Women's disaster experience and lessons learned in integrated disaster administration

Disasters, which are increasing in number and getting worse all over the world, cause physical, social, and economic negativities. National and international studies reveal that men and women are affected differently by disasters in different parts of the world and the differences in coping mechanisms. Women are accepted as strong actors with their experiences and high cognitive awareness in disasters. In this context, it is necessary to identify the problems faced by women in disasters and to develop strategic solution proposals for this. Although disaster and women's studies are considered important in the literature, research are limited. For this reason, interviews were conducted with nineteen women in a virtual environment to examine in depth the disaster experiences and lessons learned of women who faced different types of disasters. At the same time, stakeholder interviews were conducted to support the research. Phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The data obtained in the research were analyzed with the MAXQDA 2020 qualitative analysis program. As a result of the analysis, women are unprepared for disasters, take into account the early warnings of disasters, have wrong information about disasters and are willing to participate in disaster education, gain the right behavior skills after the first reflex behaviors and experiences during the disaster, and experience difficulties in accessing basic needs and security problems after the disaster. It has been determined that they face social problems, experience vulnerabilities due to climatic conditions, and have difficulty in accessing psychosocial support in the post-disaster period. As a result, the important findings and determinations revealed by the research can guide the administration in solving the problems related to disaster experience and gender. The research contributes to disaster research by evaluating the experiences of women in disasters, especially what factors make them vulnerable due to disasters, the effect of gender roles in disasters, their behaviors at the time of disaster, and the actions of transforming learned lessons into behavior in the light of their experiences.