Women’s Mental Health: Post Disaster
Presenter: Rachayeeta Pradhan
The breakdown of the social infrastructure following a natural disaster leaves women and children as the most vulnerable groups in the society. Women tend to face severe mental stress especially while carrying out gendered social roles of biological and physical reproductive responsibilities of the household in these difficult circumstances. Pre-existing vulnerabilities such as low-income, widowhood, minority status also pose challenges to women in meeting these roles in the aftermath of a disaster. Mental stress for women and men could be factored by culturally, socially, and regionally held practices, beliefs and views. For instance, inability to meet the socially ascribed function of marriage, in the aftermath of a disaster due to material loss, and hence the family’s incapacity to meet with dowry requirements can cause acute psychological distress for most unmarried women in some societies. All of these tend to inflict immediate as well as long term mental disorders among women and require a comprehensive approach. For this, both sensitization of the need to address the issue of psychological disorder, and simultaneously removing the stigma associated with mental health is imperative.
