Within my mother’s eyes: impact of environmental degradation and natural disasters on the social risk and vulnerability of women in Kasiglahan Village I

Abstract

Studying the impact of the garbage problem and flooding on the social risk and vulnerability of the women in Kasiglahan Village I, Rodriguez, Rizal includes the evaluation of existing gender roles along with several economic, structural and institutional factors that placed women on their current position in the society. The paper focused on the personal experiences and struggles of the women in Kasiglahan Village and these were incorporated with the theories of Ecofeminism, Johan Galtung’s Structural Violence Theory and Social Vulnerability. Using the mixed method, the study was able to dig deeper into the experiences of the mothers and check the generalizability of the experiences. It was found out that the existing household problems of the mothers connect with their socioeconomic status and gender roles, and when the garbage problem and flooding came into the story, it caused a greater risk and vulnerability that brought about the poor recovery to disasters of the urban poor women in Kasiglahan Village I.