Chapter 1.

Why Gender is Important?

Introduction

Objectives:

At the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Comprehend the status of women and men both global and regional
2. Describe the statistics and its consequences of inequalities.
3. Identify the difference between gender and sex thru the different gender
concepts.
4. Describe critically the early concept of gender in the Philippines.

Topic Outline
1. Why is gender important? Status of Women and Men
2. Key Concepts and Definitions
3. The difference between gender and sex
4. The Perspective of gender and sex in the early Filipino Society

Try this

Status of Women and Men:Global, Regional and Local

Education plays an important role in increasing a girl’s status within her family and
also in wider society, especially in terms of the sharing of resources and power
negotiations . . . Similarly, educated boys and men give more weight to the opinions
of women and girls in their lives. – Because I am a Girl. The State of the World’s
Girls 2012: Learning for Life (Plan International, 2012a, p. 102)
 Think ahead
1. What have you observed in the Infographics?
2. What conclusion can you initially draw from the Infographics?

Read and Ponder

Facts and Figures (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/)

● Globally, 750 million women and girls were married before the age of 18 and at least
200 million women and girls in 30 countries have undergone FGM.
● The rates of girls between 15-19 who are subjected to FGM (female genital
mutilation) in the 30 countries where the practice is concentrated have dropped from 1
in 2 girls in 2000 to 1 in 3 girls by 2017.
● In 18 countries, husbands can legally prevent their wives from working; in 39
countries, daughters and sons do not have equal inheritance rights; and 49 countries
lack laws protecting women from domestic violence.
● One in five women and girls, including 19 per cent of women and girls aged 15 to 49,
have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within the
last 12 months. Yet, 49 countries have no laws that specifically protect women from
such violence.
● While women have made important inroads into political office across the world, their
representation in national parliaments at 23.7 per cent is still far from parity.
● In 46 countries, women now hold more than 30 per cent of seats in national
parliament in at least one chamber.
● Only 52 per cent of women married or in a union freely make their own decisions
about sexual relations, contraceptive use and health care.
● Globally, women are just 13 per cent of agricultural land holders.
● Women in Northern Africa hold less than one in five paid jobs in the non-agricultural
sector. The proportion of women in paid employment outside the agriculture sector
has increased from 35 per cent in 1990 to 41 per cent in 2015.
● More than 100 countries have taken action to track budget allocations for gender
equality.
● In Southern Asia, a girl’s risk of marrying in childhood has dropped by over 40%
since 2000.

Philippine Case (https://pcw.gov.ph/statistics/201405/women-participation-politics-

and-governance)
 Topic 2. Key concepts and definitions

Instructions: The following are important concepts and definitions related to gender
awareness and responsiveness. These concepts will be used throughout the module.

Glossary

Empowerment: The process of gaining access to resources, opportunities and

decisionmaking processes, and of developing the skills, abilities and confidence to
participate actively in shaping one’s own life and one’s community in economic, social
and political terms.

Gender: A concept that refers to the roles and responsibilities of women/girls and
men/boys that are defined in our families, our societies and our cultures, including
what characteristics, aptitudes and behaviours are expected of each gender. These
roles and expectations are learned, not biologically predetermined or fixed forever.

Gender analysis, gender-based analysis: A way of looking at the impact

of development on women and men. It requires separating data by sex and
understanding how work is divided, valued and rewarded. It asks how a particular
activity, decision or plan will affect men and women differently.

Gender audit: The analysis and evaluation of policies, programmes and institutions
in terms of how they have made changes based on gender considerations and whether
they succeed in meeting gender-related criteria.

Gender awareness: An understanding that there are socially and culturally

determined differences between women/girls and men/boys based on learned
behaviour, which affect their ability to access and control resources.

Gender blindness: The failure to recognise that the roles and responsibilities of men/
boys and women/girls are given to them in specific social, cultural, economic and
political contexts and backgrounds, and that outcomes can be affected by gender.

Gender discrimination: Denying opportunities and rights or giving preferential

treatment to some people on the basis of their sex.

Gender equality: The absence of discrimination on the basis of a person’s sex, in

terms of rights, responsibilities, opportunities and benefits.

Gender equity: The process of being fair to women and men in the distribution of
resources and responsibilities. Increased gender equity leads to greater gender equality.
(Note that there is no broad agreement on the distinction between “gender equity” and
“gender equality”; sometimes, they are used interchangeably.)

Gender identity: An individual’s concept of their own self as male, female, both or
neither. It can be the same as or different than their sex.

