What insights does a gendered approach provide the study of disaster and responses?

Introduction

Gender, the state of being male or female typically used with reference to social and cultural
differences rather than biological ones. (Ashraf and Azad) Gender issues often used to only refer
to women but women and men are both affected differently.

Gender approach is define as the responsive approach to the study of various gender norms,
inequalities, and roles which are termed as disastrous risk that invite vulnerability and resilience
for both men and women. There is strong relationship between gender equality and disaster
resilience because this approach is necessary to raise the voices of different gender, to satisfy
their needs and step towards the recovery policy and disaster risk management.

Gender approach provides different opportunities, responsibilities, power as well as resources

and also determines how both genders are valued and what are the expectation and what is
allowed to do to both men and women in different context. It identify how men and women, girls
and boys and how they are interconnected with each other. Through socialization process
opportunities, relationship and attributes are constructed and are learned and these are time
specific and context specific and changeable. Still in most of the developed and developing
country’s women often face many challenges but it does mean Gender approach is completely
focused on women.

Gender refers to the terms that society has separated to both men and women according to his\her
behavior, role and attributes or which are assigned by the society according to his sex. Gender is
one of the most widely misunderstood terms. In many places, gender is actually associated with
women and it is part of it but it is also associated with men. Fundamentally it’s about the
relationship between the males and females; it’s about the gaps that exist between them and the
inequalities that exist between males and females .Many countries around the globe the disaster
risk management profession is quite male dominated that might actually bias the types of policy
program, design responses that are developed in any disaster risk management framework.
Because of the work that women do for instance, in many countries it’s often informal, it’s not
formal, not tied to formal benefits and structures, it may be harder for women for instance to
access different types of social protection or relief types of programs because their lives have not
been those kind of formal systems and women are lower earners then men and they tend not own
the types of property that is really important for collateral.

Need of gender approach in disaster

Gender is always part of lives, its part of who we are symbolic kind of artistic world that we
move in ideological world. Gender matter in disaster because men and women have different
levels of risk tolerance. So gender norms in society those really embedded every occurrence that
we hardly question. When it comes to disaster preparedness, response and recovery it found that
gender norms in the everyday impact on how men and women prepare, engage with risk, also
how expose they are to the various consequences.

Disasters are the neutral events that impact everyone the same and that is not only the case, If so
both in pre disaster context if women and girls have unequal access to social, economic, political
resources then that situation or circumstances is only going to be exacerbate in the event of the
disaster. Women and girls also face disproportionate indirect impacts from disasters that might
be increased work load, gender based violence, forced and early marriages and on the other side
of this governments and institutions are thinking recovery from this lens of social and cultural
norms.

How to incorporate Gender experts in recovery

All the experts should be bring together all of the knowledge, all of the different case study, great
tools and examples and put it in one kind of condensed place so that it become easy to deal with
the different cases of disaster that might occur in the near future. For example, In Mexico after
the earthquake in 2018 , women’s groups are came together and were rally critical, in rescue
efforts and also rebuilding their communities, so collection of different type of guidance note
help to give government officials the tools to help empower women. Following are the thing that
the practitioners should take into their account when undertaking the recovery operations;

 Personally meet the sufferer, get their perspective and hear what are their needs
 Putting women into decision making roles, getting their representations
 Data continual process

Gender issues in disaster

Gender shaped the disaster experience and ability to recover. It explains why certain
groups of people are at risk and why some others recover at a slower pace. Since gender
plays an important role in assigning roles and responsibilities within groups and
determining the access to and control of resources among groups, gender sensitivity and
gender aspect becomes an important and valid policy domain during disaster and
throughout the rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction process. Natural disasters
affect women, men, girls and boys differently. In fact due to socio economic conditions
as well as cultural beliefs and traditional practices women and girls are more likely to be
disproportionately affected by disaster including through loss of live during and in the
aftermath of disasters and increased gender based violence. However, the needs of
women are generally overlooked in the relief and recovery process and their capacities
and skills are not used as a resource in emergency management and planning. Women are
made more vulnerable to disaster through their socially constructed roles. Research
shows that women and girls die in much greater numbers in extreme disaster events. The
inclusion of women’s perspective and leadership is a necessary recognition of both of the
 greater risk women experience in their unique roles in resilience building disaster
response and recovery.

According to UN women in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami women and children made up
&& percent of the victims in Indonesia. In 1991, the cyclone in Bangladesh killed
140,000peope, within the age range group 20-44, the female death rate was 71 per 1000,
compared to 15 per 1000 men.

Gender issues in disaster examples

Of those killed by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008, 61 percent were women and girls.
In some severely affected villages, the death rate of those aged 18 to 60 for women was
double that of men. The death toll for women and girls following the devastating earthquake
in Nepal in 2015 was 55%. Some of the conclusions from researcher have been that the
women face greater vulnerability than men in developing countries because of
responsibilities such as care giving responsibilities in lok mobility and social isolation all
contributes to women’s risk exposure and vulnerability. SOHO studies disclose that the
women as a result of care giving are at greater risk in many disaster situations as thye must
stay with assist and protect and nurture family members.

According to UNESCO, in many cases women have limited access to formal disaster
management mechanism or to any kind of information in resources related to disaster
preparedness and prevention. Women’s skills, experiences and capabilities in time of natural
catastrophes are often not identified and recognized and promoted in time. As women
participation