Reproduction of and alterations in gender roles in the rescue of material goods after the 2011 earthquake in Lorca (Spain)

ABSTRACT

After a disaster, the population undertakes a series of actions aimed at saving and rescuing other people who may be in danger, as well as the gathering of goods considered indispensable to ensure their safety. Numerous studies have indicated that gender is one of the factors that conditions the lived experience of a disaster and, therefore, the actions that people undertake during the emergency. However, previous studies addressing the issue of gender in this respect have focused on how people are evacuated from the danger area, rather than on the rescue of goods. With the aim of contributing to filling this gap, the current article studies the patterns of the reproduction of/alteration in gender roles in the rescue of material goods following the earthquake in Lorca (Spain) in 2011 through the analysis of raw data collected from four focus groups comprising people who survived this catastrophic event. The results demonstrate that during the rescue actions in the disaster the men and women studied behaved to a great extent in line with traditional gender roles, although there were certain actions undertaken that involved a degree of alteration to these roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• roles
• earthquake
• risk
• rescue

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for both the support of our colleagues on the project and the testimonies of the people affected by the earthquake, without whom this study could not have been possible. We are also very grateful to the anonymous referees for their valuable comments and to Ronnie Lendrum for her help with the translation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Mw is the abbreviation used to indicate moment magnitude in the seismological scale which was developed by Hanks and Kanamori (1979). It is a logarithmic scale which allows earthquakes to be measured and compared on the basis of the total energy liberated by a seismic event. No earthquakes above 9.6 Mw have ever been recorded.

2. The European macroseismic scale measures the global intensity of an earthquake. It not only takes into account the damage produced, but also its effects on people and objects (Instituto Geográfico Nacional, 2011, p. 29). The intervals it employs go from I, which means the earthquake has not been felt, to XII, indicating an earthquake that results in total devastation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation and co-funded by the Spanish Research Agency and the European Regional Development Fund through the international project GENDER (Gender, disasters and risks), grant number FEM2017-86852-P. This project, of which the authors of this paper formed part, was carried out by researchers from the University of Oviedo (Spain), the University of Concepción (Chile) and FLASCO (Uruguay).

Notes on contributors

Virginia Cocina Díaz

Virginia Cocina Díaz holds a Masters and is studying for a PhD student in Gender and Diversity at the University of Oviedo. She is currently completing her doctoral thesis on gender and disasters in the Spanish and Latin American context.

Sandra Dema Moreno

Sandra Dema Moreno has a Masters in Gender and Development for the Complutense University of Madrid and a doctorate in Women’s Studies from the University of Oviedo, where she is professor of Sociology. Her areas of interes are sociology of gender, equality in public policies and issues of gender and development, particularly the analysis of disasters from a gender perspective.

Mar Llorente Marrón

Mar Llorente Marrón is a professor in the Quantitative Economics Department of the University of Oviedo. Her research focuses on the quantitative analysis of various phenomena, such as the sociodemographic determiners of fecundity and abortion, analysis of time and care and the impact of disasters of natural origin on gender relations.