In Gaza and Lebanon, thousands of women are now first responders when it to comes to feeding, caring and comforting, all while dealing with their own trauma from deaths, injury, starvation and displacement. Yet too often the way humanitarian agencies operate actually adds to their workload, says Hadeel Rizq-Qazzaz.
The voice of my friend and colleague, who had been living in a crowded shelter in Gaza, was exhausted as she talked on our conference call about care responsibilities: “Men are sharing the burden,” she said. What she was talking about was how the devastation of homes, of infrastructure, of services in a year of war has forced everyone to join in the chores that sustain the necessities of life: men, boys and girls are all occupied with finding wood for cooking, lighting fires, and fetching water.
Yet if there is any change in gender roles, it seems likely to be transitory. It is also built on the fact that women are taking on more than they can bear and so others are forced to step in: there is simply much more to do in a crisis – when the burden of chores falls again as the crisis lessens, will men give up this extra care work? It seems likely based on previous experience.
Women plug the gaps as schools and hospitals are destroyed
What usually happens in fragile and failing states context is intensified in conflicts and wars. Women end up playing the role of the state in providing essential services while fleeing for their lives and trying to survive.
Conflicts lead to the collapse of social and community systems, as essential services stop. This can either be because they are deliberately destroyed, as in Gaza, where all hospitals and clinics were destroyed and schools demolished or turned into temporary shelters; or because, in a crisis, local and national governments are over-burdened and lack funding meaning these services get cut
At community level, social services and care for the community shift to women, women’s groups and collectives. They are the first respondents to care for non-family members who need sheltering, feeding, or comfort after loss. In a pattern seen in Gaza and Lebanon, and previously in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, women-led organisations are the first respondents in food distribution, sheltering and water provision, with limited available resources.
‘The humanitarian aid system usually
reinforces traditional gender roles.’
At the household level, the scarcity of resources and lack of food and clean water, as well as the management of limited financial resources, become the primary responsibility of women. Women often find themselves expected to secure the next meal to cook on an open fire, to mend clothes and to make makeshift tents.
Even when men join in, for example in building a fire or carrying water from remote areas, their role is seen as “help,” not as a transformation of gender norms. Socially, women’s roles often transfer to children and adolescent girls as an extension of traditional roles and responsibilities while the shift of care work to men and boys is limited by the pressure to conserve existing social structures.
All of this leaves women suffering like other people from physical and mental stress and trauma but, unlike others in the community, they are also expected to care for family members’ needs, including psychological stress, illnesses, and injuries, as well as cooking, cleaning, and caring for the wounded/ injured, elderly, children and people with disabilities.
But are aid agencies adding to the workload for women in crisis?
Yet humanitarian organisations do not seem to be supporting women with this extra work in crises. In fact, the humanitarian aid system usually reinforces traditional gender roles. For instance, women and children who queue for aid are more likely to access it than men, thus forcing women to extend their reproductive role and care responsibilities to include queuing for aid.
Agencies can also limit access to “cash for work” to specific jobs traditionally associated with women while not accepting care as proper work. The latter attitude means they fail to offer cash for care, for example – something that can really change the game for women in conflict settings.
Agencies can also make life harder for women’s organisations. In fact, the moment humanitarian aid is institutionalised, women and their organisations are pushed back, as they turn into beneficiaries and recipients of aid. They not only then have to do care duties at home but also queue for aid that is not necessarily designed to meet their priorities or needs. That queuing role also makes them more vulnerable and susceptible to gender-based violence – though that issue, unlike the division of care responsibilities, has now received widespread attention among agencies.
How can agencies do better when it comes to women and care?
Care needs to be firmly on the agenda in times of crisis: if it isn’t then women will pay the price and indeed are paying the price. In future, women’s needs and priorities should be considered at all stages of programme design and implementation. Careful consideration and assessment of the impact on women’s care roles of any response plan should be at the heart of all humanitarian and reconstruction processes.
To be truly transformative, women-led organisations and activists must be actively involved in the decision-making processes that help communities to reorganise and revitalise during and after conflict. Women need to be true actors who can shape responses and not simply ticked off as part of a checklist.
Author
This is the second in a series of blogs to mark this year’s International Day of Care and Support
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Care work is essential to every society, yet it’s undervalued and often falls unfairly on women – especially marginalised Black, Brown, and Indigenous women. These unpaid and underpaid roles limit economic opportunities and reinforce systemic inequities. To change this, care must be recognised as a public good and a human right. Governments must invest in universal, accessible care services that provide fair wages, protections, and dignity for all care workers. Let’s push for a future where care is valued, shared, and supported as the backbone of our communities.