CONCEPTUALIZATION OF GENDER AND OTHER BASIC CONCEPTS

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF GENDER AND OTHER BASIC CONCEPTS

Given the complexity of gender, it is not surprising that an increasing number of terms and phrases are developing to describe it. Below are some of the key terms you might encounter:

Sex is a system of classification that divides body types based on presumed reproductive capacity as typically determined by visual examination of the external genitalia sex includes body type, chromosomes, hormones, genitals, reproductive organs, or chemical essences/ pheromones.

Sex is the physical structure of one’s reproductive organs that is used to assign sex at birth. Chromosomes XX determine sex for females and XY for males. Hormones called estrogen/progesterone is found in females, and testosterone for male. There are also internal and external genitalia for example vulva, clitoris, and vagina for assigned females, penis and testicles for assigned males. Given the potential variation in all of these, biological sex must be seen as a spectrum or range of possibilities rather than a binary set of two options.

Sex-disaggregated data is data that is cross-classified by sex, presenting information separately for men and women, boys and girls. When data is not disaggregated by sex, it is more difficult to identify real and potential inequalities. Sex-disaggregated data is necessary for effective gender analysis. 

Gender is the social attributes and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men.

Gender Awareness: Is an understanding that there are socially determined differences between women & men based on learned behavior, which affect their ability to access and control resources. This awareness needs to be applied through gender analysis into projects, programs and policies. 

The meaning of gender awareness

What Does Gender Awareness Mean in Development Projects?

• Women are treated as representatives of half of the population, not as a special interest group

• Development projects do not address only women, but involve men and women according to their specific needs and strengths.

• Projects are not limited to women's traditional concerns such as health, nutrition and childcare, but also to the productive sphere, education and social-cultural fields, where women are still under-represented

• Projects are concerned not only with the protection of women as needy and vulnerable individuals, but are aimed at the enhancement and expansion of women's and men's experiences, their self-awareness, skills and creativity

• Projects do not regard women and men only as beneficiaries, but also involve them as participants and decision-makers.

Gender Norms: Gender norms are the accepted attributes and characteristics of male and female gendered identity at a particular point in time for a specific society or community. They are the standards and expectations to which gender identity generally conforms, within a range that defines a particular society, culture and community at that point in time. Gender norms are ideas about how men and women should be and act. Internalized early in life, gender norms can establish a life cycle of gender socialization and stereotyping.

Gender Identity: One’s innermost concept of self as male or female or both or neither—how individuals perceive themselves and what they call themselves. One’s gender identity can be the same or different than the sex assigned at birth. Individuals are conscious of this between the ages 18 months and 3 years. Most people develop a gender identity that matches their biological sex. For some, however, their gender identity is different from their biological or assigned sex. Some of these individuals choose to socially, hormonally and/or surgically change their sex to more fully match their gender identity.

Gender identity arises out of complex patterns of interaction between the self and others. Some people can reject the gender specified by their biology by, for example, passing as members of the other gender and even changing their sex by radical surgery. Some people are born with a mixture of the typical biological traits from both sexes; in such cases medical professionals may decide on the ‘proper’ sex and intervene accordingly. This suggests that biology does

Gender Needs: Leading on from the fact that women and men have differing roles based on their gender, they will also have differing gender needs. These needs can be classified as either strategic or practical needs.

Practical Gender Needs (PGN): These are gender needs that women and men can easily identify, as they relate to living conditions. PGNs do not challenge, although they arise out of, gender divisions of labor and women’s subordinate position in society. PGNs are a response to immediate and perceived necessity, identified within a specific context. They are practical in nature and often concern inadequacies in living conditions such as water provision, health care and employment.

Strategic Gender Interests/Needs: Strategic gender needs are the needs women identify because of their subordinate position in society. They vary according to particular contexts, related to gender divisions of labour, power and control, and may include issues such as legal rights, domestic violence, equal wages and women’s control over their bodies. Meeting SGNs assists women to achieve greater equality and change existing roles, thereby challenging women’s subordinate position. They are more long term and less visible than practical gender needs. 

