UNIT 2 GENDER

Structure
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Objective
2.2 Meaning and Concept of Gender and Sex
2.2.1 Definition of Gender
2.2.2 Differences between Sex and Gender
2.2.3 Masculinity and Feminity

2.3 Life Cycle Approach and Gender Role

2.3.1 Life cycle Approach
2.3.2 Gender Roles

2.4 Violence and Gender

2.4.1 Physical
2.4.2 Emotional
2.4.3 Sexual
2.4.4 Forms of violence experienced by women
2.4.5 Female Foeticide and infanticide

2.5 Role of Teachers

2.5.1 Gender Sensitisation
2.5.2 Access to Services

2.6 Let Us Sum Up

2.7 Key Words
2.8 Answers to Check your Progress
2.9 References

2.0 OBJECTIVES
After completing this unit, you will be able to:
 describe the various concepts of gender and sex and gender role;
 differentiate between gender and sex; and
 develop awareness of various forms of gender based violence.

2.1 INTRODUCTION
In the previous unit you have read about Sex and Sexuality in details. This unit
describes about gender, its meaning, concept and various issues related to gender.
Gender describes all the socially-given attributes, roles and activities connected to
being a male or a female in a given society. Gender is related to how we are
perceived and expected to think an act as women and men because of the way
society is organized. Gender influences human options, conditions, and experiences. 19
Adolescent Sexuality The legal, political, economic, and cultural systems are all profoundly gendered.
We have diverse acts about politics, about violence, about economics, about
mass culture, about childhood and youth. Recognizing that they are all connected
is the basis of modern thought about gender.
Recognising the gender order is easy but to understand it is not. Writers like
Simone de Beauvoir and Juliet Mitchell, and social movements such as Women’s
Liberation have pointed to these gender patterns and tried to change them. In this
unit we will look at gender and other concepts connected to understanding gender,
gender based violence and the gender role.

