Why would women be excluded in a disaster relief response in the first place? No agency in the world would deliberately do such a thing, now protecting the weak(whoever they are) during a disaster is the purview of the military/peacekeepers and not something I think aid agencies can risk doing themselves.

Everyone is affected differently in a disaster, the response by aid agencies needs to be blind, not only racially and gender blind but blind to all socioeconomic considerations. In a disaster of such magnitude everyone is a victim until they prove otherwise.

You could say the elderly and the less educated are also affected differently, do we tailor a specific response to them as well?
The issue of gender policies in post disaster reconstruction is one the citizens of Haiti will need to address themselves.
Outsiders trying to influence the course of their society or their societal structure, well intentioned as it is, risk alienation of the locals(both men an women) and further complicating an already complex situation.

Saying that women and girls need “different” support form the outside than the rest of the population is a comment on their social structure and an implied criticism of it.

The problem I have here isn’t the need to specifically help one set of individuals over another under normal circumstances, the issue is that people are vulnerable at this moment, and to me it’s not the time to promote gender politics when someone is vulnerable, this amounts to a form of duress, however unintentional it is.

If an aid group singled out a certain religion in the disaster area to focus on and “help out” I would have the same problem with it.
In a natural disaster, nobody is above anyone else in terms of consideration, every human being needs to be treated equally and with respect.

Participating in the reconstruction is admirable if one is invited to do so without duress.
I understand the motivation of women to help other women but the message on the surface isn’t well presented. It comes across as biased, however unintended it was to the people sending the message.

I’d like to clear a couple of things up: Plan’s disaster response in Haiti is focused on children and adults of all genders (read more here). What I was trying to do in this post is offer a perspective of how women are affected differently in a crisis. What I was NOT doing was suggesting that women should be helped and men should be ignored.

Women are often affected differently in a crisis because of their different role in society. The point is not that we should exclude men from disaster response but that we must make sure to include women.

Also, check out this post: Does pro-girl mean anti-guy?

Kate J

But you cannot use anything a man invented or the help of a man.

Good luck!

Because I’m a man!