Gender Expression: Refers to the ways in which people externally communicate their gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, haircut, voice, and other forms of presentation. Gender expression also works the other way as people assign gender to others based on their appearance, mannerisms, and other gendered characteristics. Sometimes, transgender people seek to match their physical expression with their gender identity, rather than their birth-assigned sex. Gender expression should not be viewed as an indication of sexual orientation.

Gender Parity: is a numerical concept. Gender parity concerns relative equality in terms of numbers and proportions of men and women, girls and boys. Gender parity addresses the ratio of female-to male values (or males-to-females, in certain cases) of a given indicator.

Cisgender (Gender Normative):  Refers to people whose sex assignment at birth corresponds to their gender identity and expression.

Gender typing is the process by which children acquire not only a gender identity but also the motives, values, and behaviors considered appropriate in their culture for members of their biological sex.

Gender Fluidity: Gender fluidity conveys a wider, more flexible range of gender expression, with interests and behaviors that may even change from day to day. Gender fluid children do not feel confined by restrictive boundaries of stereotypical expectations of girls or boys. In other words, a child may feel they are a girl some days and a boy on others, or possibly feel that neither term describes them accurately.

Gender Planning: Refers to the process of planning developmental programmes and projects that are gender sensitive and which take into account the impact of differing gender roles and gender needs of women and men in the target community or sector. It involves the selection of appropriate approaches to address not only women and men’s practical needs, but which also identifies entry points for challenging unequal relations (ie. strategic needs) and to enhance the gender-responsiveness of policy dialogue. 

Gender-responsive Budget (GRB): Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is government planning,  programming and budgeting that contributes to the advancement of gender equality and the fulfillment of women's rights. It entails identifying and reflecting needed interventions to address gender gaps in sector and local government policies, plans and budgets. GRB also aims to analyze the gender-differentiated impact of revenue-raising policies and the allocation of domestic resources and Official Development Assistance.

Gender Balance is a human resource issue. It is about the equal participation of women and men in all areas of work (international and national staff at all levels, including at senior positions) and in programmes that agencies initiate or support (e.g. food distribution programmes). Achieving a balance in staffing patterns and creating a working environment that is conducive to a diverse workforce improves the overall effectiveness of our policies and programmes, and will enhance agencies’ capacity to better serve the entire population.

Gender-based Violence (GBV): GBV is an umbrella term for any harmful act that is perpetrated against a person’s will and that is based on socially ascribed (gender) differences between females and males. The nature and extent of specific types of GBV vary across cultures, countries and regions. Examples include sexual violence, including sexual exploitation/abuse and forced prostitution; domestic violence; trafficking; forced/early marriage; harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation; honour killings; and widow inheritance.

Gender Blindness: is the failure to recognize 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. Projects, programmes, policies and attitudes which are gender blind do not take into account these different roles and diverse needs, maintain status quo, and will not help transform the unequal structure of gender relations.

Gender Role. This is the set of roles, activities, expectations and behaviors assigned to females and males by society. Our culture recognizes two basic gender roles: Masculine (having the qualities attributed to males) and feminine (having the qualities attributed to females). People who step out of their socially assigned gender roles are sometimes referred to as transgender. Other cultures have three or more gender roles. Transgender. Sometimes used as an umbrella to describe anyone whose identity or behavior falls outside of stereotypical gender norms. More narrowly defined, it refers to an individual whose gender identity does not match their assigned birth gender. Being transgender does not imply any specific sexual orientation (attraction to people of a specific gender.) Therefore, transgender people may additionally identify with a variety of other sexual identities as well. 

Sexual Orientation. Term that refers to being romantically or sexually attracted to people of a specific gender. Our sexual orientation and our gender identity are separate, distinct parts of our overall identity. Although a child may not yet be aware of their sexual orientation, they usually have a strong sense of their gender identity.

