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Mercy Global Concern - 2005
Mercy Global Concern: Briefing Paper Number 4, March 2005
Women and the Tsunami
At least four times as many women died in the Tsunami waves than
men, announced UNIFEM. Why? The answer lies in gender conditioning!
Four Examples:
- The women were socially conditioned not to swim
or climb trees --- those activities are reserved for men and
boys-- and if a woman
or older teen girl were ever found swimming or climbing trees,
they would be severely punished. Therefore the women did not
even have the skill to swim or climb in order to save their lives.
Many
of the men and boys who survived , survived because they could
swim or they had climbed trees.
- 2. As the first wave raged through the women’s’ huts,
the force of the wave ripped off their clothes- disrobed them.
It is culturally against the social mores for a woman to be allowed
in public without clothes, so the women never ran! The women
never left their huts, and in the next waves, they chose (?)
or were conditioned to die in their houses paralyzed by fear
and custom rather than be seen in their nakedness and live. Apparently,
naked ness wasn’t an issue for the male population.
- Those women who were still clothed couldn't move fast enough
because of the sari’s which impeded their moving quickly!
Apparently they died in traditional dress, which allowed them
to move maybe two or three steps at a time. Hardly quickly enough
to out run the rushing water or to catch up with the men who
were well able to run in their shorts or pants.
- According to relief workers statistics, many women tried to
help the aged, disabled and children, most often the woman's
corpses were found holding children or elderly. While the women
stopped to help the others—the men apparently ran unencumbered
and called back for the women and children to follow them, when
the waves came. Women not men are traditionally the care takers!
In this case the care taking role was fatal.
Relief workers report that now the men are dealing with their
grief that their wives, girl children, sisters, and mothers are
dead because of the cultural restrictions they through male law,
had imposed on the feminine gender. They also grieve because of
their socially conditioned male self centeredness which enabled
their running free and conscience clear with out a thought to helping
either the women, the children, the aged, or the disabled!
The relief workers see this grief as a big window of opportunity,
a
teachable moment about the evils of gender conditioning. Some men
are ready to listen to such notions.
Presently however, the male population is sorting out how to take
care of the uneven population... 4 men per every women...some have
decide to fill the gap by trafficking women from other places in
the world to the tsunami affected areas in order to satisfy
the male need! The gender conditioned male will survive by taking
on the women’s role in markets and survival perhaps only
as long as is necessary while they wait for global female replacements!
The issue of land and reconstruction rose to the surface as yet
another gender specific social norm. Gender specifically, women
would not own land, therefore if a woman’s male died in the
tsunami and their land was still intact (which often times is not
the case) then, the woman survivor has little to no chance of regaining
her land to live on since she is with out the signature and legal
presence of the deceased male! Women survivors without land have
now joined the throng of the global people movement – wherein
women and children are most vulnerable to sexual, and physical
abuse as they travel undocumented
from refugee camp to displaced persons undefined spaces on our
Earth. Many issues related to people movement and trafficking surfaced.
Trafficking of women and children has increased as we know, and
is growing
as is the international community’s outcry: hopefully
the governments and global community will implement and enforce
the international laws that already exist with regard to trafficking
of women and children.
Gender specific reconstruction is a growing concern. Since the
area will need to be reconstructed, relief workers, women and environmentalists
are urging reconstructionists to build women and environmentally
friendly. For example, in building a kitchen, which usually is
attached to the back of the home with no place to sit, just a camp
fire in the ground for a stove at which a woman squats to provide
food for her family –women are suggesting that kitchens be
built with stoves that women can stand at, so they don’t
have to squat all day long. And they ask that water be directed
to the house with water filters automatically installed. Environmentalists
are asking that solar, oceanic and wind power be used in the reconstructive
efforts.
May we in the Mercy World in our prayer visualize a world where
these women and children are safe and healthy and thriving, and
by the actions of the Mercy World may the conditions and lives
of these women and children improve.
By Tina Geiger rsm
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