NORTH LUZON PHILIPPINES STATE COLLEGE

Adal a dekalidad, dur-as ti panagbiag.

GE Elect 2 – GENDER AND SOCIETY

LESSON 1: GENDER AND SEXUALITY

OVERVIEW
In this lesson the following questions will be discussed: How sex, gender, or sexual
identity shape the way you learn, love, work, prosper, and suffer?; What is sex and what is
gender?; What is deeply social about an individual’s sexuality?; How do our social
relationships govern our gender identity and sexual practices?; and, the sociological experience
of sex, sexuality and gender. We also include in our discussion how these categories are both
constituted by and constitute beliefs and social institutions.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
When you finish this lesson, you should be able to:
a. discuss the relevance of gender-equal-society to social, cultural, economic
and political attributes, opportunities and responsibilities;
b. describe the concepts and definitions of sex and gender in diverse society;
c. explain how sex, gender and sexual identity shape an individual on how to
learn, love, work, prosper and suffer; and
d. explain how social relationships govern gender identity and sexual practices.

DISCUSSION:

GENDER EQUAL SOCIETY

When we speak of “Gender Equal Society:, we are referring to a society in which both
men and women, as equal members, have the opportunity to participate in all kinds of social
activities, equally enjoy political, economic and cultural benefits and share responsibilities.
In such society, the human rights of men and women are equally respected. Thus, Gender
Equal Society is a gender equal society built by men and women as equal partners.

GENDER IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION

1. Biological sex: attributes such as anatomy, chromosomes, and hormones that is usually
assigned at birth and inform whether a person is male, female or intersex.

2. Gender identity: An individual’s internal sense of being a man, a woman, neither of

these, both, and so on it is one’s inner sense of being and one’s own understanding of how
one relates to the gender binary. With the exception of a gender people, who often do not
have an internal sense of gender, most people have a gender identity.

3. Sexual Identity
• Your sexual identity is based on your feelings, attractions, and desires.
• If you don’t experience sexual desire or attraction, you may identify as asexual.
• Sexual identity is fluid and can change throughout your life.

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LESSON 1: GENDER AND SOCIETY
 NORTH LUZON PHILIPPINES STATE COLLEGE
Adal a dekalidad, dur-as ti panagbiag.

• There is a difference between sexual identity and sexual behavior. For

example, you may consider yourself straight but hook up with people of your
own gender sometimes.

4. Gender expression
The ways in which a person manifests masculinity, femininity, both, or neither through
appearance, behavior, dress, speech patterns, preferences and more.

GENDER CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS

Sex refers to biological and genetically differences of males and females, according to
their physiology and reproductive capabilities.
Gender represents the economic, social, political and cultural qualities and opportunities
associated with being women and men. It is a socially constructed definition of the
relationship between sexes.

Gender role Sexologist John Money, created the term gender role in 1955. Gender role
defined as the actions or responses that may reveal their status as boy, man, girl, or woman.

Gender Analysis is a collection and analysis of sex-disaggregated information:

➢ Men and women perform different roles
➢ Leads to different experience, knowledge, talents and needs
➢ Facilitates the strategic use of distinct knowledge skills possessed by men and
women.

Gender Equity
The process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, measures must
be taken to compensate for historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men
from operating on a level playing field.

Gender Mainstreaming
This is the process of incorporating a gender perspective into policies, strategies,
programs, project activities and administrative functions.

Importance of gender mainstreaming

a. It puts people at the heart of policy making
b. It leads to better government (gender neutral)
c. Involves both women and men and makes full use of human resources
d. It makes gender equality issues visible in the mainstream of society
e. It takes into account the diversity among women and men.

Gender Equality
This refers to equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities that all persons
should enjoy regardless of whether one is born male or female. Equal visibility,
empowerment and participation of both sexes in all spheres of public and private life.
In the world of work, equality between women and men includes the following
elements:
a. Equality of opportunity and treatment and employment
b. Equal remuneration for work of equal value

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LESSON 1: GENDER AND SOCIETY
 NORTH LUZON PHILIPPINES STATE COLLEGE
Adal a dekalidad, dur-as ti panagbiag.

c. Equal access to safe and healthy working environments and to social security
d. Equality in association and collective bargaining
e. Equality of obtaining meaningful career development
f. Equal participation in decision-making at all levels

Gender Inequality
Refers to unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender.
It arises from differences in socially constructed gender roles.

Basic concept of gender inequality

a. Gender inequality in the workplace, i.e unequal pay, unfair promotion
b. Types of Gender Discrimination
c. Sex discrimination or gender inequality is unequal treatment based solely on
gender:
• Separate restroom facilities is not discrimination but using separate
criteria for promotion is discriminatory.
• Failure to provide equal pay for equal work is discrimination as are
criteria for bonuses based on gender.
• Job offers and hiring based on gender or stereotypes about gender is
discriminatory, i.e Midwives are traditionally associated with one gender.
d. Harassment in the workplace includes bullying and sexual harassment.
Off-color or improper jokes, suggestive photos and inappropriate
physical contact and unwanted sexual proposals.
Promises of promotion or other benefits made to an employee by an
upper echelon employer or manager in return for sexual favors is sexual harassment.

Ten extreme examples of gender inequality

1. Forbidden from driving
In Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive, even bikes and men are not
allowed to drive women they are not closely related to.
The dilemma of the Kingdom is how to get the thousands of girls to school on
buses that can only be driven by men.

2. Clothing requirements
Muslim women usually wears head to toe garments. Sometimes they are attack
by individuals for not covering up in public.

