Unit-IV

1. Gender sensitization

Gender sensitization is the process of becoming sensitive to the gender bias which is usually
applied to men and women in their productive roles, and changing attitudes and behavior to
replace bias with balance.

The concept of gender sensitivity has been developed as a way to reduce barriers to personal and
economic development created by sexism. Gender sensitivity helps to generate respect for the
individual regardless of sex.

By gender sensitivity, we mean the level of awareness, appreciation of the need to maintain at
reasonable levels the gender differentiation between the male and female

Gender and Sex

Sex refers to the natural distinguishing variable based on biological characteristic of being a
woman or a man. It refers to physical attributes pertaining to a person’s body contours, features,
genitals, hormones, genes, chromosomes and reproductive organs. Gender refers to roles,
attributes and values assigned by culture and society to women and men. These roles, attitudes
and values define the behaviors of women and men and the relationship between them. They are
created and maintained by social institutions such as families, governments, communities,
schools, churches and media. Because of gender, certain roles, traits and characteristics are
assigned or ascribed distinctly and strictly to women or to men.

Women and Education

It is not only in respect of the vote that the law had denied women were ‘persons’. They were
also excluded, following the same reasoning from many professions including medicine and the
law. Although women could be nurses, they were barred from qualifying as doctors or as
solicitors and barristers.

Marriage

While female children were kept within the private sphere by paternal authority, many adult
women continued to be under male authority in the home through the institution of marriage. The
law gave men power over women in the home, sometimes explicitly and sometimes by lack of
regulation. For example, the doctrine of coverture (a woman’s existence being legally ‘covered’
by husband’s) gave men legal rights while depriving women of theirs; at the same time, the law
did little to protect women from abuses by their husbands.

Penal Code

Under Section 55, Penal Code (applicable in Northern Nigeria), husbands are permitted to
reasonably chastise their wives. Section 55(10) provides further that:
Nothing is an offence which does not amount to the infliction of grievous harm upon a person
and which is done by a husband for the purpose of correcting his wife, such husband and wife
being subject to any customary law in which the correction is recognized as lawful.

Compulsion by Husband

Section 33 of Criminal Code provides as follows:

A married woman is not free from criminal responsibilities for doing or omitting to do an act
merely because the act for omission takes place in presence of her husband.

But a wife of a Christian marriage is not criminally responsible for doing or omitting to do an act
which she is actually compelled by her husband to do or omit to do and which is done or omitted
to be done in his presence, except in the case of an act or omission which would constitute an
offence punishable with death or an offence of which grievous harm to the person of another or
an intention to cause such harm, is an element, in which case the presence of her husband is
immaterial.

Section 34 of the Criminal Code goes on to state that there is no conspiracy between husband
and wife alone. This section like the previous section applies only to a husband and wife of
Christian marriage. The statute discriminates between Christian (monogamous) marriages and
polygamous marriages.

Rape

Under the Criminal Code, a husband cannot be guilty of rape upon his wife. According to section
6 of the Criminal Code, unlawful carnal knowledge means carnal connection which takes place
otherwise than between husband and wife.

Assaults

Under the Criminal Code, there is a distinction between assaults committed against a male
person and a female person. Under Section 353 of the Criminal Code, any person who
unlawfully and indecently assaults any male person is guilty of a felony and is liable to
imprisonment for three years. The section goes further to state that such offender cannot be
arrested without warrant.

Police Act

Regulation 118 (g) provides that a woman police desirous of joining the police force must be
unmarried. Under Regulation 124 of the Police Act, a female officer desirous of getting married
must first apply in writing to the Commissioner of Police for the state police command in which
she is serving, requesting for permission to marrying and giving the name, address and
occupation of the person she intends to marry. Permission will be granted for marriage if the
intended husband is of good character and the women police officer has served in the force for a
period of not less than 3 years.

Labor Matters
Employment is an area where women are most discriminated against. According to Section 55(1)
of the Labor Act, no woman should be employed on night work in a public or private industrial
undertaking … or in any agricultural undertaking". Section 55(7) provides an exception for
women nurses and women holding responsible positions of management who are not ordinarily
engaged in manual labor.

