Sichuan and Xinjiang have been hit by earthquakes, and "blessing" and forwarding "common sense of escape" have become the key words in many people’s circle of friends. But have you thought about it? Disasters caused by environment, climate and nature are not gender-neutral.
United Nations data show that in natural disasters, the mortality rate of women is four times that of men.
In the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, women accounted for 80% of the deaths, much higher than men.
As of August, 2008, the data on the "platform for finding relatives in Wenchuan earthquake" showed that the proportion of women killed in Wenchuan earthquake accounted for 51.2% of the total number of victims.
At the "Beijing +20" Asia-Pacific NGO Forum held in Bangkok in 2014, an interesting picture about the super typhoon Haiyan in 2013 was displayed in the publicity area on the first day of the opening: among the total 13.25 million people affected by the disaster, there were 230,000 pregnant and 156,000 lactating women, 320,174,886 women of childbearing age and 65,000 people aged 15-49.
An Interpretation of Typhoon Haiyan from the Perspective of Gender
Perhaps few people pay attention to the influence of environment on different sexes, but various facts tell us that even if women live in the same land and experience the same wind, frost, rain and snow, the negative impact of environment, disasters and climate change is unfair and more serious.
The reasons for this result are not only the physiological ones that we usually understand easily: women’s physique is not as strong as men’s, their ability to fight is weaker, their escape speed is slower, etc., but also the social causes that everyone and the builders of public resources should pay attention to.
A female victim was at the scene of the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Image source: Iron Blood Community
Earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, mudslides … People usually think that everyone is equal before natural disasters. But this is not the case. Why did this happen? There are many reasons. First, the physical differences between men and women. Compared with men, women have weak physical strength and poor escape ability; Second, many women, as mothers, first think of saving their children when a disaster occurs, and delay their escape; Third, many women can’t swim, because the culture doesn’t encourage girls to learn to swim, and they think it’s indecent to play in the water like that. Fourthly, when some women escape, they need to put on suitable clothes before going out, which wastes precious time; There are also women with low education level and lack of knowledge of risk avoidance and disaster prevention.
It can be seen that among these factors, only a few are related to women’s physical and physiological differences, while most of them come from social factors-women’s education level, their family role, social and cultural norms for women, etc.
The damage and loss caused by disasters depend not only on the degree of natural disasters, but also on the vulnerability of communities and people affected by disasters. For women, because of their physical vulnerability, they face greater dangers and injuries than men, and the gender discrimination and norms that women face, that is, social vulnerability-such as girls’ lack of educational opportunities, low economic status, lack of political participation and decision-making power-make them face more challenges than men in coping with and preventing disasters and post-disaster reconstruction.
-Cai Yiping’s Gender Issues in Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.
Photo: Wenchuan earthquake survivors return to Beichuan after 4 years.
The division of roles and social norms make women more trapped in "home"
Because of the social stereotype of "men are the masters outside and women are the masters inside", women are more likely to stay at home and take care of housework, and even if they go out to work, they are mostly engaged in indoor work. This makes the vast majority of people who are easy to escape outdoors when disasters such as earthquakes occur during the day are men, while women are more likely to be trapped indoors. In addition, if disasters such as fires, earthquakes and mudslides occur at night, women usually move slowly because of social requirements (they can’t be "naked"), delaying their escape time.
Lack of escape skills and resources
Even if it seems that the gender difference is caused by physiological reasons, there may be social causes worthy of reflection behind it. We always think that women are physically weak, run slowly and bear poor weight. In fact, this is also the result of teaching: girls are required to play with dolls and behave gracefully when they are young, while boys are encouraged to bounce and carry heavy objects … When disasters come, women naturally lack sports experience to save themselves. In addition, generally speaking, especially in underdeveloped areas, women’s educational level is lower than that of men, which makes it more difficult for them to receive disaster prevention information in time and effectively.
Image source: Netease woman "Gender injustice is the" culprit "of women’s high casualty rate in natural disasters"
The result of gender discrimination caused by "boy preference"
I believe many people still remember the plot in the movie Tangshan Earthquake. Facing a pair of children, the mother finally chose to give up her daughter. This tragedy that may make people regret for life may be a cruel reality. No matter during or after the disaster, people in areas affected by the patriarchal culture are more inclined to give boys more chances of survival and rescue resources.
Stills of Tangshan Earthquake
Gender blind spot in post-disaster resource allocation
After narrowly escaping from the scene of natural disasters, the impact of gender injustice is still not over. Food, water, medical care and material conditions in post-disaster relief are limited, and rescuers are usually gender blind. Due to the above reasons, the proportion of women allocated to these resources is seriously insufficient, and the family is usually dominated by men, who decides who will receive and distribute the materials.
In addition, the materials targeted at women are seriously inadequate in most disaster relief, such as sanitary napkins, pregnant women’s products, milk powder or alternative baby food (disasters often cause lactation disorders for lactating women), gynecological diseases drugs and so on. People usually think that "there is no energy to talk about anything else if you don’t have enough to eat", but they ignore that perhaps these necessary resources are as necessary for women as eating and the key to ensuring their health through disasters.
The pictures of service points after the Yingjiang earthquake in Yunnan in 2014 came from the Internet.
In addition, the probability of women being attacked by human beings in natural disasters may also increase than usual, such as being robbed of money and encountering physical and sexual violence.
Due to the unequal social structure, women usually occupy less resources, including social, economic and natural resources. Therefore, in the face of even equal losses, women should be more vulnerable. This is not only reflected in areas dominated by agricultural production, but also in cities. Taking the smog in China as an example, the third survey on the status of women in China showed that the income of urban women in 2010 was only 67.3% of that of men. Then, just buying a mask at the same price is much easier for men as a whole than for women at the consumption level.
The assessment and rescue of women affected by climate change and disasters by the state and disaster response agencies is far from enough. More consideration on how to involve women in the use and distribution of disaster relief resources and how to establish targeted relief for women is only the starting point to make up for the more serious actual losses of women caused by structural gender inequality.
And when each of us can take a step further, think about those women and girls who may encounter great difficulties. Are their tragedies really just caused by misfortune? Is it possible for us to change the so-called "nature" by changing the human society we live in?
(This article is reproduced by The Paper under the authorization of genderinchina, the WeChat account of "Voice of Feminism". )