Gender, masculinity and bushfire: Australia in an international context

The study of gender and associated questions about masculinity, femininity and inequality are important elements of social science research. While gender has often been a focus in disciplines such as sociology and anthropology, the social construction of gender is now analysed in areas ranging from criminology to international political economy. Disaster studies, however, adopted the use of gendered analysis quite late, and it was not until the 1990s that a substantial body of literature started to emerge. Since then, there has been a steady increase in international research dealing with the relationship between gender and disaster. Australian research on bushfire is yet to make significant use of the insights from this work. In this paper, we offer some reasons as to why a gendered analysis of disaster and emergency management is important and how this applies specifically to bushfire. We also highlight some of the shortcomings associated with previous attempts at understanding bushfire through a gendered lens and suggest that, in order to move forward, we must acknowledge that constructions of masculinity may affect bushfire preparation and response.