Sex

Means the biological differences between women and men, which are universal, obvious and generally permanent.

Gender

Means the socially constructed differences in roles and responsibilities assigned to women and men in a given culture or location and the societal structures that support them. Every society has different ‘scripts’ for male and female members to follow. Thus members learn to act out their feminine or masculine role, much in the same way as every society has its own language. The term gender was first used by Ann Oakley and others in 1970s as analytical tools to understand the characteristics of men and women which are socially determined in contrasts to biological differences.

Gender Role

The role refers to the activities performed by men and women in different situations and in different times and within the different cultures, classes, castes, ethnic groups etc. The roles of men and women are shaped by various forces such as social, cultural, economic, environmental, religious and political. The gender roles may change depending on the socio-cultural dynamics of the society.

Triple Roles

Roles (tasks and responsibilities) men and women may have related to: production (producing money value), reproduction (the child bearing and rearing responsibilities required to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of labour force), community management/ community politics (producing community goods and well beings).

Gender Analysis

Gender analysis is a tool to better understand the realities of the women and men, whose lives are impacted by planned development. These include gender issues with respect to social relations; activities; access and control over resources, services, institutions of decision-making and networks of power and authority and needs, the distinct needs of men and women, both practical and strategic.

Access to Productive Resource

Refers to right and opportunity of men and women to use the resources as per one’s need to carryout his/ her activities.

Control over Productive Resources

Refers to the rights and power of men and women to decide on the use of the resources.

Practical Gender Needs

Practical gender needs are the needs women identify in their socially accepted roles. Practical gender needs do not challenge the gender division of labour or women’s sub-ordination in society, although arising out of them. PGNs are a response to immediate perceived and identified necessity within a specific context. They are practical in nature and often are concerned with inadequacies in living conditions such as water provisions, health care and employment.

Strategic Gender Interests

Strategic gender needs are the needs women identify because of their subordinate position to men in their society. These vary according to particular context. They relate to gender division of labour, power & control and may include such issues as legal rights, domestic violence, equal wages etc. meeting strategic needs helps women to achieve greater equality. It also changes existing role and therefore challenges women’s sub-ordinate position.

Gender Equality

Gender equality means that women and men enjoy the same status. It also means that women and men have equal conditions for realizing their full human rights and potential to contribute to national, political, economic, social and cultural development.

Gender equality is therefore the equal valuing by society of both the similarities and differences between women and men, and the varying roles that they play.

Gender Equity

Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, measures must often be available to compensate for historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from otherwise operating on a level playing field. Equity leads to equality.

Gender Blind

Failure to recognize that gender is an essential determinant of life choices available to people in society.

Gender Bias

Perception that both sexes are not equal and do not have similar rights to resources.

Gender Discrimination

Unfavourable treatment of individuals on the basis of their gender.

Gender Mainstreaming

Mainstreaming, a gender perspective, is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies and programmes, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women’s, as well as men’s concerns and experiences, an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve gender equality.

Women in Development (WID)

WID subscribes to the assumptions of modernization theory. Its programmes generally stress western values and target individuals as the catalysts for social change. Modernization theory identifies traditional societies as male-dominated and authoritarian compared to modern societies which are democratic and egalitarian. It usually seeks to integrate women into development by making more resources available to women. However, these efforts led to increase in women’s work load, reinforced inequalities, and widened the gap between men and women.

Women and Development (WAD)

It emerged from a critique of the modernization theory. The theoretical base of WAD is dependency theory and focuses on relationship between women and development process and examines the nature of integration. It is concerned with women’s productive role and assumes that once organizational structures become more equitable, women’s position would also improve.

Gender and Development (GAD)

The gender and development seeks to base interventions on the analysis of men’s and women’s roles. This approach was developed in the 1980s. It questions the basis of assigning specific gender roles. Recognizes that patriarchy operates within and across classes both inside and outside the home and oppresses women.

Gender Planning

An important underlying rationale of gender planning concerns the fact that men and women not only play different roles in society, with distinct levels of control over resources, but that they therefore often have different needs. As gender planning is done only on basis of gender needs, gender needs assessment is an important aspect of the whole process. Gender planning is undertaken with the objectives of achieving gender equity, equality and empowerment through practical and strategic gender needs.

Gender Sensitization

Gender sensitization is the process of changing the stereotype mindset of men and women, a mindset that strongly believes that men and women are ‘unequal entities’. Its goal is essentially to create a value system in society that accords explicit and spontaneous recognition to the contribution of women in socio-economic development, and respects their wisdom; a system that makes women sensible and courageous enough to recognize their own contribution and make them feel proud of. 

Gender sensitization should seek to change not only the impression  of men towards women i.e. the way men think of and treat women, but also the attitude of women i.e. the way women think of men and of themselves and their behaviour in this context.