Disasters Aren’t Equal: Why Gender Matters

In this episode of Doing Disasters Differently: The Podcast, host Renae Hanvin speaks with Dr. Margaret Moreton about gender and disaster.  

She discusses the critical importance of integrating gender perspectives into disaster management. She highlights how disasters impact different genders unequally and shares practical ways to create more inclusive, resilient communities. 

Together, we explore practical insights, lived experience, and real-world strategies to help communities, businesses, governments, and leaders build stronger disaster resilience in an increasingly uncertain world.  

In this episode, we cover:  

• The meaning of gender and disaster 
• Disasters do not discriminate, but impacts do 
• The importance of inclusive disaster planning 
• The role of social capital in resilience 
• Addressing gender-based violence post-disaster 
• Changing mindsets to embed gender considerations 
• The significance of community connection and social infrastructure 
• The challenge of translating evidence into policy 

Subscribe now and join us as we explore smarter, stronger, and more connected ways to prepare for the future. 

Transcript

Renae Hanvin:

Hello and welcome to Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast with Renee Handman, which is all about inspiring you to start thinking and doing disasters a little bit differently too. Welcome to the next episode of Doing Disasters Differently, where we're talking about disasters aren't equal, why gender matters with Dr. Margaret Morton. So a little bit about Margaret. Dr. Margaret Morton is the CEO of Gender and Disaster Australia and one of Australia's leading voices on inclusive disaster resilience. With decades of experience spanning government, community development, and emergency management, Margaret has dedicated her career to ensuring that disaster planning, response and recovery work is for everyone, not just the average person. Her work has challenged long-held assumptions about disaster management by highlighting how gender, inequality, and social expectations influence people's experiences before, during, and after disasters. Through research, advocacy, and education, she continues to shape national conversations about creating emergency management systems that are safer, fairer, and more effective for all Australians.

Now, as you know, I like to talk about how we met. Now, I've known Margaret through the emergency management sector for many years. And in fact, I often go back to sitting in the theater, I think it was at Monash University at one of their forums, and Margaret Morton was right in front of me, and I was like, "That is Margaret Morton. We've shared a passion for looking beyond the traditional disaster lens and asking bigger questions about what really makes communities resilient. She's one of those people that you would just want to hang out with, always with a really robust conversation to be had. Now, Margaret, welcome back.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Hello, Renae. Hello, everyone. Thank you for that intro. What a hoot. I actually remember that first theater as well.

Renae Hanvin:

I think we started talking and we kind of haven't stopped.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

That's right. We have

Renae Hanvin:

So many questions to ask you today and so much to share. So can we start with what does gender and disaster actually mean? And why should emergency managers and councils and governments care?

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Do you know, I often get a momentary confused look. Gender and disaster, Margaret, why? What's that about? It's really about understanding that intersection between a disaster we might be caught up in and our gender and whether our gender interacts with that disaster and how it unfolds and how it impacts or affects us. And you'd be surprised perhaps additional harm occurs based purely on our gender, how we perceive ourselves in our gender, perhaps even our sexuality. We could get into some really interesting conversations here and there. And what people expect of us and what we expect of ourselves because of those things. So additional harm, whether you are a male, a female, non-binary, whether you identify as part of the LGBTIQA+ letters, sets, there's a whole way of unpacking this. And the reason why emergency managers, councils, and governments need to care is because of this additional harm.

Our safety is affected, the dignity within which we are treated through the processes that happen before, during, and after a disaster. All these things are affected just because of how we understand or others understand our gender.

