There is strong and long-standing evidence that gender matters in the context of humani- tarian work, especially with regards to female humanitarian workers’ security on site (Gaul, Keegan, Lawrence, & Ramos, 2006; Wille & Fast, 2011). Furthermore, and as noted before, stressors associated with humanitarian work have a gender dimension (Curling & Simmons, 2010; Gritti, 2015). Accordingly, most of the literature, especially autobiographies written by humanitarian workers, includes remarks that are directly or indirectly related to gender: Bertolotti for instance stated that “(h)umanitarian aid work mainly attracts single, childless people” (Bortolotti, 2004, p. 71). Similarly, Blaque- Belair (2003) referred to a situation while based in Bosnia where an Egyptian soldier tried to kiss a female colleague. When Blaque-Belair reported the incident she had wit- nessed to the commander of the battalion, he answered, “I do not understand what you are doing here. You should be at home having babies” (Blaque-Belair, 2003, p. 106). Most recently, the topic of gender, especially gender-based violence among humanitarian workers, became increasingly part of the humanitarian discourse. This was also reflected in the media (e.g., "Secret aid worker", 2015a; Midden & Deshmukh, 2017; Norbert, 2015). However, the gender dimensions of humanitarian work in general and the relation of gender and humanitarian workers’ mental health in particular have not yet received much attention in academic research. Indeed, up to this date only two scholars, Roth
qualitative research on the gender dimensions of working in the humanitarian and devel- opment aid sectors.
Roth (2015b) found that gender mattered with regards to both, the work and pri- vate lives of those participating in her study. Conditions attached to the job, especially long working hours and compromised security in crisis zones, strongly affected their pri- vate lives: circumstances like these hardly left any space for building a family and partic- ipants perceived it as hard to maintain committed romantic relationships over distance and long periods of time. According to Roth (2015b), especially women felt the need to choose between having a relationship and family and having a career in the sector. For men, combining both and finding a supportive partner seemed easier. Roth (2015b) also found that while the humanitarian culture is generally described as “macho”, both women and men downplayed gender differences and tensions: women participating in her study emphasized that they felt respected by men and did not perceive any hindrance regarding career progression. Men, too, highlighted their good relationships to female co-workers. If men pointed out gender differences, then mostly in the context of effective aid deliv- ery: they highlighted the benefits of hiring women with regards to the successful imple- mentation of their programs and projects.
Intersectionality is a theory that offers a framework for identifying and analysing interdependencies and interconnections between social strata. Within the workplace, in- tersectionality helps understanding how heterogeneous groups of people may experience environments differently based on these strata (Atewologun, 2018). Intersectionality has also evolved into one of the most predominant approaches in feminist theory (Carastathis, 2014). Roth (2015b) stressed the strong need for an intersectional perspective with re- gards to gender and aid: while gender mattered in her study, it was not the only factor that shaped women and men’s experiences in the sector. Other factors, such as nationality and age intersected with gender and thus played an important role in the holistic exploration of aid workers’ experiences (Roth, 2015b, 2015c).
In large parts, Gritti’s (2015) findings are in line with Roth’s results. This is spe- cifically the case regarding women’s challenge to reconcile work and family life, and establishing committed romantic relationships. Gritti’s (2015) study concluded that par-
ticipants interpreted this situation as a “female issue”. In addition, and as outlined before, Gritti (2015) found that women working in the aid sector were confronted with four dis- tinct types of stressors. These are situational factors, job-related factors, organizational factors, and personal risk factors. As Roth (Roth, 2015c), Gritti (2018) also found that other factors intersected with gender: in addition to being a woman, being of young age and being white rendered working in the sector more difficult for her study participants.
In addition to these qualitative studies, some of the quantitative research on hu- manitarian workers’ mental health assessed the roles of gender. Armagan, Engindeniz, Devay, Erdur, and Ozcakir (2006) concluded in this context that while expatriate women supporting the Tsunami relief work, tended to experience more severe PTSD symptoms, gender had no influence on the distribution of the frequency of PTSD amongst women and men. The recent study undertaken by the Global Development Professionals Network on mainly international staff (The Guardian, 2015) showed that while alcoholism was almost twice as likely among men, there were hardly any differences between men and women regarding the prevalence of PTSD, depression and anxiety. The recent study from Fouchier and Kedia (2018) on national humanitarian workers in the Central African Re- public did not find any significant differences between men and women in the display of clinical levels of anxiety, depression and PTSD.
Out of the 14 articles on the mental health of national staff we reviewed (Strohmeier & Scholte, 2015), seven studies assessed gender as predictor. Four out of these seven confirmed that women are more affected than men by most of the common mental health problems under investigation. However, in the remaining three studies the variable was either insignificant or pointed towards a relationship of the opposite direc- tion. With regards to international, rather than national, humanitarian workers a similar picture emerged: Lopes Cardozo et al. (2005) found that gender was not a significant predictor of depression in expatriate staff working in Kosovo.