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Women and children last: An essay on sex discrimination in disasters
Author(s) -
Rivers J.P.W.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7717.1982.tb00548.x
Subject(s) - underdevelopment , economic shortage , girl , injury prevention , poison control , demography , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , occupational safety and health , medicine , medical emergency , psychology , environmental health , developmental psychology , sociology , pathology , economics , economic growth , linguistics , philosophy , government (linguistics)
In general, little attention has been given to differential survival between the sexes in disasters. Consideration of physiological differences between males and females would suggest that, all things being equal, morbidity and mortality after disaster, particularly where food shortage is involved, should indicate an excess male mortality. Such statistics as exist in disasters, as in chronic underdevelopment, show that it is females and especially girl children who are at highest risk. The basis of this lies in sex discrimination which is implicit in most social systems.