Renae Hanvin:

God, that's so interesting. And I guess in the disaster space, you often hear disasters don't discriminate. And I think your work suggesting that I guess that's not actually true. So is that saying disasters don't discriminate? Is that actually a bit of a misconception in the emergency management space then? Do

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

You know one of the most fun things is when we adopt a saying, and then, because I think I might've said that at different points in my life. And then you realize over time, oh, actually that's not quite right. We first started doing some of this around natural disasters, and there's a whole movement now which you and others would be aware of. No, no, no, disasters aren't natural. They're about how the natural environment interacts with people, where we live and how we live, and so on. Whole discussions about these things. If only we weren't into these catchy slogans, but slogans kind of capture something in a shorthand, the risk with shorthand is that we get it wrong. So disasters don't discriminate, a fire, a flood, a cyclone, a storm. They don't run around deciding. They have no particular intellectual capacity, but they impact people differently.

So I guess we have to be careful about how we say things. Disasters affect people differently. So whether it's based on our gender, our age, our cultural background, whether we're First Nations, whether we live in remote, rural, regional Australia, whether we've prepared, whether we've not prepared, whether we're educated in general, whether we're educated in the specifics of disaster management, all of these things will have an impact on how a disaster affects us. Often it has to do with the stereotypes that we have in mind about people based on their gender. There are a whole range of qualities that combine together to make us who we are. Gender differences have a real impact on people's experiences before, during, or after a disaster, whether you're invited to join a planning process, whether you have easy access to an evacuation center, whether you are safe in that center, whether you have access to toilets.

Toilets are often something I just highlight because we have examples of people being denied access to an evacuation center and denied access to toilets because they identify and explain themselves as a gender, as female. They might be trans, and someone will say, "I don't think so." They'll either say that in their own mind or they'll say that explicitly. "No, I'm sorry, you can't come in here. You are not in the right place. "Or there might just be those subtle things about not feeling welcome. We're doing a fantastic project at the moment on evacuation centers, so I'm really focused on that. And simple things like signage at the front of an evacuation center that says that you are LGBTIQA+ friendly or all gender signs on toilets, supplies being available in evacuation centers that women might need, incontinent pads for the elderly. There's a whole lot of dignity and safety involved and simple things can send a message very clearly, you are welcome here or you are not.

So there's all sorts of practical ways that our gender impacts our safety and our dignity through our process. Again, mostly in those examples focused on the immediacy of the emergency, but these things can go long after the emergency. I think

Renae Hanvin:

That links back to in your intro and that I was mentioning about, I guess it's not just the average Australian, but it's probably different to that. It's just to make sure it's inclusive of all Australians. So in all of the lenses that we put in the different roles that we have in the disaster space that we are including and considering gender alongside others as well. But I think that's really super important. I've spent a few years talking about the importance of social capital and connected communities, and you've spent a number of years talking about gender and inclusion. Where do you see those two conversations having an intersect? And what happens when communities get both of them right, when they're connected, and then when they also have that gender and inclusivity aligned to them as well?

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

They are directly related to each other. And look, if I went to the end of that question first, in communities that do really well on both of those, you can tell by walking into a community it's vibrant, it's comfortable, nobody's on the edge, everyone's included in the activities, and you can see the mixture of people right there in front of you. Unfortunately, most of our communities don't get this 100% right. We're all in a process of learning at the moment. One of the examples I like to reflect on involves a person with quite severe disability in a crisis, and they have fabulous social capital because they actually need it on a daily basis. So they're not waiting for a crisis to think about whether they should or shouldn't have good connections with others. They need it on a daily basis. So there was a particular fire when I lived in Canberra, in the Canberra fires in 2003, where a particular individual ended up evacuating able-bodied people from their street and suburb because those able-bodied people hadn't prepared.

Whereas this person with a disability was very well-prepared. They had plan A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And as the thing unfolded, they were able to look after others. So this whole ability to see people as having social capital and having strengths and capabilities rather than labeling someone as having fewer strengths and capabilities, the older I get, one of these days I'll turn into a little old lady, but I'll have great social capital. I will. It's inevitable. If I'm lucky, that's what I'll do. In the area where I live, I have really good connections to various people of various ages in my area. I have chickens. Chickens are a connector. I share my eggs. I have vegetables and fruit trees. So there are lots and lots of different ways that women and LGBTIQA+ members in particular tend to have this social capital more frequently.