3. Right to divorce
In many countries, husbands easily divorce their spouses, but wives access to
divorce is extremely limited and confront with legal and financial obstacles.
In Lebanon, battered women cannot file for divorce on the basis of abuse
without the testimony of an eyewitness, a medical certificate from a doctor is simply
not good enough.
In Egypt, women can now legally initiate a divorce without cause, they must
agree not only to renounce all rights to the couple’s finances but also repay their
dowries. Essentially, they must to buy their freedom.

4. Access to education

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LESSON 1: GENDER AND SOCIETY
NORTH LUZON PHILIPPINES STATE COLLEGE
Adal a dekalidad, dur-as ti panagbiag.

In many areas of Afghanistan, girls are often taken out of school when they hit
puberty. Reluctance to send girls and boys to the same school after third grade as
well as security threats to girls walking to school and attending classes all
contributes to low enrolment for girls.
Lack of female teachers in a country where girls cannot be taught by men after
a certain age.
Taliban women are still struggling to see their rights fulfilled.
Literacy rate among Afghan women are low.

5. Right to travel
In Egypt and Bahrain, husbands can file an official complaint at the airport to
forbid their wives from leaving the country for any reason.
In Iraq, Libya, Joran, Morocco, Oman and Yemen, married women must have
their husband’s written permission to travel abroad and may be prevented from
doing so for any reason.
In Saudi Arabia, women must obtain written permission from their closest male
relative to leave the country or travel on public transportation between different
parts of the Kingdom.

6. Victims of violence
In many countries even though domestic violence is a widespread problem, no
specific laws or provisions exist to penalize domestic violence.
Domestic violence is generally considered to be a private matter outside the
state’s jurisdiction.
Battered women are told to go home if they attempt to file a complaint with the
police.
Few shelters exist to protect women who fear for their lives.
Spousal rape has not been criminalized.
Penal codes in some countries, contain provisions that authorize the police and
judges to drop charges against a rapist if he agrees to marry his victim.

7. Custody rights
In Bahrain, where family law is not codified, judges have complete power to
deny women custody of their children for the most arbitrary (subjective) reason.
Bahraini women who have been courageous enough to expose and challenge
these violations in 2003 were sued for slander by eleven family court judges.

8. Citizenship
Egypt have permitted only fathers to pass citizenship on to their children.
Women married to non-nationals are denied to this fundamental rights.

9. Sexual suppression
Many countries criminalize adult, consensual sex outside marriage.
In Morocco, women are much more likely to be charged with having violated
penal code prohibitions on sexual relations outside marriage than men.
Unmarried pregnant women are at risk with prosecution.
Moroccan code also considers rape of a virgin as an aggravating circumstance
of an assault, means the degree of punishment is determined by the sexual
experience of the victim.
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LESSON 1: GENDER AND SOCIETY
 NORTH LUZON PHILIPPINES STATE COLLEGE
Adal a dekalidad, dur-as ti panagbiag.

10. Female infanticide

China’s one child policy has heightened the disdain for female infants, abortion,
neglect, abandonment and infanticide have been known to occur to female infants.
The number of girls born being survive is less compared with the number of
boys due to huge number of female fetuses aborted, neglected and left to die.

Gender Stereo Types

Gender Stereo types are ideas that people have no masculinity or femininity:
What men and women of all generations should be like and are capable of doing, i.e: girls
are allowed to cry and boys are expected to be brave and do not cry, and women are better
housekeepers and men are better with machines.

Heterosexism
This refers to a presumption that everyone is heterosexual and or the belief that
heterosexual people are naturally superior to homosexual and bisexual people.

GENDER ORIENTATION
Sexual Orientation describes a person’s sexual or romantic attractions, also includes
sexual identity, sexual behaviors, and sexual desires.
Affection orientation describes the pattern of a person’s romantic attraction or the
gender of the people a person falls in love with or desires to partner with.

Three basic types of sexual orientations

1. Monosexual Sexual Orientations. People who are exclusively attracted to
members of only one gender. Sexual orientation labels used by monosexual people
which includes:
Gay generally refers to a man who is attracted to men. Sometimes refers
to all people who are attracted to people of the same sex; sometimes called
"homosexual".
Lesbian a woman who is attracted to women. Sometimes also or
alternately "same gender-loving woman" or "woman loving woman."
Straight: a man who is exclusively attracted to women or a woman
exclusively attracted to men; sometimes it refers to people whose sexualities are
societally normative also called “heterosexual.”

2. Polysexual Sexual Orientations. Some people are attracted to members of

multiple genders. Sexual orientation labels used by polysexual people include:
Bisexual: attracted to people of one's own gender and people of other gender(s).
Pansexual: attracted to people regardless of gender. Sometimes also or
alternately "omnisexual."
Queer: similar to pansexual, queer can be an identity label meaning that a
person is attracted to people of many genders; queer is a multi-faceted word with
more than one definition and use, and is viewed as offensive by some people.

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LESSON 1: GENDER AND SOCIETY
 NORTH LUZON PHILIPPINES STATE COLLEGE
Adal a dekalidad, dur-as ti panagbiag.

3. Asexual Sexual Orientation. Some people do not experience sexual attraction.

Most people this applies to identify as asexual.
Asexual meaning, not sexually attracted to anyone and/or no desire to act on
attraction to anyone. Does not necessarily mean sexless. Asexual people sometimes
do experience affectional (romantic) attraction.

REFERENCES:

1. Peralta et. al., Course module for Gender and Society: A Human Ecological Approach

2. Theoretical Perspective on Gender and Development. 3G e-Learning LLC, USA

3. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/factsheet2.pdf

4.http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/SHS/pdf/Gender-Mainstreaming.pdf

5. http://www.sociologyguide.com/gender/gender-socialization

6.http://www.zeepedia.com/read.php?gender_and_media_print_media_and_portrayal_of_gen
ders_gender_issues_in_psychology

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