Week 5 Reflection

Lindsay Harris

COMM 3824-01

2/14/19

Comm 3824 Reflection 5

            This week, we expanded on something that we had touched on within the first week of the class. In each of this week’s readings, we saw how environmental disasters impact women more harshly than men. In the Women of Katrina excerpts we saw instances in which women took charge of their misfortune and did what they could to help their communities recover. In excerpts like Ross’ and Enarson’s it was interesting to see how much traction women were able to gain and how they never really required the assistance of men in their endeavors. It was especially interesting to learn about the differences between how Charity Hospital and Tulane Hospital were treated and seeing what their patients/employees had to endure even though they were both in similar situations. In Nguyen’s writing from the Women of Katrina, it was interesting to see that not only were women being impacted more harshly, but the Vietnamese population was also being especially ostracized.    

The occasions I felt the most emotionally invested during this week were watching the videos that were shown in class on Tuesday. It was interesting to hear a woman from “Women of the Storm” claiming that if you wanted something said you needed a man but if you wanted something done you needed a woman. It shocks me that even environmental activists are so matter-of-fact when it comes to the inequality women must face in terms of creating change. I can recall first learning about environmental disasters impact on women in the first week of class, at the time I did not understand how a disaster can impact one gender more. In one of the videos someone said hurricanes should be blind to color, gender, and socioeconomic class; while this is something I never would have considered before, I cannot agree more with this statement now. Women should not bear the brunt of the storm so to say, just because of their expected societal responsibilities.

Sexual Steward- An idealized woman who is responsible about her personal fertility and about the environment.

Women of the Storm- An activist group made up of “diverse” women from Uptown New Orleans who traveled to Washington DC after Katrina in an attempt to get more government assistance/attention.

Charity Hospital- A hospital in New Orleans originally designed to help lower income patients which was essentially abandoned during Hurricane Katrina and has not been repaired since.