Why disaster studies are wrong on gender coverage
A man helps a woman to cross a flooded road after a downpour.
What you need to know:
- The current flooding disaster, affecting 293,661 people, underscores the need for a gender-responsive approach to disaster relief efforts.
- While studies often focus on the gendered impacts on women and girls, it's crucial to recognise that men and boys also face unique vulnerabilities and burdens during disasters.
- Adopting gendered frameworks can help ensure a more inclusive and effective response to disasters by considering the diverse needs and experiences of all genders.
Official data on the current flooding disaster shows that at least 257 people have died, with 188 injured and 54,837 households displaced.
A total of 293, 661 people are reported to be affected. This devastating situation requires collaborative mobilisation of resources and their prudent use to put affected citizens back on their feet. As this happens, it is important to note that disasters have gender-differentiated impacts.
The 2019 UN Women and Unicef study titled Gender and age inequality of disaster risk attempts to expose the nexus between gender and disaster risk based on the cases of Nepal, Malawi and Dominica.
It decries the lack of disaggregated quantitative data to enable a meaningful understanding of the impact to inform gender-responsive action. It thus recommends a six-step model to generate such data.
Step one regards collation of available quantitative data, disaggregated by age and sex, or estimation of the numbers affected. Step two focuses on qualitative studies for insights into the differentiated challenges and needs. Step three is about examining evidence of inequality in a given context and factors that make certain groups more vulnerable.
Step four regards a critical analysis of the data to unveil the gender-related determinants of vulnerability. Step five proposes partnership with entities having the expertise to support minority groups. Step six suggests deliberate attention to the experiences of marginalised individuals.
The study catalogues insights into the gendered impacts from the case studies.
These include: likelihood of withdrawal of girls from school to help with domestic work; sexual exploitation and abuse of girls and women in camps; food and nutrition insecurity for pregnant and lactating women; burden of care work on women; disruption of women’s access to health services; women’s loss of livelihoods; trafficking and migration of women for work; and inability of elderly women to leave shelters because of lack of resources to rebuild their homes. Fine.
But by just focusing on women and girls, the study forgets that men and boys complete the gender equation. Where girls are withdrawn from school, there are boys retained to engage in casual labour to generate income for families.
Where there is sexual exploitation and abuse of girls and women, there are boys and men psychologically devastated by the violence and humiliated by the apparent inability to protect their significant others.
Where women’s nutrition and health are compromised, there are men pressured to feed them and fund their healthcare.
Where women are sequestered in shelters, there are men forced to walk long distances in search of wage earning work at the expense of emotional and physical company of families.
Where women and girls are disproportionately affected by waterborne diseases, men are also exposed to vagaries of rainy cold weather and working in dangerous occupations.
Where women face a heavier domestic workload, there are men pressured by social norms to prove their masculinity by ensuring that their families are sheltered, fed and protected. That men are traditionally expected to provide immediate protection places them on the frontline of danger as they confront the risks faced by their dependents. The men risk their lives to do this.
The bottomline is that studies should stop giving the impression that women and men live parallel lives. When a family farm is destroyed, everyone is negatively affected. Because men are the traditional owners of family assets, it follows logically that they bear the heaviest burden of economic losses from disasters.
They must thus devise new means of livelihood and of fulfilling their traditional roles, including by engaging in criminal activities and taking huge loans. Such perspectives are hardly ever captured in conventional and politically correct gender studies devoid of nuanced analysis.
The Capacities and Vulnerabilities Framework developed by Mary Anderson and Peter Woodrow is relevant in ensuring gender-responsive reaction to disasters. It outlines three types of capacities and vulnerabilities. First are the physical, which are tangible resources available to men and women. These include land, tools and equipment, labour, livestock, housing and infrastructure. This component leads to an inventory of lost physical capital and how best to indemnify affected men and women.
Second are the social, which concern support systems such as kinship, professional and welfare groups, and religious associations. Third are the attitudinal and motivational – the psychological responses of men and women. It will be realised, for instance, that many men resort to substance abuse and become highly irritable and violent.
Women tend to take solace in religion. Identifying these tendencies helps in working out measures to prepare the affected to transition from hopelessness. Hopefully, entities responding to the disaster have received basic training in such dynamics to make their work more gender-responsive.
The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected]).