Evidence Act [22]

The Evidence Act confers special defenses only on husbands and wives of statutory marriages.
An illustrative case in point is the different defenses available in criminal charges to a wife of a
statutory marriage and a woman married under customary law

2. Socialization 

It is the process through which people are taught to be proficient members of a society. It
describes the ways that people come to understand societal norms and expectations, to accept
society’s beliefs, and to be aware of societal values. Socialization is not the same
as socializing (interacting with others, like family, friends, and coworkers); to be precise, it is
a sociological process that occurs through socializing.

Meaning of Socialization:
Socialization, according to MacIver, “is the process by which social beings establish wider and
profounder relationships with one another, in which they become more bound up with, and moa
perceptive of the personality of themselves and of others and build up the complex structure of
nearer and wider association.”

Socialization is critical both to individuals and to the societies in which they live. It illustrates
how completely intertwined human beings and their social worlds are

Socialism:
Socialism is a theory, not a quality or a process. It is a theory of future structure of society. So
much vagueness surrounds this word ‘socialism’ that it is very difficult to define it in exact
terms. Every person and party brand themselves as socialist. Very appropriately Load had
compared socialism to a hat which has lost its shape because everyone wears it.

Process of Socialization:
The social order is maintained largely by socialization. Unless the individuals behave in
accordance with the norms of the group it is going to disintegrate. But how does the process of
socialization begin to work? It is said that the working of the process starts long before the child
is born.
Factors of the Process of Socialization:
Socialization, as said above, is the process of learning group norms, habits and ideals. There are
four factors of this process of learning. These are imitation, suggestion, identification and
language.

A brief description of these four factors is necessary:

(i) Imitation:
Imitation is copying by an individual of the actions of another. Mead defines it as “self-conscious
assumption of another’s acts or roles.” Thus when the child attempts to walk impressively like
his father swinging a stick and wearing spectacles, he is imitating. Imitation may be conscious or
unconscious, spontaneous or deliberate, perceptual or ideational. In imitation the person
imitating performs exactly the same activity as the one being performed before him.

Imitation is the main factor in the process of socialization of the child. Through it he learns many
social behaviour patterns. The child as compared to adult possesses the greatest capacity for
imitation. Language and pronunciation are acquired by the child only through imitation. It is
because of the tendency to imitate that children are so susceptible to the influence of their parents
and friends whose behaviour they imitate indiscriminately.

(ii) Suggestion:
According to McDougall, “suggestion is the process of communication resulting in the
acceptance with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of logically adequate
grounds for its acceptance.”

Suggestion is the process of communicating information which has no logical or self-evident

basis. It is devoid of rational persuasion. It may he conveyed through language, pictures or some
similar medium.

Suggestion influences not only behaviour with others but also one’s own private and individual
behaviour. In trade, industry, politics, education and every other field people acquainted with
psychological facts make use of suggestion to have their ideas and notions accepted by other
people and to make the latter behave according to their wishes. Actually, propaganda and
advertising are based on the fundamental psychological principles of suggestion.

The suggestibility of the child is greater than that of the adult because in childhood he is devoid
of maturity and reason. The suggestibility of an individual decreases with an increase in his
maturity and mental level. It may be however necessary to keep in mind that there be able to be a
difference in the suggestibility of children belonging to different societies and also the same
society.
There are several external and internal conditions which enhance suggestibility. Thus
temperament, intellectual ability, ignorance, inhibition, dissociation, emotional excitement and
fatigue are some of the internal conditions of suggestibility. Among the external conditions
mention may be made of group situation, prestige of the suggested and public opinion.

(iii) Identification:
In his early age, the child cannot make any distinction between his organism and environment.
Most of his actions are random. They are natural reactions of which he is not conscious. As he
grows in age, he comes to know of the nature of things which satisfy his needs. Such things
become the object of his identification.

Thus the toys with which he plays, the picture-book which he enjoys or looking at the mother
who feeds him become the objects of his identification. The speed and area of identification
increase with the growth in age. Through identification he becomes sociable.

(iv) Language:
Language is the medium of social intercourse. It is the means of cultural transmission. At first
the child utters some random syllables which have no meaning, but gradually he comes to learn
his mother-tongue. Therein it has already been told that language moulds the personality of the
individual from infancy.

 Elements of Socialization:
here are three elements which play their part in the socialization process of the individual.
They are:
(i) The physical and psychological heritage of the individual.

(ii) The environment in which he is born, and

(iii) Culture in which he is because of the action a interaction between these elements.

