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International Women’s Day 2022
By Olivia Walmsley, on 8 March 2022
Written by Olivia Walmsley and Virginie Le Masson
Yesterday, on the 7th of March, the IRDR Centre for Gender and Disaster celebrated its fourth anniversary, providing a multi-disciplinary space for connecting researchers, students, policy makers, NGOs and anyone who shares a desire to work collaboratively to answer difficult questions that relate to gender (in)equality. This year, the theme is #BreakTheBias.
A gender equal world is one free of bias, discrimination, and stereotypes; three issues that we choose to challenge in academia and in our research practice. With gender equality being the central pillar of the centre, our work, particularly through the GRRIPP project connects existing networks of scholars, policy makers, and practitioners to support the integration of gender and intersectionality in research and development approaches. GRRIPP supports 22 projects across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and South Asia, that tackle gender inequality and bias head-on through a multitude of lenses such as documenting systems of care during the Covid-19 pandemic; bringing intersectionality in university curricula on Disaster Risk Reduction; or piloting women-based and low-carbon transport solutions in the context of climate change.
GRRIPP was recently host to an exploratory set of virtual events on the ‘Feminist City’. Featuring a diverse group of speakers from all geographical regions, debates focused on such questions as: “what is a feminist city?” and “what does feminism and the city mean in practice?” All five sessions are available for viewing here.
To find out more about these projects, head to the GRRIPP website and register to receive monthly newsletters which include project updates and information about the team and upcoming events.
The centre is involved in several projects that bring a gender perspective to different sectors:
- Health: Who Cares? Rebuilding Care in a Post-Pandemic World (funded by ESRC). We support a deeper understanding of the care economy after the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the disproportionately negative impacts on women, particularly women of colour, migrants, and refugees, both as essential care workers and as recipients of care.
- Disaster Risk Reduction: RiskPACC (funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020) to facilitate interaction between citizens and Civil Protection Authorities to jointly identify needs and develop solutions to build enhanced disaster resilience, based on new forms of digital, community-centred and gender-responsive data.
In addition to the exciting work happening through these various projects, our team has also been tackling gender bias through the collection of references as part of the Gender and Disaster Reference Guide Series. The bibliography series (now available as a database) compiles journal articles, blogs, reports etc. that cover themes in disaster-related research with a gender perspective. The next volume will prioritise references written in various languages, other than English, to diversify sources of knowledge and perspectives.
To find out more on the Centre’s research interests and current activities, please visit our webpages and do not hesitate to contact us to share interests and ideas for collaboration.
Centre for Gender and Disaster Website
#BreakTheBias #IWD2022
Twitter: @UCL_GD | @grripp
LinkedIn: @cgdonline
The Centre for Gender and Disaster based in the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction at UCL, aims to develop awareness of, and responsiveness to, gender considerations in the contexts of risks, disasters and conflicts, through excellence in research and teaching.