Gender mainstreaming: The process of assessing the implications for women/girls and
men/boys of any planned action — including legislation, policies or programmes — in all
areas and at all levels. This includes creating and sharing knowledge, awareness and
responsibility for gender equality. It is also a strategy for including the concerns of
girls/women and boys/men in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
education policies and programmes so that girls and boys, women and men benefit
equally.
Gender neutral: Having no positive or negative impact on women/girls or men/boys,
and not showing or intending any bias towards women or men.

Gender parity in education: This concept is achieved when the percentage of boys
compared to girls enrolled in the education system is the same as the percentage of
boys compared to girls of the same age group in the community, region or country. This
data is generally based on a count of students at the beginning of a school year. (Note
that this narrow interpretation of gender parity in education does not consider other
factors, including extended absences, the number of girls or boys who drop out during
the year, how successful each person’s learning is, or the impact of other factors, such
as gender mainstreaming in the classroom, through ODL and in the curriculum.)

Gender responsive: This concept refers to planning and carrying out programmes,
policies or activities in ways that consider the different needs of men/boys and
women/girls and involve them in decision-making, participation and opportunities. This
usually requires developing specific actions to bring about more equitable gender
relationships, and it may require clearly targeted budget allocations.

Gender stereotype: A stereotype is an oversimplified positive or negative characteristic

that is used to describe or label a group of people. Gender stereotypes use roles,
attitudes or behaviours to describe girls/women and boys/men differently. For example,
girls/women might be expected to fill traditional roles, making it hard for them to reach
their full potential.

Good practice: A good practice is not necessarily very detailed or perfect. Instead, it is
an available solution to a specific problem, given the available resources, environment
and context. A good practice in gender mainstreaming should be any procedure that not
only “works well” in terms of actions, methods or strategy but also is part of a wider
strategy for gender mainstreaming.

Multiple roles: For gender analysis, work that people do is generally classified into
three roles:

Productive: Making goods or services to meet economic or subsistence needs.

Reproductive: Work that contributes to the household, including reproduction. This

includes childbearing/child-rearing responsibilities as well as domestic tasks carried out
to maintain society’s human resources.
Community: This can be either the reproductive role directed to providing and
maintaining collective resources in the community and the social support system, or local
political participation, such as being an elected representative of the community

Practical gender needs: These are basic needs or survival needs that relate to
inadequacies in living and working conditions, such as toilet facilities, food, water,
housing, clothing and healthcare. Girls/women and boys/men often have different needs.

Productive work: Any work that generates payment in cash or in kind. Men’s
productive work usually takes place outside the household and generates monetary
income. Women’s productive work commonly occurs around the household and is
generally less valued, or not even taken into account.

Reproductive rights: The right of any individual or couple to decide freely and
responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information
and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and
reproductive health.
Reproductive work: Work in and around the household, such as raising children,
cooking and cleaning, that usually does not generate monetary income. It is typically
assumed to be the responsibility of women, yet men also often perform reproductive
work such as taking care of machines or washing the car.

Sex: The biological differences between women and men.

Sex-disaggregated data: Information that is collected separately on men and women

or boys and girls. These data can be used to look at how girls and women are faring
compared with boys and men, rather than only using data that lump them together.

Sex discrimination: Treating a person less favourably because of his or her sex.

Sexual harassment: Unwanted conduct of a sexual nature affecting the safety or

dignity of women, men, boys or girls, including the conduct of superiors and peers. In
addition to a forced sexual act, sexual harassment includes abusive language and
gestures, sexual advances, touching and groping, passing unwanted notes, and
character assassination through graffiti or gossip.

Sexual orientation: Sexual preference for a person of either the same or another
gender (such as bisexuality, heterosexuality, homosexuality, transsexuality).

Strategic gender interests: These are root causes of inequality between genders, such
as access to education and training, control over resources and control/influence over
decision-making. Work on these interests seeks to change power imbalances and is
usually long-term.

Tokenism: A specific action to include one or a few members of a marginalised group,

such as women or people with disabilities, without making significant changes to address
the real discrimination.

Violence: Includes bullying, verbal abuse, physical assault, corporal punishment, gang
violence, unwanted physical contact such as touching and groping, sexual harassment
and forced sexual activity.

Topic 3. What is the difference between Gender and Sex

To best understand the term gender it is essential to first understand the term sex as
these two terms are often confused and sometimes used interchangeably.

Activity 1.

Sex vs. Gender: What is the difference?