A lot of resilience programs across this country, informal as well as formal, are run by women. Women tend toward this work. I'm always nervous because I'm nervous I'll contribute to a stereotype. But men often struggle with that social relationships, the building of that social capital. So we've got to work out how to be focused on this so that we can develop this with and for everybody. First Nations groups in Lismore, I've got a few examples in that area. The First Nations groups and communities are often really focused on building this social capital. And more and more, they do that not only for their own community members, but for the other community members around them. So there's a lot of benefits and opportunities when we bring gender and social capital together, which I think we could really do some great work on that across the nation.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

Renae Hanvin:

I think for me too, I guess from my perspective, putting a gender lens on it, I guess we look at bonding, bridging and linking social capital. So then I would argue your bonding social capital, those I guess who are similar to you, and then your bridging are those who are slight different, and then your linking

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Is

Renae Hanvin:

Into those in roles of authority and power. So what I've been discovering over the past few years of working in this space is that even measuring social capital is not one way or the highway. And Professor Daniel Aldrich hates it when I say it, but you can really chop it up in many ways as to how the bonding, bridging, and linking ties are actually relevant to all types of people in the community. And I think that's a really good, I guess, new way to think about social capital as well with a gender lens.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Couldn't agree more. And those differences we have, so people on the edge who perhaps have social capital connections with groups of people, unlike them, as you say, they are gold. They are gold. Because if we want to bring a whole community along or find ways to support the whole community, communities are not homogenous little places, not in my experience. So you really need those bridging capital people and groups to connect otherwise disconnected groups. And often there's a whole research project there, I reckon, but often those people are going to be women.

Renae Hanvin:

100%, absolutely. And in fact, a lot of Daniel's work in the work that we are doing in social infrastructure as well is that, yeah, the communities who have higher bridging ties typically recover better. But also, again, we've been broadening the work out of just disasters, and it's very relevant to social cohesion. It's very relevant to climate adaptation. It's relevant to mental wellbeing and health and disconnection and loneliness. I mean, it's relevant in so many ways, but I think, again, I love and could talk about social capital and social infrastructure until literally, what's the saying, that cows came home or whatever it might be. Cows

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Come home.

Renae Hanvin:

Yep. Yep. But I think really thinking about different lenses on top of those bridging ties, I think it's, I don't know, I won't be able to sleep tonight because I'll be thinking about new projects that we can do and research we can do. Now, in your recent message, you said that one of the strongest disaster tools are preparation, care, and connection. See, you got me on that one. It really resonated obviously with my work on social capital. Do you think we've spent too much time planning for hazards? And I might know the answer already, and not enough time strengthening human relationships and why?

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

This is such a sitter of a question, and anyone who knows me knows what I'm going to say. So 100%, 100%. It is not that we don't need to spend money, and I do recognize that collectively the system and governments and so on, there's a limited amount of resourcing and money, but it's not that we don't need to invest in strong bridges and good roads. It's not that we don't need those things. It's not that we don't need firetrucks, helicopters, so on. But there are plenty of examples, and Daniel's work highlights a number of plenty of examples where relationships, human relationships are going to be what gets people through when those other things fail. So 100% we need to invest more time, more effort, more intellectual power into these human relationships and how to expand them, how to build them, how to strengthen them, all of the different varieties.

There are so many examples of where it's people who make the greatest

Renae Hanvin:

Difference. 100%. Yeah. I mean, clearly we could just talk for a whole day on that kind of topic. And I think horrible events happening around the world like the earthquake in Venezuela, and it's the people and the neighbors who know where their friends or relatives live to help to get them out, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm so hopeful, and again, we're doing hopefully a lot of advocacy and whatnot around really putting focus on that invisible infrastructure. Because if we do have a finite pot of money to put into disasters, and I presented a few weeks ago at the WELGA, the Western Australian Local Government Association, that the system is not keeping up with the amount of disasters that are occurring. So we need to do something different. So we need to be thinking differently about that pot of money. But again, that's not up for me to decide.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

But another thought I have on that is sometimes in Gender and Disaster Australia, we will get a comment from particularly an emergency services person who might say, "I've got a job to do. I've got to save lives, or I've got to administer this project, or I've got to do this thing. Doesn't matter. I've got to do this thing. I can't be doing gender as well." And what I'm starting to really try to encourage people to think about is this is not an additional thing.

