Cultural vulnerability, risk reduction and gender equity: two Mexican coastal communities

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the cultural dimension of vulnerability from a gender perspective in two rural localities of the South Coast of Jalisco, Mexico. This region is exposed to hydro-meteorological hazards and it is expected that, as a result of climate change, its intensity will increase, causing greater disaster risks. We analyse three culturally determined factors that reproduce vulnerabilities differentiated by gender. First, the sexual division of labour, which although showing signs of change in terms of a greater entry of women into the labour market, remains unchanged in assigning unpaid work to the female gender. Inequities related to the sexual division of labour are reinforced during and after the disaster, increasing the vulnerabilities of women. Second, we analyse the differential distribution of power expressed in decision-making processes in the family. Third, we address the masculinization of political power both in terms of a lower presence of women in political participation at the community and municipal level, and in terms of the historically masculinized modalities in the exercise of power that women are adopting. Finally, we insist on the need to build a culture based on equity to consistently reduce vulnerability to disaster risks.