“Engendering” Change in Disaster Response: Increasing Women in Leadership Roles
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ABSTRACT:
Disaster response has has historically emerged from male dominated military institutions. Skills
emphasized as advantageous by respondents in police, fire, and paramedic fields were
physical strength and prowess, typically attributed to the male gender. For example, only 32% of
New South Wales (NSW) police services in Australia today are women, 26% of ambulance
services, and 5% of the NSW fire brigade (Childs, 2006).
As a result of these fields being almost exclusively male dominated, management obtained
through internal promotion was usually male as well, especially since idealized leadership traits
are often misattributed to males (Dawley, et al., 2004; Lindstead et al., 2005; Pounder & Coleman,
2002). Some studies have found that leadership in complex stressful operations requires an
appraisal of what is at stake and the manageability of a situation, but these findings lack
information on the competency of women in such roles (Sjoberg et al., 2006).
One of the major barriers to identifying sexism is what is termed as “Sameness Syndrome,” or, a
movement towards a male defined standard as the benchmark, which is not necessarily true in
disaster management (Stokes, 1988). The absence of women in senior disaster management
positions may indicate that the entire process of selection, recruitment, and promotion in a system
needs to be revamped (Trinidad & Normore, 2005).
The nature of response in the face of disaster in the modern era increasingly employs completely
different skill sets and an ever broadening inclusion of various disciplines. Despite these changes,
leadership in disaster response continues to perpetuate the stereotypes of what management in
the field should be, and continues to be predominantly male. This paper will briefly summarize
some of the advantages to increasing the number of females in disaster management and some
strategies to practically transform an organization in order to promote such inclusion.
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STATISTICS
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