ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to throw light on the way women victims of recent disasters in India see the role of work and disasters in their lives. It draws from existing literature and specific disaster contexts of the Gujarat earthquake in 2001, the tsunami in Tamil Nadu in 2004, a cloudburst in Ladakh in 2010, and the floods in Bihar in 2007. This chapter offers cumulative experiences of women, womens organ-isations and a disaster mitigation agency on the interplay of women, work and disasters in the Indian context. It discusses the value of womens work during normalcy and in times of crisis. The relationship between women, work and disasters is complex and dynamic. Working women face many crises at community and household levels, more often than men and on a day-to-day basis. Almost all disaster-risk reduction trainings by authorities focus on many important aspects of disaster-risk reduction but fall short in addressing the gender aspect of disaster risk reduction.