2.2 MEANING AND CONCEPT OF GENDER

Let us now discuss the meaning, concept and definitions of sex and gender as
given below:
2.2.1 Definition of Gender
Gender refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviour, activities and attributes
that a particular society considers appropriate for men and women. In most
common terms gender means the cultural difference of women from men, based
on the biological division between male and female.
Gender is the structure of social relations that centres on the reproductive arena,
and the set of practices (governed by the structure) that brings reproductive
distinctions between bodies in to social processes.
‘Gender’ according to Scott’s pithy definition, is simply ‘a Social category imposed
on a sexed body’. Cultures construct differences in gender. These social
constructions attach themselves to behaviours, expectations, roles, representations,
and sometimes to values and beliefs that are specific to either men or women.
Gendered differences—those that society associates with men and women – have
no necessary biological component. Instead of biology, socially agreed upon and
constructed conduct, and the meanings cultures assign to that conduct, constitute
the area of gendered difference.
One way to interpret Beauvoir’s claim that one is not born but rather becomes
a woman is to take it as a claim about gender socialisation: females become
women through a process whereby they acquire feminine traits and learn feminine
behaviour. Masculinity and femininity are thought to be products of nurture or
how individuals are brought up. They are causally constructed (Haslanger 1995,
98): social forces either have a causal role in bringing gendered individuals into
existence or (to some substantial sense) shape the way we are qua women and
men. And the mechanism of construction is social learning. For instance, Kate
Millett takes gender differences to have “essentially cultural, rather than biological
bases” that result from differential treatment (1971, 28-9). For her, gender is “the
sum total of the parents’, the peers’, and the culture’s notions of what is appropriate
to each gender by way of temperament, character, interests, status, worth, gesture,
and expression” (Millett 1971, 31).
Simone de Beauvoir famously claimed that one is not born, but rather
becomes a woman, and that “social discrimination produces in women
moral and intellectual effects so profound that they appear to be caused
20 by nature” (Beauvoir 1972 [original 1949].
 Gender
2.2.2 Differences between Sex and Gender
In the early twentieth century, Margaret Mead was among the first explicitly to
forge a distinction between sex understood as a biological category, and sex or
gender roles understood as a social category. Mead’s ethnographic study, Sex
and Temperament in Three Societies (1935), argued that, ‘many, if not all, of
the personality traits which we have called masculine or feminine are as lightly
linked to sex as are the clothing, the manners, and the form of head-dress that
a society at a given period assigns to either sex.’ This prying apart of sex and
gender forms the basis for feminist efforts to displace biologically based assumptions
about women’s inferiority and/or the ‘naturalness’ of the maternal role. For feminism,
gender becomes a critical category by means of which women’s status can be
understood and transcended.
‘Gender is the social interpretation of sex’
“Sex” refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men
and women.
“Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and
attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.
“Male” and “female” are sex categories, while “masculine” and “feminine” are
gender categories. While your sex as male or female is a biological fact that is the
same in any culture, what that sex means in terms of your gender role as a ‘man’
or a ‘woman’ in society can be quite different cross culturally. Aspects of sex will
not vary substantially between different human societies, while aspects of gender
may vary greatly.
Some examples of sex characteristics:
 Women menstruate while men cannot
 Men have testicles while women do not
 Women have developed breasts that are usually capable of lactating, while
men do not
 Men generally have more massive bones than women
Some examples of gender characteristics:
 In the United States (and most other countries), women earn significantly less
money than men for similar work
 In Vietnam, many more men than women smoke, as female smoking has not
traditionally been considered appropriate
 In Saudi Arabia men are allowed to drive cars while women are not
 In most of the world, women do more housework than men.
Nicholson calls this ‘the coat-rack view’ of gender: our sexed bodies are like coat
racks and “provide the site upon which gender is constructed” (1994, 81). Gender
conceived of as masculinity and femininity is superimposed upon the ‘coat-rack’
of sex as each society imposes on sexed bodies their cultural conceptions of how
21
Adolescent Sexuality males and females should behave. This socially constructs gender differences – or
the amount of femininity/masculinity of a person – upon our sexed bodies. That
is, according to this interpretation, all humans are either male or female; their sex
is fixed. But cultures interpret sexed bodies differently and project different norms
on those bodies thereby creating feminine and masculine persons. Distinguishing
sex and gender, however, also enables the two to come apart: they are separable
in that one can be sexed male and yet be gendered a woman, or vice versa
(Haslanger 2000b; Stoljar 1995).
‘Man’ = male sex+ masculine social role
(A ‘real man’, ‘masculine’ or ‘manly’)
‘Woman’ = female sex + feminine social role
(A ‘real woman’, ‘feminine’ or ‘womanly’)
Activity 1
Discuss with your peer group some examples of gender characteristics in your
society.

2.2.3 Masculinity and Feminity

Masculinity and femininity are rooted in the intimacy of the earliest interactive
bonds between parents and the child. Each parent presents to the child his or her
own opposition between masculine and feminine, in a manner that differs according
to the baby’s sex.
Nancy Chodorow (1978; 1995) she holds that gender is a matter of having
feminine and masculine personalities that develop in early infancy as responses to
prevalent parenting practices. The Masculinity and Femininity dimension describes
how cultures differentiate on and not between gender roles. Masculine cultures
tend to be ambitious and need to excel.
Masculinity is manly character. It specifically describes men and boys. Masculinity
is defined as sexual dominance, femininity as sexual submissiveness: genders are
“created through the eroticization of dominance and submission. The man/woman
difference and the dominance/submission dynamic define each other. This is the
social meaning of sex” (MacKinnon 1989, 113).
Femininity (also called womanliness) refers to qualities and behaviours judged
by a particular culture to be ideally associated with or especially appropriate to
women and girls. Femininity principally refers to secondary sex characteristics and
other behaviours and features generally regarded as being more prevalent and
better suited to women.
Masculine and feminine roles are not opposite ends of the same continuum but
are instead two separate dimensions. A person may be described as “masculine,”
as “feminine,” as “androgynous,” i.e., having characteristics of both, or as
“undifferentiated,” that are, having neither strong masculine nor strong feminine
characteristics (Bem, 1977). The traits associated with masculinity and femininity
are human qualities, therefore, both men and women engage in behaviours that
are considered “masculine” or “feminine.” That is, masculinity and femininity may
22
vary within an individual regardless of the person’s biological sex.
 Gender
Check Your Progress I
a) Define Gender
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b) Is Gender different from Sex? Explain
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c) What do you understand by the term ‘Masculinity’.
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2.3 LIFE CYCLE APPROACH AND GENDER ROLE

