5 Gender Sensitivity
5 Gender Sensitivity
SERVICE
TRAINING
PROGRAM
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Learner’s Guide
Module 5: GENDER SENSITIVITY
Joyce Christine D. Colon, MA (Social Sciences)
Overview
Gender is a social construction that defines the roles, relations and identity of men
and women. In turn, it also gives way to gender disparity, disadvantage and
discrimination. Consciousness raising and awareness on these challenges and issues
related to gender is essential. It is in this context that gender sensitivity is relevant.
Gender sensitivity refers to the ability to recognize gender issues and to recognize
women’s different perceptions and interests arising from their different social position
and gender roles. It builds on an understanding of gender differences and refers to taking
an approach that is responsive to gender differences and relations between genders. It
is one of the first steps in promoting a gender fair society.
Learning Outcomes
At birth, when doctors say, “It’s a boy!” brings varying cultural responses. In some
countries, this exuberance results in blue blankets, toys associated with males and a host
of other gender socialization messages. In some Asian societies, boys are sources of great
rejoicing, whereas girls maybe seen as a burden. All social interactions and the
institutions in which the interaction occur are gendered in some manner. Much of what
we stereotypically consider to be “natural” male or female behavior (driven by biology),
are sometimes imposed by cultural expectations of how men and women should behave.
The concept of gender and sex has biological roots, but social constructionism
holds that even biological facts become interpreted through the screen of cultural
assumptions. Beginning at birth, each individual passes through many stages of life
development. At each stage, there are messages that reinforce appropriate gender
behavior and gender roles in that society.
Sex is a natural attribute that a person is born with. Gender, on the other hand, is
created, produced, reproduced, and maintained by social institutions, a process otherwise
referred to as the social construction of gender. Because gender roles, attitudes,
behaviors, characteristics and expectations are learned, they can also be unlearned.
Sex Gender
Congenital and biological Culturally and socially dictated
Given at birth Socially constructed
Biological and physiological characteristics Roles, behaviors, activities, and
that define men and women attributes that a given society
considers appropriate for men and
women.
Natural Learned
Male or female Masculine or feminine
Sex is fixed Gender is fluid
What you were born with Due to social and cultural conditioning
Sex roles are socially coded behaviors and practices on the basis of one’s sex.
Meanwhile, gender roles refer to normative expectations about the division of labor
between sexes and to gender-related rules about social interactions that exist within a
particular cultural-historical context. These roles are commonly assigned tasks or
expected behaviors linked to an individual’s sex-determined statuses. They are taught
and reinforced by society’s structures and institutions, such as the family, school, peers,
community, church, government and media. Repeated exposure to these agents over
time leads men and women into a false sense that they are acting naturally rather than
following a socially constructed role.
The learning of gender roles begins in early childhood. Girls are taught to be
feminine, while boys are taught to be masculine. Stereotyped feminine traits include being
gentle, kind, loving, nurturing and emotional, to name a few. Meanwhile, stereotyped
masculine traits, for example, include being aggressive, tough, sports-oriented,
testosterone driven, strong and unemotional. Gender-linked characterizations can lead,
developed and evolved into gender issues. These are gender-linked beliefs (ideas,
attitudes and behavior), processes, systems, conditions and situations that block an
individual’s attainment of full or of a satisfying life.
Gender roles have resulted in gender bias manifested in the following: multiple
burden, abuse and gender-based violence, marginalization and subordination as well as
sexism and gender stereotyping.
Sexism refers to prejudiced attitudes and behavior towards either sex based on
cultural and social stereotypes. Institutional sexism is seen in the extension of traditional
roles of mothers to types of courses, discriminatory hiring practices as well as
stereotyping of certain work and lifestyles as “male” or “female”. Widespread
discriminatory practices against women disenfranchise them and keep them from full
participation in the society.
Sexism is also seen in regarding women and defining them with regard to their
sexual availability and attractiveness to men. Moreover, it is reinforced when patriarchy
and androcentrism combine to perpetuate beliefs that gender roles are biologically
determined and, therefore, unalterable.
Gender-based abuse and violence refers to any act of gender based violence
which leads to, or may lead to, physical, sexual or psychological harm, against a person
on the basis of gender or social role in a society or culture, including threats, beatings,
violence related to dowry, non-marital violence, rape, sexual violence related to
exploitation, sexual harassment and intimidation in the workplace or school, trafficking in
women, sexual exploitation and forced prostitution. This type of violence is perpetrated
in the name of gender and predominantly refers to men’s violence towards women and
children. However, gender-based violence also recognizes that it is possible for males to
be survivors and for women to be perpetrators of violence, too.