Renae Hanvin:

No.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

This is how we think. So you can do the same task, but if you've got a lens that says, "Include all genders, make sure this is a safe and dignified process, place, step in the event for everybody. If you know what to watch for to keep all genders safe and secure, then you'll just be doing the same thing, but differently. And as you know, your whole doing disasters separately." I love it because you don't have to do an additional. You just have to do the same thing differently.

Renae Hanvin:

100%. So yeah, I mean, I think I started this podcast years ago and then went on a bit of a hiatus. But yeah, to me, we need to think different and we need to do different.That's it. And we can all get to a much better outcome. But yeah, I think some things are changing a little bit. Now, I want to talk about one of the hardest conversations your organization is leading at the moment, which is around the increase of gender-based violence following disasters. Why has this been overlooked for so long? And what does the emergency management sector really need to understand more about?

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

This is a really difficult area. And when I think about why questions, there's probably a complex set of factors about why it's not really being looked at. It's unpleasant. That's the first thing. It is unpleasant. And we are really aware in the conversations. I'm now in conversations in all sorts of places with other organizations that also work on gender-based violence in different settings, not just in disaster settings. And we're really hoping to push for more change on this. It's a really difficult conversation. And if you bear with me, I'd like to throw some stats at you and at your listeners just in case there's a question of, well, what are we talking about here? The stats I'm about to give you are all available publicly, and I've found a good source that anyone can check these, which is the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet federally in the federal government.

So there's a whole study on it. One in four women, that's 23% of us, and one in 14 men, that's 7.3% of us, have experienced violence before the age of 15 from an intimate partner. Now, when you think about that, before you're 15 years old, 23% of women, 7% of men. That's appalling. If we look at that through a First Nations lens, it gets worse. Two in three First Nations people, age 15 and over, where they talk about the physical harm they've had in the previous 12 months, they report that that's through an intimate partner or a family member. Women with disability twice as likely. This goes on and on. Women living outside major cities, 1.5 times as likely. So we know from our own research led through Gender and Disaster Australia, that all of that, because all of those stats are in normal times, not disaster times.

We know that violence goes up up to seven times higher levels of intimate partner domestic violence in communities affected by disasters. We clearly have a problem across society. Now, there are all sorts of influencing factors for that. The sheer stress of going through a crisis like a fire, flood cyclone, et cetera, coupled with increased uses of alcohol and drugs, coupled with all sorts of factors around gender. Again, so women who are in more caring roles. Men often go through a huge process of guilt is probably too glib, but mental health problems as a result of not being able to do what they thought a man should be able to do in terms of protecting property and family and so on, many factors contribute to this escalation of violence. We have got to find ways to support communities and hear them about how they can help address that situation happening in their own community.

And we've got to start talking about it before the event. So not just sitting around afterwards in evacuation planning processes, trying to work it out. We have to plan before the event. We have to plan for recovery and plan for these supports. And one of the best things that you can do to plan is connect local services with one another. So the local family services, the local domestic violence support services, the local emergency planners, those people all have to know one another and connect before the event occurs. It's a really difficult question. It's a really uncomfortable discussion, but we've got to have it more and more.

Renae Hanvin:

It is. It's shocking and it absolutely needs to be addressed. And I think I have been on a few advisory groups and whatnot over the years and very much, I mean, I talk a lot about livelihoods and obviously livelihoods of small businesses.

