How are women disadvantaged in the face of natural disaster?

It is a slightly common decency for women to deal with social norms constructed by society in most parts of the world. The norms then indirectly determine social status to women. Consequently, women are often required to follow social and religious traditions which limit their movement and progress. In addition to that, those traditions are, in fact, tailored by men in the society to maintain their male-domination.

Those social norms have significant impacts to women in every single aspect of their lives. For instance, in dealing with impacts of natural disasters, social status of women consequently makes women more vulnerable to the events. This fact has been proven by many studies. To be clear about that, the women’s struggle following cyclone in Bangladesh and drought in Zambia can be good cases to better understanding the connection between women’s social status and impacts of natural disasters.

In April 1991, a cyclone hit Bangladesh in the eastern coast of the Bay of Bengal. It left a massive destruction and economic loss to the local people. Over 100,000 died caused by the disaster. Surprisingly, the number of women who died is greater than men.

Women are indeed physically weaker than men in which it makes them vulnerable to natural events. However, the social norms and restrictions have made women much weaker in some extent. The Bengali women, specifically, have to follow social structure which is male-dominated and driven by religious traditions. Their mobility is restricted by some integral roles in households such as taking care of children and property. When the cyclone struck, these women put their lives aside to prioritize saving their children and family’s property.

Their weak condition also limits their movement to access relief supplies and safety. Victims of disasters are usually desperately in need of help or assistance. When humanitarian aid comes following a disaster, such as food and clothes, the victims will be aggressive and fighting each other to get the aid. Man representatives of the victimized households of course will win the fight due to their physical strength and male ego. The female-headed households that only have an adult woman will definitely get small portion of the aid or even nothing.

Following the disaster, women are more necessarily involved to help in relief work. Despite their efforts, sometimes discrimination happens in the evacuation work which hinders their jobs in some extent. The woman relief workers are usually looked down by their man counterparts. They have to follow all instruction by men, especially those who are in local authoritative bodies. The men always tend to undermine the women’s credibility just because of their status in the society as a woman, which is below men’s.

Because of the social norms, the woman victims of the 1991’s cyclone in Bangladesh had tendencies to rely on woman relief workers more. Their pains that were related to reproductive system, and also emotional feelings, could be understood only by women. Following the disaster, some women really suffered from aches such us miscarriage, bad injuries, and whatsoever. They did not dare to tell about it to male relief workers. Instead, they were often treated roughly by those men in a reason of gender equality to male victims, which is somewhat unequal. Therefore they were more comfortable to leak their feelings and pains to other women.  

The women could not easily run away to save their lives when the cyclone hit their livelihood. They were also not convenient to stand side by side with men when there was food distribution. They chose to accompany their children, especially daughters, in order to avoid sexual or physical violence happened against them, especially in shelters where the man and woman survivors stayed. All these reasons were because they tended to stick to social religious norms. It then showed that the women were seriously vulnerable to the disaster impacts even before, during and after the cyclone.

Cyclone could happen once in a while in Bangladesh but not drought in Southern Africa. The drought has been a regular phenomenon in the region due to a long period of low rainfall within a year. As the result, local people suffer from water shortage, food insecurity and even starvation. Even though drought has been a common occurrence in Southern Africa, it is quiet new for women in Eastern Province of Zambia.

The women, who were not accustomed to the drought, found their tasks and problems were increasing due to the event. They had to walk further and longer than usual to fetch water. They had to find firewood as well but use only little of it because they did not have anything to cook. The grains that they usually got from agriculture were no longer available. Consequently, they had to depend on raw fruit, roots or grass from their surroundings.

Along the drought, people, especially adult women in rural areas, were really starving to death. They were so thin and fragile, suffering from diseases such as dysentery, chorea, diarrhea, and other diseases related to digestive system. It was not surprising because they were likely to risk their lives for their children. They skipped meals just to make sure the food available for their children. Yet, the children were also likely to die from starvation due to no food at all.

In normal daily life, women had no valuable properties such as land and animals. The land was often registered under their husbands’, brothers’, or uncles’ name. Therefore they did not have right to make decision in everything in their lives. They did not have economic support except cash crop from subsistence farming. Nevertheless, it had gone along the on-going drought as well as the last step of their husbands who fled to other villages to marry other women for food.

The women, however, still had encouragement to survive in the middle of the disaster by joining community development. They joined a workshop conducted by an NGO. Here, at least, they could involve in decision-making. They stood up in front of public to voice out their concerns that they had significantly become major contributor to their family and community, which all this time were not recognized. They put aside their hunger and grievance by singing and dancing.

In the workshop, both women and men were joining. The men were also suffering from hunger and they blamed the government for being ignorance. The women, instead, became a shoulder to the men to lean on. They did some efforts to fight hunger, including creating a club. It was not successful though, they still effortlessly fed their husband and children. Since they are reliable, it is not a disadvantage to help women. Therefore, women have to be empowered by providing them clean water, improved health, access to education, control over childbearing and access to credit in which they can use it to enhance their potential.

Almost in every natural disaster, people as a whole are likely to be impacted. However, poor people, especially minorities and women, are most likely to be affected. It is because their social norms required them to save their children and belongings first than their own lives. During evacuation and relief programs, they tend to rely on female relief workers due to safety. However, the female relief workers themselves have to deal with discrimination from their male counterparts as well as local governments officials. Women are surprisingly reliable for community development. Therefore their contribution should be recognized. They also need empowerment to bring a society to a more developed stage.