Totally Cooked: Episode 26 – Extreme weather, climate disasters and gendered violence

Join hosts Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and Iain Strachan as they welcome Professor Sara Davies; professor of international relations at Griffith University and deputy director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW). In this episode, the two Sara(h)s explore one of climate science’s most confronting intersections: what happens to women’s safety when extreme weather strikes.

From floods, to heatwaves, to compounding crises, the panel covers how climate change triggers and amplifies gender-based violence. Drawing on research across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, Sara reveals that women in those regions weren’t shocked by COVID-19’s cascading crises: they’d been managing climate, financial and health emergencies simultaneously for years. The episode also unpacks CEVAW’s Women’s Safety Index (tracking equity, protection and resource indicators across 190 countries), and what it reveals about why some societies recover from shocks faster than others.

Who actually carries the practical burden of community recovery after Australian disasters? Why do Indigenous women face rates of violence that constitute a national emergency in their own right? And what can women-led early warning networks in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific can teach high-income countries about disaster preparedness? All questions you can have answered on this insightful look into the intersection of violence, climate, and weather.

Iain records Totally Cooked on the lands of the Bunurong People of the Kulin Nation. Sarah records Totally Cooked on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging and recognise their unique and continuing connection to the land, skies, waters, plants and animals.

Show Notes

In this episode, we look at:

• The WHO estimates 1 in 3 women will experience gender-based violence in their lifetime — extreme weather events are a known trigger for its escalation.
• Research across Southeast Asia and the Pacific found that women in these regions were already managing compounding climate, financial and health crises before COVID-19 arrived.
• Countries with stronger gender equity, legal protections and resource access recover faster from major shocks and see lower rates of intimate partner violence post-crisis.
• CEVAW’s Women’s Safety Index tracks equity, protection and resource indicators across 190+ countries over 30 years to map which conditions keep women safer when disasters strike.
• First responders encountering domestic violence during disaster operations have no consistent national guidance; a gap currently being mapped in comparative research between Queensland and Cebu in the Philippines.
• After disasters, the long-term community rebuilding work is disproportionately led by women, often unpaid, while formal government response is frequently absent or delayed.
• Women-led early warning networks in Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, India and Kenya are demonstrating community-level disaster preparedness that formal structures in high-income countries haven’t yet replicated.
• Countries experiencing the most intense and frequent climate impacts contributed least to human-induced climate change — making international support a question of climate justice, not charity.
• Indigenous women in Australia face gender-based violence at a rate of approximately 3 in 5, and are around ten times more likely to die from assault than non-Indigenous women.
• The joint research project between 21st Century Weather and CIVOR is matching Australian extreme heat data with hospital presentations for gender-based violence, a methodologically complex but important new frontier in understanding the climate-violence link.
• Researchers working at this intersection manage significant vicarious trauma; CIVOR’s approach includes trauma-informed debriefing and yarning circles to maintain team wellbeing.

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This episode will be released and available to stream and download on Friday 18th July, 2026.

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Because it’s time to feel empowered, not overwhelmed. Totally Cooked is a science-backed, straight-talking podcast about weather, climate change, and what it all means for life on Earth – especially here in Australia.

Hosted by climate scientist Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick and science communicator Iain Strachan, Totally Cooked breaks down how human activity is changing the Earth’s systems—from our skies to our seas—and what we can do about it.

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