The Women of Katrina: How Gender, Race, and Class Matter in an American Disaster

by Emmanuel David (Editor), Elaine Enarson (Editor)

Overview

The transformative event known as "Katrina" exposed long-standing social inequalities. While debates rage about race and class relations in New Orleans and the Katrina diaspora, gender remains curiously absent from public discourse and scholarly analysis. This volume draws on original research and firsthand narratives from women in diverse economic, political, ethnic, and geographic contexts to portray pre-Katrina vulnerabilities, gender concerns in post-disaster housing and assistance, and women's collective struggles to recover from this catastrophe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826517999
Publisher:	Vanderbilt University Press
Publication date:	02/24/2012
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Elaine Enarson is an independent scholar based in Colorado.

Emmanuel David is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Villanova University.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword William A. Anderson

Preface Emmanuel David and Elaine Enarson

In Protest

Chapter 1 INCITE! Statement on Hurricane Katrina INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

Chapter 2 Noticing Gender (or Not) in Disaster Joni Seager

Chapter 3 Women and Girls Last? Averting the Second Post-Katrina Disaster Elaine Enarson

Chapter 4 A Feminist Perspective on Katrina Loretta J. Ross

Women on the Front Lines: Testimonials

Chapter 5 Surviving Hurricane Katrina Mary Gehman

Chapter 6 We Cannot Forget Them Annette Marquis

Chapter 7 "Help! A Little Girl Cries" Denny Taylor

Chapter 8 Unexpected Necessities: Inside Charity Hospital Ruth Berggren

Chapter 9 "We Like to Think Houma Women Are Very Strong" Brenda Dardar Robichaux, Ms. Foundation for Women profile

Chapter 10 Coastal Women for Change: Biloxi, Mississippi Sharon Hanshaw, Ms. Foundation for Women profile

Chapter 11 "Estaba Reclamando Mi Sudor" ("I was demanding what I had earned with my sweat") "Antonia"

In Deep Water: Displacement, Loss, and Care

Chapter 12 Setting the Stage for Disaster: Women in New Orleans Before and After Katrina Beth Willinger and Janna Knight

Chapter 13 Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Women's Abilities and Disabilities in Crisis Elizabeth Davis and Kelly Rouba

Chapter 14 Factors Influencing Evacuation Decisions among High-Risk Pregnant and Postpartum Women Marianne Zotti, Van T. Tong, Lyn Kieltyka, and Renee Brown-Bryant

Chapter 15 Mothering After a Disaster: The Experiences of Black Single Mothers Displaced by Hurricane Katrina Megan Reid

Chapter 16 State Policy and Disaster Assistance: Listening to Women Susan Sterett

Chapter 17 The Katrina Difference: African American Women's Networks and Post-Katrina Poverty in New Orleans Jacquelyn Litt, Althea Skinner, and Kelley Robinson

Chapter 18 Doubly Displaced: Women, Public Housing, and Spatial Access after Katrina Jane M. Henrici, Allison Suppan Helmuth, and Angela Carlberg

Against the Tide: Resisting, Reclaiming, and Reimagining

Chapter 19 Gender, Race, and Place Attachment: A Case of Historic Neighborhood Recovery in Coastal Mississippi Mia White

Chapter 20 Before and After Katrina: Gender and the Landscape of Community Work Pamela Jenkins

Chapter 21 Battered Women's Shelters in New Orleans: Recovery and Transformation Bethany L. Brown

Chapter 22 Listening for Gender in Katrina's Jewish Voices Judith Rosenbaum

Chapter 23 Building Coalitions and Rebuilding Versailles: Vietnamese American Women's Environmental Work After Hurricane Katrina Gennie Thi Nguyen

Chapter 24 Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Gendered Collective Action: The Case of Women of the Storm Following Hurricane Katrina Emmanuel David

Chapter 25 Grounded in Faith, Inspired to Action: Bayou Women Own Their Own Recovery Kristina Peterson and Richard Krajeski

Gender in Disaster Theory, Practice, and Research

Chapter 26 Gendered Disaster Practice and Policy Brenda Phillips

Chapter 27 Critical Disjunctures: Disaster Research, Social Inequality, Gender, and Hurricane Katrina Kathleen Tierney

Editorial Reviews

"A remarkable and important collection of reports, essays, and analyses on an understudied and overlooked issue. David and Enarson have brought together pieces that are informative, eye-opening, rich, and diverse. This compelling anthology is a must read. I will keep The Women of Katrina at the front of my bookshelf."
—Alice Fothergill, author of Heads Above Water: Gender, Class, and Family in the Grand Forks Flood

"The meat has been put on the bones! Never before has a text been assembled that better illustrates how and why disaster consequences are as much, perhaps more, the result of differences between the people affected as they are the forces of nature. This book will forever alter how disasters are viewed."
—Dennis S. Mileti, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado at Boulder

"This collection of personal accounts and scholarly research articles on Hurricane Katrina's impact on the women who lived through it is unusual and valuable. [...] Highly recommended."
—Choice

"The power and diversity of the urban and rural women's experiences in the Katrina/Rita catastrophe begged for this book to be done. These scholars and activists who write here have committed their lives and careers to creating a lens to view the remarkable strengths that women have shown in normal times as well as crises. They have used that lens very well in The Women of Katrina."
—Shirley Laska, Professor Emerita of Sociology and Founding Director Emerita, Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology, University of New Orleans

"Overall then, an excellent addition to any and all bookshelves — a highly recommended read!"
—Gender & Development

From the Publisher