Let us know learn about life cycle approach and Gender role as given below:-
Gender roles emerge early in childhood and are present during the complete
lifecycle. This contributes to the reaffirmation of gender stereotypes. Therefore,
by presenting data according to the different stages in the life of individuals one
is able to illuminate the underlying causes of gender differences and provide a
useful tool for gender analysis.
2.3.1 Life Cycle Approach
The life cycle approach is the analysis of women and men’s behaviour and
characteristics over the various stages of their lives: when they are children and
live with their parents; when they enter and pass through the educational system;
when they leave home; when they enter the labour market; when they marry;
when they have children; and as they get older, etc.
In the following section you will learn the gender role development from infancy
to adulthood.
Infancy and gender role development
Although men and women have obvious physical differences, as infants, the
differences are less noticeable. Therefore, society relies on treatment and perception
to promote these differences. We call this differential treatment of the sexes.
Think about it, how do we perceive a newborn boy or girl? How do we handle
them? What names do we give them? A newborn boy is given a car or a truck,
and the girl is given a doll. Even during infancy, their names, their clothing, the
“sugar and spice” messages in baby congratulation cards, and their room furnishings 23
Adolescent Sexuality shape girls and boys. According to Marilyn Stern and Katherine H. Karraker,
adults will characterize the same baby as strong and hardy if they think it is a
male, and delicate and soft if they think it is a female. In these and other ways,
gender-role socialization has already begun in earnest.
By Twelve months, the infant can distinguish men and women in photographs. By
eighteen months, it seems that toddlers have a sense that they are male or female.
This really begins to take shape by the time they are three years. This is displayed
through toy preference. That is, boys and girls are less likely to play with toys not
appropriate for their sex.
Activity 2 Observe and discuss with your peers
 The toys played by infant boys & girls.
 The type and colour of cloths worn by infant boys and girls.
Childhood and gender role development
Deanna Kuhn demonstrated that toddlers as young as 2 and half to 3 and a half
can assign stereotypical behaviour to both boys and girls (e.g., toddlers believe
that girls talk more, never hit, etc. and boys play with cars and know they can
hit. This phenomenon of preferring same sex playmates and activities is called
“gender segregation.” Segregation is universal across cultures and is attributed to
play styles.
When children imitate same-sex behaviours, they are rewarded, but imitating the
other sex may carry the threat of punishment. Although the research indicates that
most parents value the same behaviours for their sons and daughters, some
rewards or punishments are given on the basis of gender typing, particularly
during play. This is even more true for boys than for girls, with fathers being the
most punitive if, for example, they observe their sons playing with Barbie dolls or
sporting red finger nail polish. The early acquisitions of such ideas and behaviours
make for very stereotyped youngsters. Because young children see the world in
black-and-white terms, they may go as far as to insist that only men could be
physicians, even when their own paediatrician is a woman!
The years from about age two to age six are crucial in the development of
gender roles. During these years, children become aware of their gender,
where play styles and behaviours begin to crystallize around that core identity
of “I am a girl” or “I am a boy.” (Reflection Photo library/Corbis)
Adulthood and gender role development
Studies have shown that marriage and parenthood can make gender roles more
distinct. For example, regardless of whether she is working or not, the wife will
perform more household chores than the husband Parenthood also gives a push
toward more distinct gender roles between husbands and wives.

2.3.2 Gender Roles

Gender roles vary. Different cultures impose different expectations upon the men
and women who live in that culture.
Gender roles are learned behaviours in a given society/community or other social
group that condition which activities, tasks and responsibilities are perceived as
24 male or female.
 Gender
Gender roles vary considerably across settings and also change over time. The
following factors can shape and change gender roles:
 Age
 Class
 Race
 Ethnicity
 Religion and other ideologies
 Geographical environment
 Economic environment
 Political environment
Types of gender roles
The concept of gender roles has been developed from the work of Caroline
Moser. She explains this concept as follows:
Reproductive role: Childbearing/rearing responsibilities, and domestic tasks done
by women, required to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of the labour
force. It includes not only biological reproduction but also the care and maintenance
of the work force (male partner and working children) and the future work force
(infants and school-going children).
Productive role: Work done by both men and women for pay in cash or kind.
It includes both market production with an exchange-value, and subsistence/home
production with actual use-value, and also potential exchange-value. For women
in agricultural production, this includes work as independent farmers, peasant
wives and wage workers.
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, organising at the formal political level, often within the framework of national
politics. This is usually paid work, either directly or indirectly, through status or
power.
Check Your Progress 2
a) What do you understand by the term Gender Role?

