Power of resilience

Floods, volcanoes and earthquakes are part of the human condition.

We live with an eye to the ground and will for self-protection. The images of suffering women and children have become the stock-in-trade of the media. But what the media rarely emphasizes is that historic inequalities—in income, health, education and political voice—have made women risk managers par excellence.

Social sciences are a little more receptive. Women’s survival and coping skills, their interpersonal networks and intimate care of the most vulnerable have been recognized as life-saving in natural disasters.

This collection of essays emphasizes two things.
   

It shows when extreme poverty increases more women than men are plunged into dire conditions. It also shows how women’s work in the aftermath of disasters has made gender a more salient matter. It shows how women have tried to bring in gender concerns through their work in housing, water and sanitation, and by taking care of the orphans of disasters.

Usually, books such as this lapse in one area. They see women as an undifferentiated mass. They forget the contradictions in women’s lives and their different and sometimes divergent needs. Writers from affluent societies tend to focus on the individual woman and psychological vulnerabilities. Those in less affluent societies write how women and men earn a living or move in and out of houses and public spheres.

This volume emphasizes that all angles are pertinent to address the complex subject. Madhavi Malalgoda Ariyabandu shows how pre-established gender biases get extended to women during times of crisis and lead to them being identified as passive victims in need of rescue. This means neglect of women’s concerns in a crisis. It also leads to, as Prafulla Mishra shows, gender becoming synonymous with women, thereby neglecting men’s concerns as well.

Post-disaster recovery can also be an opportunity to channel investments to upgrade the living standards of the poor. The volume puts efforts of both international agencies and the grassroots under scanner in such areas. Francie Lund and Tony Vaux’s paper on the Self Employed Women’s Association’s work in the aftermath of the Gujarat earthquake shows that while the non-profit did consult the poor, it did not involve them in management of post-disaster recovery.

The volume does fail us in one respect. While it does show that women’s needs are region-specific, it does not quite grapple with class issues in disaster recovery. There is, of course, common grounds for women across classes. But economics does lead women of different classes to respond differently to disasters. Food and housing could be more urgent for one group while another could be more concerned with resumption of schools. Nevertheless, the book directs us to such a research agenda.

Kamini Singh is a sociologist in Kolkata

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