• Physical violence which refers to acts that include bodily or physical harm
• Sexual violence
• Psychological violence and abuse
• Economic abuse
Physical abuse refers to acts that include bodily or physical harm. Sexual violence
includes acts which are sexual in nature, committed against a woman or her child. It
includes, but is not limited to, rape, sexual harassment, acts of lasciviousness, treating a
woman or her child as a sex object, making demeaning and sexually suggestive remarks
and physically attacking the sexual parts of the victim’s body. It also includes the
following:
forcing the woman or her child to do indecent acts and/or make films
thereof,
forcing the wife and mistress/lover to live in the conjugal home or sleep
together in the same room with the abuser;
acts causing or attempting to cause the victim to engage in any sexual
activity by force, threat of force, physical or other harm or threat of physical
or other harm or coercion;
prostituting the woman or her child.
Discrimination
Gender Equality
▪ Gender equality means that women and men enjoy the same status and
conditions and have equal opportunity for realizing their potential to
contribute to the political, economic, social and cultural development of
their countries. They should also benefit equally from the results of
development.
▪ Gender equality refers to the equality of women and men in:
Gender Equity
Patriarchy
▪ The “rule of the father,” or a universal political structure that favors men
over women. It was originally used by anthropologists to describe the social
structure in which the patriarch has absolute power over everyone else in
the family.
Public/Private Dichotomy
▪ A distinction that serves to maintain the division of the economy into production
and reproduction functions. Production work occurs in the public arena and is given
value. Goods and services in this sector are fully recognized, remunerated, and
reflected in official statistics. Outputs in the reproductive or domestic sphere,
however, do not have any value and are considered as merely sustaining the
requirements of those in the productive sector.
▪ The public sphere is usually regarded as the domain of men, who are perceived to
have a primary status in society because they perform what are considered major
functions. Men’s exposure in the public sector makes them the dominant gender
in all spheres of life. They are able to participate fully in economic, political and
cultural endeavors. Women, however, are relegated to the private arena of the
home. They take on reproductive functions which are regarded as secondary
pursuits.
▪ A slogan reflecting how women discovered that problems they had once
thought to be personal and private were shared by women in general,
setting in train a process of placing women’s shared experiences in a
political framework that challenged existing power relations between
women and men.
Activity 2
Try this exercise which aims to challenge your assumptions about how biology and
culture interact to shape us as men and women. Write down the first things that come
to mind in response to the following questions:
1. Women, if you wake up tomorrow and you are a man, how will your life be
different?
2. Men, if you wake up tomorrow as a woman, how will your life be different?
Think about it. Start from the minute you wake up. Trace your morning routine.
What you will you wear? What will you eat? What will you experience in school? Would
suddenly being of the opposite sex change what you could normally do or say, or where
you could go? Will people respond to you differently? Which differences will be
determined by the change in your biology, and which ones by cultural expectations of
what it means to be a man or a woman? (Adapted from Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit
for a Global Age, 2014)
Activity 3
Form a group with six members. Make at least two infographics that show and
identify the various gender issues and concerns in the workplace, school, home, and in
the community.
References
Al Justa, Unan. Working with Gender-Based Violence Survivors. United Nations and
Works.
Ballantine, Jeanne and Keith Roberts (2011). Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology.
Canada: Sage.
Little William and Ron McGivern. Gender, Sex and Sexuality, In Introduction to Sociology.
Nov. 22, 2020. Available at:
https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontosociology/chapter/chapter12-gender-sex-
and-sexuality/
Gender 101: GAD Dictionary Transforming Government to Think and Act GAD: A
Handbook on Gender and Development Training. Manila: National Commission
on the Role of Filipino Women, 2003.
Guest, Kenneth (2014. Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for Global Age. New York; W.W.
Publishing.
Kelly, Gary (2001. Sexuality Today: The Human Perspective. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001.
Kintanar, Thelma (2013). Gender Concerns on Campus. Manila: U.P. Center for Women’s
Studies.
Masilungan, Elena. State of the Filipino Women Report: 2015 Highlights. Manila:
Philippine Commission on Women, 2016.
Teaching Gender, Sexuality and Reproductive Health. Manila: Ford Foundation, 2006.