Role of Socialization:
The role of socialization in the development of human mentality and human behavior

 Gender socialization: The process of educating and instructing males and females as to
the norms, behaviors, values, and beliefs of group membership as men or women.
 Socialization prepares people to participate in a social group by teaching them its norms
and expectations.
 Socialization has three primary goals: teaching impulse control and developing a
conscience, preparing people to perform certain social roles, and cultivating shared
sources of meaning and value.
  Socialization is culturally specific, but this does not mean certain cultures are better or
worse than others.
The gender equality is a value of socialization. The gender socialization begins before the
child come to life. With gender socialization we understand the processes through which
individuals, based on their sex learn to behave, feel, think according to the forms that in the
social aspect are appropriate for their sex that they see the world in the light of gender
differences, where every individual, female or male is placed and set objects and beings that
surround him, within a social and symbolic hierarchy between men and women, between
masculinity and femininity

Socialization as Adults
This socialization doesn’t end at adulthood. As adults, we continue to receive messages that tell
us how and what to be based on our gender and the messages are very similar to what we start
learning as children. Men are expected to be strong and “manly” without any feminine
characteristics and women are expected to be passive and polite

3. Discrimination against women

Discrimination against women is a global issue as even in developed Western nations women
experience biasness on the basis of their gender. The study aim is to find out the causes of low
education, poor socio-economic conditions, societal trends, religious influence, culture and
participation in decision making that have led to gender discrimination.

Gender inequality in India refers to health, education, economic and political inequalities

between men and women in India. Various international gender inequality indices rank India
differently on each of these factors, as well as on a composite basis, and these indices are
controversial.
Gender inequalities, and its social causes, impact India's sex ratio, women's health over their
lifetimes, their educational attainment, and economic conditions. Gender inequality in India is a
multifaceted issue that concerns men and women alike. Some argue that some gender equality
measures, place men at a disadvantage. However, when India’s population is examined as a
whole, women are at a disadvantage in several important ways.

Causes of gender discrimination

 Discrimination in education
 Schooling
UNICEF's measure of attendance rate and Gender Equality in Education Index (GEEI) capture
the quality of education. Despite some gains, India needs to triple its rate of improvement to
reach GEEI score of 95% by 2015 under the Millennium Development Goals. In rural India girls
continue to be less educated than the boys.According to a 1998 report by U.S. Department of
Commerce, the chief barrier to female education in India are inadequate school facilities (such as
sanitary facilities), shortage of female teachers and gender bias in curriculum (majority of the
female characters being depicted as weak and helpless vs. strong, adventurous, and intelligent
men with high prestige jobs)
Literacy

Though it is gradually rising, the female literacy rate in India is lower than the male literacy
rate. According to Census of India 2011, literacy rate of females is 65.46% compared to males
which are 82.14%. Compared to boys, far fewer girls are enrolled in the schools, and many of
them drop out

Reservations for female students

 Income disparities linked to job stratification
The gender pay gap is the average difference between men's and women's
aggregate wages or salaries, The gap is due to a variety of factors, including differences in
education choices, differences in preferred job and industry, differences in the types of positions
held by men and women, differences in the type of jobs men typically go into as opposed to
women (especially highly paid high risk jobs), differences in amount of work experiences,
difference in length of the work week, and breaks in employment. These factors resolve 60% to
75% of the pay gap, depending on the source. Various explanations for the remaining 25% to
40% have been suggested, including women's lower willingness and ability to negotiate salaries
and sexual discrimination

 Social behavior discrimination

The reliable birth control, young men and women had more reason to delay marriage. This
meant that the marriage market available to any women who "delay[ed] marriage to pursue a
career... would not be as depleted. Thus the Pill could have influenced women's careers, college
majors, professional degrees, and the age at marriage.

 Discrimination in healthcare

On health and survival measures, international standards consider the birth sex ratio implied
sex-selective abortion, and gender inequality between women's and men's life expectancy and
relative number of years that women live compared to men in good health by taking into
account the years lost to violence, disease, malnutrition or other relevant factors.

 Labor participation and wages

 Occupational inequalities

Military service
Women are not allowed to have combat roles in the armed forces, a recommendation was made
that female officers be excluded from induction in close combat arms.
 Gender inequality in relationships
Gender equality in relationships has been growing over the years but for the majority of
relationships, the power lies with the male. [66] Even now men and women present themselves as
divided along gender lines.