And I know the financial impacts, and again, and I'm not putting it on a gender lens, but if the man is or the farmer or whatever it might be is bringing in the income and then the disaster occurs and you might not have had the right insurance or whatever, whatever, and then you're literally crumbling. The pressures of the importance of livelihoods in the conversation of disaster, resilience and recovery is just so under identified as well, I think. And I think that's not the kind of indicator, but I think that's a key area as well. Those statistics are frightening, the fact that they're just in normal times, and obviously there's a lot happening on the news at the moment as well, which is just horrific. But yeah, we need to absolutely focus on that. So hopefully building greater social capital and then embedding the likes of gender and disaster and we think different across all our roles in the sector means that we can positively change things.

And it's not overnight. We haven't got extra hundreds of millions of dollars to change things overnight, but if we all shift our thinking and our actions a little bit, then we can use the good old Renee nudge theory. I love nudge theory. Just sort of nudge us along, nudge the system along, nudge the communities along, nudge government along.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

We are really looking for ways to engage more with men on this topic as well. In my spare time as well as leading Gender and Disaster Australia, I'm on the Ballarat Foundation board. And Ballarat, as people may or may not know, has had some really high profile violence against women occurrences, if you wish. And we are doing a lot of work across Ballarat to try to engage men in the conversation about how do we. Men on average don't tend to seek help, don't tend to get support when they're feeling a variety of things that happen for them after a disaster or during and after a disaster. And we're trying to change that so we can reach out to one another and men are part of the answer to that so that we don't have to turn to alcohol. We don't have to turn to anger and resentment.

We actually can work out how to support each other. So we need men to engage with this because without them, we're not going to solve the problem.

Renae Hanvin:

100%, 100%. So just to, I guess, deviate a little bit, so you published a paper in July this year reflecting on 15 years of gender disaster and climate change research. And importantly, how evidence actually changed policy and practice because we all know you need the evidence before you want to change any policy and practice. So research is one thing. Changing systems, as I know, and you know is another. What's been the hardest part of turning evidence into practice?

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

So you're right, we're all about changing the system, changing the world, people like you and I, Renee. For

Renae Hanvin:

Good.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Of course. For good. And changing mindsets. And I think one of the hardest things for any of us to let go of is a mindset we hold dear. So I think changing mindsets is really a challenge. And without changing, there's a whole area of academic discussion about do you change the mindset first or do you change the behavior first? And I'm kind of inclined to think either or both end. Let's fake it till you make it or change your mind and then it'll come naturally. Either way, I'm happy to go with it. So we're very focused on turning what we learn and our evidence into resources that can be used. Our training program, we are producing more and more resources, fact sheets, guidance material, hoping that this can all contribute to greater knowledge and greater mindset change. And we're also working on how to do this up and down the system and between different sectors.

So this year we've been developing a new module to compliment our lessons in disaster training, and it's designed to be a briefing module for leaders because they're not going to come to a training day. We're trying to be really flexible now about who's the audience that we're trying to reach and which part of the system do we need to move. So finding time to focus on all of this is challenging because I know everyone's got a lot to do, but we really want to say very, very clearly it's not about doing extra things. It really is. This is why coming on your podcast and having this chat is so funny because it really is about doing those things differently, not trying to do more, but it's also about making an upfront investment or a commitment, if you will, to learning about how gender does impact disaster in many ways, learning about how we can do things differently.

We are generating action checklists and all sorts of things to say regardless of where you are in the system, regardless of what level you're at, what responsibility or decision-making power you might have, there are things that you can do. We can

Renae Hanvin:

Do. Doesn't that take us to the shared responsibility notion? We all have a role to play. We do. I think in almost every podcast, I think I end up there back in 2011. Yeah, and exactly that. If we either think or do whatever, it doesn't mean tell someone, learn something, talk about it at home, talk about it with our workmates. We're again, shifting and nudging everyone forward. Now, as disasters become more frequent and severe, and this probably connects a little bit into a question I asked before, are we finally starting to think differently? Do you think about vulnerability? Are we still preparing for disasters as though everyone experiences them in the same?

