Up to three out of four people who contract the deadly Ebola virus are women. Nearly two out of three people who died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami were female. And women in Mali are widely seen as bearing the greatest burden during times of hardship and crisis.
The reason women and girls experience disproportionately greater impact from disease outbreaks, natural disasters and other life-threatening hardships has little to do with biology — and much to do with gender roles.
In Liberia, as in many countries, women and girls are the primary caregivers, and therefore more vulnerable to infection when family members get sick. More females died in the tsunami because they lacked basic survival skills such as the ability to swim and climb trees, and were more likely to be caring for others when the wave hit. And in the Sahel, women typically will eat less during difficult times to make sure their husbands and children are fed first.
About the author
Sahar Alnouri
Sahar Alnouri is senior gender adviser at Mercy Corps. Prior to taking on this global role, she was the organization's Iraq gender program manager based in Baghdad, and also worked for Counterpart International out of Kabul. Alnouri was a member of Mercy Corps' emergency response team during the 2009 crisis in Gaza and the Arab Spring assessment team in Egypt in early 2011.