ABSTRACT
Usually presented as unavoidable by-products of war, natural disasters, famines and epidemics often characterise the everyday life of populations living in conflict and post-conflict settings in particular. Hazards may be natural in origin, but it is the way in which societies have developed vulnerabilities that cause them to become disasters with severe gender-specific consequences. While gendered power structures shape the ways in which disasters are experienced, disasters also create gender-specific possibilities to locally engage in post-rebuilding, rehabilitation, caregiving and disaster mitigation. In this chapter, we discuss why and how gender matters in disasters, famines and epidemics.