(Time Required 10 Minutes)
Write on a blank flipchart/piece of paper “Social/cultural expectations” and divide the sheet
into two columns: one for Men/Boys and one for Women/Girls. Ask the students to tell you
some social/cultural expectations for men and boys in their society and for women and girls.
Identify whether those expectation is sex or gender.

Sex
According to Macionis (1989), sex refers to the division of humanity into biological
categories of male and female. As a biological distinction, sex is determined at the
moment a child is conceived. Sex is also defined as the biological differences between
men and women, that is, “…their physical characteristics: external genitalia, internal
genitalia, gonads (the organs which produce sex cells), hormonal states and secondary
sex characteristics.” (Haralambos and Holborn, 2004: 94). Sex is therefore a fact of
biology, which is the physiological distinctiveness or state of being male or female.

Gender

Gender refers to human traits linked by culture to each sex (Haralambos and Holborn,
2004).Within a society; males are socialized to be masculine as females are taught to be
feminine. Walter and Manion (1996) maintain that gender is the difference that sex
makes within a society, guiding how we are to think of ourselves, how we interact with
others, the social opportunities, occupations, family roles and prestige allowed males and
females.

“Gender can also be defined as a set of characteristics, roles and behaviour patterns that
distinguish women from men which are constructed not biologically but socially and
culturally” (Gita Sen in Towards Earth Summit 2002:1). Like the variable concepts of
class, race, ethnicity, culture and economics, gender is an analytical tool for
understanding social processes that affect human beings. The following table1.1 helps
you differentiate between gender and sex.

Table 1.Differentiating gender from sex.

Sex Gender
(Female/Male) (Feminine/Masculine)
 Is in born  Starts the moment the sex is
known.
 Is biologically determined  Is socially constructed.
 Is exclusive to a particular sex  Varies within and among
and is fixed. It does not change cultures. Different individuals and
over time, once born male always societies give different meanings
male and once born female to maleness and femaleness.
always female.
 Is universal, that is, the organs  Cultural. The attributes, expected
that determine a male or a roles, expected behaviours and
female are uniform all over the expected responsibilities that go
world for example the penis for with maleness and femaleness
the males and the vagina for the differ from society to society,
females. community to community and
from individual to individual.
 Is natural.  Is learnt
 Unvarying  Changes over time

Gender: the Cultural Dimension

Gender refers to the culturally and socially constructed differences between females and
males found in the meanings, beliefs, and practices associated with femininity and
masculinity. Although biological differences between women and men are very
important, in reality most sex differences are socially constructed ―gender differences.‖
According to sociologists, social and cultural processes, not biological ―givens,‖ are the
most important factors in defining what females and males are, what they should do,
and what sorts of relations do or should exist between them. Lorber (1994) summarizes
the importance of gender in the following way:

Gender is a human invention, like language, kinship, religion, and technology; like them,
gender organizes human social life in culturally patterned ways. Gender organizes social
relations in everyday life as well as in the major social structures, such as social class
and the hierarchies of bureaucratic organizations.

Virtually, in our lives, everything is socially gendered. People continually distinguish

between males and females and evaluate them differentially. Gender is an integral part
of the daily experiences of both women and men (Messner, 2004).
A micro level analysis of gender focuses on how individuals learn gender roles and
acquire a gender identity. Gender role refers to the attitudes, behavior, and activities
that are socially defined as appropriate for each sex and are learned through the
socialization process. All biological females think of themselves as female, and all
biological males think of themselves as male. Body consciousness is a part of gender
identity.

Body consciousness is how a person perceives and feels about his or her body; it also
includes an awareness of social conditions in society that contribute to this self-
knowledge.

As we grow up, we become aware that the physical shape of our bodies subjects us to
the approval or disapproval of others. Being small and weak may be considered positive
attributes for women, but they are considered negative characteristics for true men. A
macro level analysis of gender examines structural features, external to the individual,
that perpetuate gender inequality. These structures have been referred to as gendered
institutions, meaning that gender is one of the major ways by which social life is
organized in all sectors of society. Gender is embedded in the images, ideas, and
language of a society and is used as a means to divide up work, allocate resources, and
distribute power.

These institutions are reinforced by a gender belief system, which includes all the ideas
regarding masculine and feminine attributes that are held to be valid in a society. This
belief system is legitimated by religion, science, law, and other societal values. For
example, gendered belief systems may change over time as gender roles change. Many
fathers take care of young children today, and there is a much greater acceptance of this
change in roles. However, popular stereotypes about men and women, as well as
cultural norms about gender-appropriate appearance and behavior, serve to reinforce
gendered institutions in society.