 Gender inequalities in relation to technology

 Property inheritance
Access to credit
 Although laws are supportive of lending to women and Microcredit programs targeted to
women are prolific, women often lack collateral for bank loans due to low levels of property
ownership and microcredit schemes have come under scrutiny for coercive lending practices.
Although many microcredit programs have been successful and prompted community-based
women's self-help groups, a 2012 review of microcredit practices found that women are
contacted by multiple lenders and as a result, take on too many loans and overextend their
credit

1. Health Issues of Women

Health Issues Specific to Women's Health

Many women’s health conditions go undiagnosed and most drug trials do not include female test
subjects. Even so, women bear exclusive health concerns, Such as

 Heart Disease. In heart disease causes one in every four deaths among women

 Breast Cancer – which is typically originates in the lining of the milk ducts, can spread to
other organs, and is the most aggressive cancer affecting the global female population.
Initially, women afflicted with breast cancer may develop breast lumps. Most breast lumps are
nonthreatening, but it is important for women to have each one checked by a care provider.

 Ovarian and Cervical Cancer- Many people are not aware of the differences between
ovarian and cervical cancer Cervical cancer originates in the lower uterus, while ovarian
cancer starts in the fallopian tubes. While both conditions cause similar pain, cervical cancer
also causes discharge and pain during intercourse. While ovarian cancer presents extremely
vague symptoms, the condition is very complex. Finally, Pap smears detect cervical but not
ovarian cancer.

 Gynecological Health - Bleeding and discharge are a normal part of the menstrual cycle. the
symptoms during menstruation may indicate health issues such as bleeding between
 menstruations and frequent urinating, can mimic other health conditions. Vaginal issues could
also indicate serious problems such as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or reproductive
tract cancer. While care providers might treat mild infections easily, if left unchecked, they
can lead to conditions such as infertility or kidney failure.

 Pregnancy Issues - Pre-existing conditions can worsen during pregnancy, threatening the
health of a mother and her child. Asthma, diabetes, and depression can harm the mother and
child during pregnancy if not managed properly.

Pregnancy can cause a healthy mother’s red blood cell count to drop, a condition called anemia,
or induce depression. Another problem arises when a reproductive cell implants outside the
uterus, making further gestation unfeasible. Fortunately, obstetricians can manage and treat
common and rare health issues that emerge during pregnancies.

 Autoimmune Diseases- Autoimmune disease occurs when body cells that eliminate threats,
such as viruses, attack healthy cells. As this condition continues to escalate among the
population, researchers remain baffled as to why the condition affects mostly women. While
many distinct autoimmune diseases exist, most share symptoms such as:
● Exhaustion
● Mild fever
● Pain
● Skin irritation
● Vertigo
 Depression and Anxiety - Natural hormonal fluctuations can lead to depression or
anxiety. Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) occurs commonly among women, while premenstrual
dysmorphic disorder (PMDD) presents similar, but greatly intensified, symptoms. Shortly after
birth, many mothers acquire a form of depression called the “baby blues,” but perinatal
depression causes similar – but much stronger – concerns, emotional shifts, sadness, and
tiredness. Perimenopause, the shift into menopause, can also cause depression. No matter how
intense the symptoms, care providers can provide relief with prescription or therapeutic
treatments.
 Health Technology for Women.
The new technologies will emerge to assist care providers in treating women’s health conditions.
Researchers have developed innovative medical treatments, such as a patient operated device
that prepares women for breast reconstruction using carbon dioxide instead of needles and a
blood test that can detect whether gestation has started outside of the fallopian tubes. Other
developing medical technologies include an at home, do-it-yourself Pap smear and a test that
determines pregnancy using saliva as a sample.

4. Sexual harassment’
Sexual harassment’ is any form of unwelcome sexual behavior that’s offensive, humiliating or
intimidating. Most importantly, it’s against the law. Being sexually harassed affects people in
different ways. If you’re experiencing harassment, there are many things you can do about it.

Sexual harassment can include someone:

 touching, grabbing or making other physical contact with you without your consent
 making comments to you that have a sexual meaning
 asking you for sex or sexual favours
 leering and staring at you
 displaying rude and offensive material so that you or others can see it
 making sexual gestures or suggestive body movements towards you
 cracking sexual jokes and comments around or to you
 questioning you about your sex life
 insulting you with sexual comments
 Committing a criminal offence against you, such as making an obscene phone call,
indecently exposing themselves or sexually assaulting you.