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b) How does the life-Cycle influence ones gender role?
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Adolescent Sexuality
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c) Explain productive role of men.
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2.4 VIOLENCE AND GENDER

Gender-based violence, or violence against women (VAW), is a major public
health and human rights problem throughout the world. Violence against women
is a technical term used to collectively refer to violent acts that are primarily or
exclusively omitted against women. Similar to a hate crime, this type of violence
targets a specific group with the victim’s gender as a primary motive.
WHO’s World Report on Violence and Health notes that “one of the most
common forms of VAW is that performed by a husband or male partner.” This
type of violence is frequently invisible since it happens behind closed doors, and
effectively, when legal systems and cultural norms do not treat as a crime, but
rather as a “private” family matter, or a normal part of life.
The United Nations General Assembly defines “Violence against women” as “any
act of gender – based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical,
sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in
private life. “The 1993 Declaration on the Elimination of violence against women
noted that this violence could be perpetrated by assailants of cites gender, family
members and even the “State” itself.
Violence against women has been clearly designed as a form of discrimination in
numbers documents. The World Human Rights Conference in Vienna was the first
recognized gender-based violence as a human rights violation in 1993. In the
same year United Nations declaration, 1993, defined violence against women as
‘any act of gender – based violence that results, in, or is likely to result in or is
likely to result in physical, sexual or psychological from or suffering to a women
including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary depravations of liberty, whether
occurring in public or private life”. Radhika Coomaraswamy identified different
kinds of violence against women, in the United Nation’s special report, 1995, on
violence against women.
(a) Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring in the family including
battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry related
violence, marital rape, and female genital mutilation and attend traditional
practices harmful to women, non spousal violence and violence related
exploitation.
26
 Gender
(b) Physical sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general
community include rape, sexual abuse sexual harassment and intimidation at
work in educational institutions and elsewhere trafficking in women and forced
prostitution.
(c) Physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the
state, where ever it occurs.
(d) Where one person inflicts physical violence or pain on another. Prolonged or
intense physical abuse results in torture.
(e) Sexual abuse: The improper use of another person for sexual purposes,
generally without their consent or under physical or psychological pressure.
Types of gender-based violence against women
 Physical violence
 Psychological or emotional abuse.
 Sexual violence
Masculinity and Gender Based Violence
Instead of focusing on each case of violence or on individual men’s acts of
violence against women the entire culture that creates current male roles and
identities-defined as ‘masculinity’ – needs to be analyzed and challenged.
Predominantly, gender power relations have left a legacy whereby women are
more likely to be disadvantaged relative to men, have less access to resources,
benefits, information and decision making, and to have fewer rights both within the
household and in the public sphere. In the past, these concerns and the struggle
for gender equality have often been narrowly perceived as “women’s issues”, and
gender programmes have been designed to focus only on women.
However, over the last decade there has been increasing recognition of the need
for men to become involved in the movement toward gender equality. Conceptually,
the shift in emphasis from ‘Women in Development’ to ‘Gender and Development’
invites a focus on relationships between women and men, and among groups of
women and groups of men, and to equity and equality within these relations.
One way to begin discussion concerning the role of men, their responsibilities, and
their potential to contribute to gender equality is through and exploration of meanings
and uses of masculinity.
I got flowers today.
I got flowers today.
It wasn’t my birthday
or any special day.
We had our first argument last night,
and he said a lot of cruel things
that really hurt me. 27
Adolescent Sexuality
I know he is sorry
and didn’t mean the things he said
because he sent me flowers today.
I got flowers today.
It wasn’t our anniversary
or any other special day.
Last night, he threw me into a wall
and started to choke me.
It seemed like a nightmare.
I couldn’t believe it was real.
I know he must be sorry
because he sent me flowers today.
I got flowers today,
and it wasn’t Mother’s Day
or any other special day.
Last night, he beat me up again.
If I leave him, what will I do?
How will I take care of my kids?
What about money?
I’m afraid of him and scared to leave.
But I know he must be sorry
because he sent me flowers today.
I got flowers today.
Today was a very special day.
It was the day of my funeral.
Last night, he finally killed me.
If only I had gathered enough courage
and strength to leave him,
I would not have gotten flowers today.
© 1992 by Paulette Kelly