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

We're making movement. We are starting to do this differently, although it depends a bit on who's we. So I'm really aware, I was thinking about the whole push to change and do things differently. I'm going to give a couple of organizations plugs. Please do. There's an organization called Gen West, and they're really bringing the multicultural lens to the forefront on disasters. And if you're not familiar with them, Google them. They're great. We're probably all familiar now with Michelle Villanov's work on disability. Amazing work. She's transformed.

Renae Hanvin:

Absolutely.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

And people with disability have been long assumed to be vulnerable, full stop. I'm waiting for somebody to do aged work. Maybe that's what I'll do in my next chapter.Because for a long time we've assumed people who are older are vulnerable when actually there's a whole wisdom component.

Renae Hanvin:

Totally.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Biami Williamson, if anyone's not familiar with the First Nations work that he's lead, he has transformed the notion. So there are key people transforming the notion we have of who is vulnerable. And I'm hoping that our work at Gender and Disaster will also be on that list, that we are transforming the ways people think about vulnerable, being vulnerable. I like to say that everyone is vulnerable because really capable individuals become very vulnerable in the same ways. In fact, you could argue that having economic means doesn't automatically mean you are resilient. You can have a lot of economic resources at your disposal and be extremely vulnerable because you're not used to coping. I remember one of the men I interviewed for my own PhD research many years ago now, he will stay with me. Lots of them will stay with me forever. He was homeless at the time that the crisis hit his community.

And he said to me, "I knew what to do." So I suddenly transformed from that homeless dude into the guy who actually very quickly became a leader. And I had a role and gained credibility because I knew what to do in this environment. So the whole vulnerability thing, it's kind of got a turn on its head.

Renae Hanvin:

I agree. 100% I agree. Because again, and you, we're so across disasters, we know the systems we're working in any day, but I still have vulnerabilities, all sorts of things depending on what occurs. So yeah, I 100% absolutely agree. Now I always finish with the last question. What are the two things that you'd like to see done differently in the disaster space? And I know that you could probably give me 200, but let's start with two.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

No two's impossible. However, yes, let's start with two. There's lots of things I'd like to change. When I'm really forced to condense it, I often find myself reflecting. I grew up in the country. I grew up on the land. I'm really connected to the land and to community. That's just where I began life. And so my mind goes to both. We really need to invest in community connection, humanity, and recognize it as not a nice to have, but as a really fundamental element of preparing for and responding to and recovering after. So that humanity, that community, and that natural environment, we're all connected. Maybe this is only true for rural people, but I feel like we're all connected to the planet. We all need the land on which we live. So if I could change two things, it would be about recognizing that essential connection to the land and to the environment.

And And then also recognizing that really important human connection and how actually, see, I'm cheating because I'm adding. How actually the whole richness and diversity that comes with gender and with intersectionality is the richness of life. So if we could all get that, then I think we'd be stronger.

Renae Hanvin:

100%. Oh my gosh, Margaret, I could literally probably do a whole series of discussions with you. Thank you so much for coming back to talk to me about disasters aren't equal, why gender matters. Dr. Margaret Morton, we've got links to her LinkedIn profile and all the wonderful reports and works that they're doing there. So thank you so much, Margaret. I've learned loads. I think people listening have learned loads as well, and I hope everyone now is doing things differently by thinking a bit differently about gender and disasters. So we'll catch up with you soon.

Dr. Margaret Moreton:

Thanks, Renee.

Renae Hanvin:

I hope today's episode of Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast, has inspired you to think a little bit differently about the role you can play before, during, and after disasters. Given the new era of more frequent and compounding disasters that we are now in, let's work together to build an all hazards disaster resilient future for all. Find out more about the work I'm leading as a social enterprise, building disaster resilience at resilientready.org. Don't forget to subscribe to Doing Disasters Differently, the podcast, through your preferred platform. And we'll see you next time when we discover new ways of doing disasters differently together.