Gender is not a synonym for women
• Gender relations vary historically
• Gender relations vary culturally

4
Gender Differences in Everyday Life Put Women and
Men Differently at Risk

• Average life span
• Division of labor
• Health status
• Exposure to violence

5
Disparities Which Increase Womens Risk

• Economic insecurity and higher levels of poverty
• Extensive caregiving responsibilities
• Domestic violence
• Womens traditional occupations

6
Gender Differences Which Increase Some Mens
Vulnerability

• Occupational segregation
• Internalized masculinity norms
• Family and household roles

7
Gendered Life Experiences Which Help Women and
Men Cope with Disaster
Women
Men

• Extensive social networks
• Caregiving skills
• Knowledge of local communities
• Environmental resource users/managers
• Experience mitigating hazards
• High levels of risk awareness
• Traditionally female occupational skills

• Extensive work and professional contacts
• Technical skills
• Limited responsibility for children
• Traditionally male occupational skills

8
Social Trends Which Increase Womens Vulnerability

• Increasing longevity
• Increasing health problems as women live longer
• Increasing rate of sole-occupancy
• Increasing proportions of single-parent families
• Increasing institutionalization
• Increasing cut-backs in public assistance
• Increasing dependence on paid caregivers

9
Highly Vulnerable Groups Which are
Disproportionately Female

• Battered women housed in shelters
• Poor families
• Lower-income disabled
• Low-income elderly living alone
• Single parents
• People housed in insecure housing

10
Women in Emergency Management Organizations are
Easily Marginalized

• Women often work as gender tokens in
  male-dominated agencies
• Women tend to express ideas more tentatively and
  work more cooperatively
• Women are concentrated in lower-status
  professions
• Women work in staff rather than line positions
• Women have restricted task and job assignments
• Women exercise power and influence informally
  rather than through official job status
• Women are less able than men to realize ambitions
• Women are perceived as less aggressive
• Women often lack effective mentors
• Women have fewer opportunities for training
• Women do not enter the field from military
  backgrounds

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Unique Contributions of Women to Emergency
Management

• First-hand knowledge of gender differences and
  inequalities in everyday life
• Knowledge of how race, class, gender, and age
  interact to increase vulnerability
• Knowledge of personal and organizational strength
  of women and womens groups
• Professional background compatible with social
  vulnerability approach
• Potentially greater access to local knowledge and
  resources of grassroots groups
• Nontraditional sets of skills

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Ways Gender Inequalities Can Be Reinforced

• Financial relief targeted to heads of households
• Community consultations marginalize women
• Womens work in emergencies based on gender norms
• Neglect of womens need for income
• Neglect of womens needs in design of
  emergency/temporary shelters
• Exclusion of womens organizations in mitigation
  or post-disaster initiatives
• Lack of attention to women living in shelters
  before disasters
• Lack of gender-aware initiatives for men

13
Ways Gender Inequalities Can Be Challenged

• Gender-targeted services where appropriate
• Family-friendly public outreach/employment
  practices
• Gender-aware analysis
• Gender evaluation of all program planning and
  practices during all disaster phases
• Avoiding unnecessary gender approaches
• Gender-inclusive approach to all public meetings
• Gender equity in emergency agencies
• Researching disasters from womens perspectives
• Gender-sensitive indicators of vulnerability and
  capacity
• Gender-disaggregated data whenever possible

14
Patterns of Social Vulnerability of Women in the
U.S.

• 75 of women work full time
• Women own 35 of all firms, but most are in
  service and retail sectors 42 reported
  before-tax-profits of under 10,000 in 1992
• Half of all women-owned businesses in 1992 were
  home-based
• Women earn 23 less in income than men
• 25 of households headed by women lived below the
  poverty line in 199 (vs. 11 headed by men with
  no spouse present)
• Women and children are 2/3 of all legal
  immigrants to the U.S. today

• 34 of women aged 75 or older (vs. 24 of men)
  have a mobility or self-care limitation
• Nearly half of elderly women (vs. 14 of men) are
  widows
• 75 of nursing home residents are women
• Women dominate among those who need care and
  those who provide it
• Over half of women aged 75 or older live alone
• 60 of all women over 16 years of age were in the
  labor force in 1999
• 51 of married couples with children in 1998 were
  both employed outside the home