28
 Gender
2.4.1 Physical
Let us read about the violence that occurs physically and the consequences of
physical violence.
Physical violence:
This includes the intentional use of physical force with the potential for causing
death, disability, injury or harm. Physical violence includes, but is not limited to
scratching, pushing, shoving, throwing, grabbing, biting, choking, shaking, poking,
hair pulling, slapping, punching, hitting, burning, use of a weapon (a gun, knife, or
any other object), and the use of restraints or one’s body, size or strength against
another person. Coercing or forcing other people to perform any of the above
actions has also been classified as physical violence.

2.4.2 Emotional
The emotional violence can also be called as emotional abuse. Let us read in
details about it.
Psychological or emotional abuse
This includes trauma to the victim caused by acts, threats of acts, or coercive
tactics, such as those given in the list below:
Humiliating the victim; controlling what the victim can and cannot do; withholding
information from the victim; getting annoyed if the victim disagrees; deliberately
doing something to make the victim feel diminished (e.g., less smart, less attractive);
deliberately doing something that makes the victim feel embarrassed; using the
victim’s money; taking advantage of the victim; disregarding what the victim wants;
isolating the victim from friends and family; prohibiting access to transportation or
telephone; Getting the victim to engage in illegal sexual activity. However, it has
been felt that this list is not exhaustive and can be extended to include many other
types of behaviour that could be considered as emotionally abusive by the victim.
It has been found that severe psychological stress and living under terror and the
mental torture of violence can lead to self destructive behaviour and fatal
consequences such as suicides. Studies in India, Bangladesh, Fiji, the USA,
Papua New Guinea and Peru show a high correlation between domestic violence
and suicide rates. Women who are victims of domestic violence are 12 times
more likely to attempt suicide than those who do not experience such violence.
Nearly two in five (37 percent) married women have experienced some form of
physical or sexual violence by their husband. One in four married women have
experienced physical or sexual Violence by their husband in the 12 months preceding
the survey. Studies from WHO indicate that between 16% and 52% of women
world-wide are physically assaulted by an intimate partner at least once in their
live. Statistics published in 1997 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) reveals
that, according to 40 studies conducted in 24 countries on four continents, between
20% and 50% of the women interviewed reported that they suffered physical
abuse from their male partners. Also, according to ‘Where Women Stand - An
international report on the status of women in 140 countries, 1997-1998’,
the number of women reporting physical abuse by a male partner during the
period 1986-1993 were between 21% to 60%.
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Adolescent Sexuality
2.4.3 Sexual
Sexual violence can be divided into three categories:
 Use of physical force to compel a person to engage in a sexual act against
his or her will, whether or not the act is completed.
 An attempted or completed sex act involving a person who is unable to
understand the nature or condition of the act, to decline participation, or to
communicate unwillingness to engage in the sexual act (for example, because
of illness, disability or the influence of alcohol or other drugs or due to
intimidation or pressure). The sex act or the Sexual act has been defined as
contact between the penis and the vulva or the penis and the anus involving
penetration, however slight; contact between the mouth and the penis, vulva
or the anus.
 Abusive sexual contact that includes intentional touching directly, or through
the clothing, of the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of
any person against his or her will, or of any person who is unable to understand
the nature or the condition of the act, to decline participation, or to
communicate unwillingness to be touched (e.g. because of illness, disability,
or the influence of alcohol or other drugs, or due to intimidation or pressure).

