Around one million Indonesians are affected by natural disasters every year. Despite significant government investment in early warning systems and disaster management, the impact of the 2009 earthquake in West Sumatra showed that much more needs to be done. Oxfam’s post-earthquake advocacy work aimed to build understanding of how gender inequality shapes vulnerability and to promote women’s participation in designing the emergency response. Oxfam conducted research into the differential impact of the earthquake on men and women supported the UN and the government of Indonesia to integrate this information into their own responses. This paper studies the project undertaken to address these issues in Indonesia.