Making the case for gendered disaster research.

Bibliography: p. 10-11

While gender is a central organizing principle in social systems, the experiences and perspectives of women have traditionally been overlooked or undervalued in social inquiry. Disaster research is no exception. When considered at all, gender usually appears as a narrowly defined variable of analysis rather than central to the context and content of the work. From this perspective, this paper presents a critique of current disaster research and proposes an agenda for advancing the field to include the effects of gender relations and the differing experiences of women and men during response and recovery. A qualitative analysis of women's experiences was conducted in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in Dade County, Florida using in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, and secondary data to illustrate the contribution of a more gender-inclusinve analysis. It was particularly interested in the intersections of gender with race/ethnicity and class, and focused on groups of women representative of populations experiencing particular recovery difficulties, including Haitian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, single mothers, and battered women. Examples from the work are used to illustrate the insights to be gained from a more gendered analysis of disasters