Productive roles: Refer to the activities carried out be men and women in order to produce goods and services either for sale, exchange, or to meet the subsistence needs of the family. For example in agriculture, productive activities include plating, animal husbandry and gardening that refers to farmers themselves, or for other people at employees. 

Reproductive roles: Refer to the activities needed to ensure the reproduction of society's labour force. This includes child bearing, rearing, and care for family members such as children, elderly and workers. These tasks are done mostly by women. 

Community managing role: Activities undertaken primarily by women at the community level, as an extension of their reproductive role, to ensure the provision and maintenance of scarce resources of collective consumption such as water, health care and education. This is voluntary unpaid work undertaken in ‘free’ time. 

Community politics role: Activities undertaken primarily by men at the community level, organizing at the formal political level, often within the framework of national politics. This work is usually undertaken by men and may be paid directly or result in increased power and status. 

Triple role/ multiple burden:  These terms refer to the fact that women tend to work longer and more fragmented days than men as they are usually involved in three different gender roles  reproductive, productive and community work. 

Gender polarization is a concept in sociology by American psychologist Sandra Bem which states that societies tend to define femininity and masculinity as polar opposite genders, such that male-acceptable behaviors and attitudes are not seen as appropriate for women, and vice versa.

Criticism of the concept of gender

There have been two major kinds of criticism of the concept of gender.

Firstly it is based upon a false dichotomy between the biological and the social. This relates to a general criticism that sociology has tended to see the social as disembodied, with the infant as a tabula rasa upon which socialization may write at will, to produce social consciousness and action. The sex/gender distinction, it is said, is linked to a particular form of feminist politics that seeks the eradication of gender and a move towards androgyny; It leaves little space, for instance, for other feminist concerns with the biological politics of menstruation, contraception, reproductive technology, abortion, or the management of childbirth.

The second kind of criticism relates to the way in which the concept of gender focuses on differences between women and men at the expense of power and domination. Some writers would prefer to use the term patriarchy as the main organizing concept, in order to keep the question of power to the fore, both analytically and politically.

On a lighter note, ‘gender’ has been criticized as a prudish way of avoiding the word ‘sex’. It is true that gender has entered everyday speech in this sense, when people talk (for example) about ‘the opposite gender’. Some sociologists, too, are guilty of this when they refer to ‘gender roles’ or ‘gender discrimination’.

Biological Factors in Gender Differences: Hormones And Social Behavior

Sex- usually thought of as a biological term referring to ascribed genetic, anatomical, and hormonal differences between males and females, but it is actually determined by socially accepted biological criteria, e.g.: Intersexed- persons with ambiguous genitalia (usually ascribed one or another sex in different cultures)

About 1 babies in 1,000 are born intersexed, or hermaphroditic, which means having an abnormal chromosomal makeup and mixed or indeterminate male and female sex characteristics. 

This is a function of biological sex.  Gender is different because it relates to the way that a person behaves based on their biological sex.  In other words, we learn how to act manly or womanly based on the sex that we’re born into and society’s expectations of that sex.

Human Studies: Girls who have received testosterone or testosterone-like hormones prenatally have masculinized behavior. These girls are genetic females but their genetalia are typically masculinized at birth (enlarged clitoris, fused labia that resemble a scrotum). They often receive an operation to make her appear more feminine. These girls have masculinized behavior: Tomboyish, liked vigorous athletic activities, simply utilitarian clothing; little interest in dolls, babysitting, or caring for younger children, jewelry, cosmetics, or hair styles. They also had a more male-type achievement pattern and male-type attitudes toward sexuality. They preferred boys as playmates and boys' toys.

Hormones and Cognitive Skills

There is evidence for a critical period for brain organization and hemisphere lateralization (males more lateralized). Testosterone surge prenatally is responsible. This surge makes females process verbal information better and males process spatial information better.  Female fetuses exposed to abnormally high levels of androgens are better at spatial abilities. 

Sex can be changed