Gender mainstreaming in disaster reduction: Why and how?

The significant losses in human life and livelihoods, the destruction of economic and social infrastructure and damage to the environment caused by disasters in the past decade has increased the necessity for proper disaster reduction and risk management strategies. A disaster is shown as a combination of a trigger agent and vulnerabilities. Since vulnerabilities are the dependant component of a disaster, they should be managed and minimised in order to reduce disasters. Disaster reduction policies and measures, which ensure a decrease in vulnerabilities, need to be formed and implemented to achieve a sustainable and consistent plan of disaster management. Since women are more vulnerable in a disaster, their needs and concerns should be widely integrated into risk reduction plans and procedures from both perspectives of women as beneficiaries and decision makers. Gender mainstreaming is considered an important element in disaster reduction policy making to integrate a gender equality perspective in all policies at all levels. Gender mainstreaming in disaster reduction refers to promoting awareness about gender equity and equality, to help reduce the impact of disasters and to incorporate gender analysis in disaster management, risk reduction and sustainable development to decrease vulnerability. This paper reviews literature on disaster reduction and gender mainstreaming to emphasise why gender mainstreaming has become a necessity in disaster reduction attempts and to highlight the ways in which it can be achieve

Effect of attitudes towards creating women managers in the construction industry

The paper attempts to explore the issues associated with peoples’ attitudes towards under-representation of women at senior managerial positions in the construction industry through a literature review. The construction industry holds an image of a rough natured industry associated with difficult working conditions. The attitudes and stereotypes of society regarding managing work and resources in that hard environment - by a woman, normally expected to be the heart of the family scene, with social responsibilities and in the traditional motherly role - are preventing the promotion of women managers in the industry. Since attitudes are the people's biases or tendencies that influence their response to situations, activities or the people, changing attitudes can be used as a powerful device for altering the pattern of thinking and human behaviour. The construction industry will benefit with more women managers if the unfavourable attitudes regarding the promotion of women managers can be changed