González Hidalgo, Marien
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
In mainstream social imaginaries, wildfires are still a 'manly' issue. Addressing the question 'how are women depicted in the literature of wildfires?' this paper systematically analyses current literature on this subject. We identify five roles of women in a sample of 81 papers, and we show that women's roles are repeatedly structured as follows: women as impacted by wildfires, women as holders of particular knowledges and perceptions, women as firefighters, women as caregivers, and women as setters of fire. We supplement this analysis with our own observations from fieldwork in wildfires in Spain, Chile and Sweden. Our analysis of these roles allows us to depict a diversity of women's capacities, vulnerabilities and contradictions beyond discourses around virtuosity or victimhood; to discuss how and why women's various roles are unequally valued or avoided; and to consider the interconnection of gendered discourses on women and wildfires across geographies.
Keywords
Wildfires; Women; Gender; Climate disasters; Systematic review
Published in
Journal of Rural Studies
2025, volume: 115, article number: 103553
Publisher: PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
SLU Authors
Global goals (SDG)
SDG5 Gender equality
SDG15 Life on land
UKÄ Subject classification
Gender Studies
Human Geography
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2024.103553
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/142546