This article examines the initial response by national and international agencies
to gender issues during the aftermath of the Maldives tsunami, arguing
that it was, in general, inadequate. Some agencies took a gender blind approach,
ignoring different impacts on men and women, as well as the effects
of complex gender relations on relief and recovery efforts. Other agencies
paid greater attention to gender relations in their response but tended to focus
exclusively on the universal category of the ‘vulnerable woman’ requiring
special assistance, whilst at the same time ignoring men’s vulnerabilities.
This article argues that such language entrenched women as victims, excluding
them from leadership and decision-making roles and as such served to
reinforce and re-inscribe women’s trauma. It is suggested that it is partly because
of the nature of international bureaucracies and the fact that this disaster
drew foreign ‘experts’ from around the world that the response neglected or
over-simplified gender issues.