The Social Significance of Gender

Gender is a social construction with important consequences in everyday life. Just as

stereotypes regarding race/ethnicity have built-in notions of superiority and inferiority,
gender stereotypes hold that men and women are inherently different in attributes,
behavior, and aspirations. Stereotypes define men as strong, rational, dominant,
independent, and less concerned with their appearance. Women are stereotyped as
weak, emotional, nurturing, dependent, and anxious about their appearance.

In social relational contexts, sex categorization unconsciously prime gender stereotypes

in the perceiver‘s mind, making those cultural beliefs cognitively available to implicitly
shape the perceiver‘s judgments and behaviors in response to the other. Importantly,
however, the extent to which these mentally primed stereotypes actually do bias the
perceiver‘s responses varies from negligible to substantial depending on features of the
context and, thus, context is fundamental to their effects.
What matters is the extent to which the sex categorization of the other seems to the
perceiver to offer usefully diagnostic information about the other in that situation. At the
least, evidence indicates that gender stereotypes are effectively salient (i.e. sufficiently
salient to measurably bias judgments and behavior) in contexts in which the participants
differ on the characteristic or that are culturally linked to the characteristics.

In addition, perceivers apply stereotypes more strongly in their responses to others who
appear more prototypical of the category.
Thus, the more gender stands out in a situation because it differentiates the people
there and/or seems relevant to the goals of the setting or to the characteristics of a
participant, the more a perceiver‘s responses will be biased by widely shared gender
stereotypes. This means that although gender is virtually always cognitively available to
shape judgments and behavior in social relational contexts, it need not do so equally in a
given situation (Thompson, 1994).

The contents of widely known gender stereotypes differ in many ways, but research
suggests that they have in common the inclusion of beliefs that people in one category
of the difference are of higher status and diffusely more competent, especially at the
things that count most in society, than are those in the other category. Thus, to the
extent that gender stereotypes are salient in a setting, they bias expectations for one
person‘s competence and suitability for leadership compared to another.

These biased expectations tend to have self-fulfilling effects on behavior in the setting
and to create inequalities in evaluations of performance, influence, and attributions of
ability. In this way, among others, implicitly salient gender stereotypes shape
interpersonal hierarchies of influence, status, and perceived leadership potential in ways
that reproduce and maintain gender as systems of inequality. Since these interpersonal
hierarchies constitute a shared resource domain for the gendered systems, when the
hierarchies that emerge in a given relational context are shaped by gender stereotypes,
the gender systems intersect in that context.

The difference between Sex roles and Gender roles

Sex roles
Sex roles are duties, activities, tasks or responsibilities that males and females perform
or undertake that are an inevitable product of one’s biology, for example, breastfeeding,
pregnancy and gestation for females and fertilizing the ovum and determining the sex of
child for the males. Like sex, these assignments are biologically determined, fixed,
universal and exclusive to a particular sex.

Gender roles

Gender roles are duties, chores, tasks, responsibilities or assignments that a particular
cultural group consider appropriate for its males and females on the basis of the
meaning attached to their sexual identity. These roles are not a direct or an inevitable
product of males’ or females’ biology e.g. caring for children by females and mending a
puncture for males.
They are learnt, vary within and among cultures, dynamic, interchangeable and can be
affected by factors like class, religion, age, race, education, geographical location and
ethnicity.

See if you can do this.

Direction : Answer the following
In your own words define and explain, using examples where necessary, each of the terms
given above. Differentiate between:
a) gender equity and gender equality
b) gender blindness and gender neutrality
c) gender sensitivity and gender awareness
d) gender roles and sex roles
e) feminism and patriarchy
f) gender affirmative action and gender empowerment
g) gender mainstreaming and gender empowerment.

Activity 2

“Yes, it’s Gender” Or “No, it’s Sex”

Ask the students to indicate whether the statements below are based on sex or
gender.
1. Women give birth to babies, men don’t
2. Little girls are gentle, boys are aggressive
3. Women can breastfeed babies; men can bottle-feed babies
4. Most building-site workers in Tanzania are men
5. Men’s voices break at puberty; women’s do not
6. Girls like to play with dolls, boys with toy cars
7. Most drivers in Tanzania are men
8. According to UN statistics, women do 67% of the world’s work, yet their
earnings for it amount to only 10% of the world’s income