Welcome to my first blog post after the Ladakh saga! Thank you for sticking with me through three long posts - it was only meant to be one post but I ended up getting carried away. This post is going to be dedicated to the issue of gender and climate change, but, of course, focusing on the issue of natural disasters and hazards. Thanks to the people that have already filled out my poll on the right hand side - I am actually quite surprised with the result so far. If you haven’t done so, I would love to hear your opinions on this issue, so please fill out the poll!
Next post: Hurricane Abigail - a result of anthropogenic climate change?
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With COP21 in Paris looming around the corner, I believe it is of utmost importance for everyone to be able to understand current and potential climate policy. I am, and have always been a firm believer in gendered implications in any crisis - be it war, famine, or natural disasters. What I mean is that women, and minority genders, are more vulnerable than men. I understand that my view isn’t shared by everyone; a Gender Studies lecturer at my University isn’t even convinced by the link between natural disasters and gender (which doesn’t bode well for my argument...). Nevertheless, I will attempt to convince you otherwise.
There has been a recent shift in development organisations to ‘gender-mainstream’ policy. For example, the United Nations have begun to make their Millennium Development Goals more gender-sensitive, bringing in policies to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment, and also acknowledging that other areas such as health have gendered implications.
The underlying principle behind literature on the gendered nature of climate change is that women are often poorer and more vulnerable to poverty than men, particularly in developing countries. Additionally, socially constructed male-female gender roles and power-relations are an important factor (Blaikie et al., 1994).
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| Global Gender Gap in 2013. Source |
Nelson et al. (2002) describe how women experience high levels of pre- and post-disaster poverty, due to experiencing unequal status in the workforce, being more likely to be employed in the informal sector and small enterprises (which are more vulnerable to disasters), and having less equitable access to land and other natural resources compared to men.
Take, for example, the 1991 cyclone floods in Bangladesh. Of the 20-44 age group who were affected by the flood, 71 females per thousand died compared with 15 males per thousand (Baden et al., 1994). This was due to a number of cultural factors: women had less opportunity to learn how to swim, and norms that related to the preservation of women’s honour through seclusion meant that they delayed leaving the house to seek refuge.
Another natural disaster that Nelson et al. (2002) mentions is Hurricane Mitch, which is a particular example of post-disaster vulnerability. The most affected to the hurricane were the most marginalised in society, which included female-headed households. Most of the responsibility of caring for children and the elderly fell on women, which resulted in women finding it difficult to return to waged work. On the other hand, men had little cultural expectations to care for the vulnerable, and were easily able to resume paid work after the disaster.
I could give plenty more examples relating to drought, tsunamis, earthquakes and even mass movement, but I am wary of making this post too long - so perhaps I will resume this topic in another blog post. I think, what will be most interesting to see is whether during the COP21 talks, gender-mainstreaming policy will be taken into account. As natural hazards and disasters are becoming a major issue in climate change rhetoric, the gendered nature of natural disasters need to be acknowledged.
What do you think? Do you think that climate change is a gendered issue?
I can see your point about natural hazards disproportionately affected minorities and oppressed groups - this is often the case. I was wondering if you thought climate change was a gendered issue outside of this, but in terms of politics and the decision makers involved? And the proportion of scientists involved that are female etc.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good point! I actually wrote a post about a similar topic in my other blog, called 'Why are women left out of important decision making?'. I definitely think it's a massive issue; women are often not in positions of power and do not have a big enough voice in the debates surrounding climate change and development, despite being the most affected. After COP21, I might write a post about women's representation in science and policy making, thanks for the idea ;)
DeleteIn case you wanted to see my other blog post (though it's regarding water and sanitation) : http://genderwatersanitation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/why-are-women-left-out-of-important.html
To be honest I've never really thought about the impacts of natural hazards and climate change being gendered until I read you post! However, I do wonder if the issue of climate change impacts on women is more relevant to countries were there is high unequality (e.g. less developed nations) or do you believe their are disproportionate impacts even in more developed nations?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! I think it is more pronounced in regions with higher gender inequality and cultural standards placed on women. However, I do think that more developed nations are guilty of these inequalities too, but perhaps in differing ways. For example, the mortalities due to Hurricane Katrina in the US were disproportionately skewed by race, and not gender. So I really think it depends on the politics of each nation.
DeleteOkay that makes sense! Thank you and I look forward for reading more.
DeleteHi Celia, a very interesting blog! Through reading this another example came to mind. The Indonesian Tsunami (2004) where if I am not mistaken there was a high proportion of females and children dying, waiting at harbours for the fishermen to come back. However, even though natural hazards may influence minorities more, and you have outlined this greatly. I personally believe in developed countries it may be more of a social aspect than a gender one. I mean, especially in developed countries, in some cases gender may be considered but wouldn't there be a larger gap in terms of employability of people depending on higher education compared to lower education and/or depending on a gap between people(families) being better-off economically than others?
ReplyDeleteHi Maria :) thanks for your insightful comment! I agree that maybe in developed countries it is more a case of economic circumstance than gendered stereotypes, although it is true that female-headed households are poorer than male-headed ones, even in developed countries. I am going to be looking at Japan in my next blog post, considering it's the 3rd largest economy in the world it would be interesting to see whether gender makes much of a difference there!
DeleteI look forward to your case study on Japan. I think gender is also very interlinked with social structures in many cases as you said! So it can be difficult to differentiate :)
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