2.4.4 Forms of violence experienced by women

Let us now read about various Forms of violence experienced by women throughout
their lifespan as given below in Table 2.1:
Table 2.1: Types of Violence
Phase Type of violence present
Pre-birth Sex-selective abortion; battering during pregnancy;
coerced pregnancy
Infancy Female infanticide; emotional and physical abuse;
differential access to food and medical care.
Girlhood Child marriage; genital mutilation; sexual abuse by
family members and strangers; differential access
to food, medical care and education.
Adolescence Violence during courtship; economically coerced
sex (e.g. for school fees); sexual abuse in the
workplace; rape; sexual harassment; arranged
marriage; trafficking.
Reproductive Physical, psychological and sexual abuse by
age intimate male partners and relatives; forced
pregnancies by partner; sexual abuse in the
workplace; sexual harassment; rape; abuse of
widows, including property grabbing and sexual
cleansing practices.
Elderly Abuse of widows, including property grabbing;
accusations of witchcraft; physical and
psychological violence by younger family
members; differential access to food and medical
30
care.
 Gender
Summary of various kind of Abuse
Let us now read the wummaryof variouskinds of Abuses given below in table 2.2:
Table 2.2: Kinds of Abuses
Physical Abuse Psychological/ Sexual Coercion Controlling
Emotional Abuse Behaviour

Physical Mistreatment and Physical force or Results from the

assaults and undermining self worth non-physical power relationship
threats used to of another person result coercion to compel and discrimination
control another in making that person women to have sex especially due to
person more dependants and against their will. patriarchal norms.
frightened by the
abuser.

 Punching  Criticism  Forced  Refusing

 Hitting  Threats penetration women to
 Choking  Insults  Rape work outside
 Beating  Passing belittling  Sexual assault home
 Throwing comments  Forced sexual  Financial
objects  Inciting other contact control
 Burns person to get angry  Sexual  Isolating the
 Kickking molestation person
and  Intimidation to  Monitoring
pushing force a woman their
 Using for sexual act movements
weapons  Forced marriage  Restricting
such as access to
knife, information
sickle and
rod to hurt.

2.4.5 Female Foeticide and infanticide

In some societies, discrimination against women also becomes obvious through
certain cultural and traditional practices such as sex selective abortions and female
infanticide. For example, in India and China, male children are favoured over
female children.
The practice of female deselection in India could be attributed to socioeconomic
reasons. There is a belief by certain people in India that female children are
inherently less worthy because they leave home and family when they marry. The
factor as to economic utility that sons are more likely than daughters to provide
family farm labour or provide in or for a family business, earn wages, and give
old-age support for parents. Upon marriage, a son makes a daughter-in-law an
addition and asset to the family providing additional assistance in household work
and brings an economic reward through dowry payments, while daughters get
married off and merit an economic penalty through dowry charges. The sociocultural
utility factor of female deselection is that, as in China, in India’s patrilineal and
patriarchal system of families is that having at least one son is mandatory in order
to continue the familial line, and many sons constitute additional status to families.
31
Adolescent Sexuality The final factor of female deselection is the religious functions that only sons are
allowed to provide, based on Hindu tradition, which mandate that sons are
mandatory in order to kindle the funeral pyre of their late parents and to assist
in the soul salvation.
Female foeticide is a practice that involves the detection of the sex of the unborn
baby in the womb of the mother and the decision to abort it if the sex of the child
is detected as a girl. This could be done at the behest of the mother, or father,
or both or under family pressure. This detection of the sex of the baby is done
through three methods, (a) amniocentesis; (b) chronic villus sampling and
(c) ultra-sonography

The “silent” scream of the foetus

To arrest this evil, the Forum against Sex Determination and Sex Pre-selection
(FASDSP), a broad forum of feminist and human rights groups, was formed in
1984, and it has been lobbying for legislation to ban the practice. In 1988, the
state of Maharashtra passed an Act banning prenatal diagnostic practices. In
September 20, 1994 the Parliament had enacted the Pre-Natal Diagnostic
Techniques (Regulation & Prevention of Misuse) Act, which came into force from
January 1996].
Female Infanticide
The scope of the problem of Infanticide became clear in 1871, in the setting of
India’s first census survey. At that time it was noted that there was a significantly
abnormal sex ratio of 940 women to 1000 men. This prompted the British to pass
The Infanticide Act in 1870, making it illegal. But the Infanticide Act was difficult
to enforce in a country where most birth took place in the home and where vital
registration was not commonly done. This inhuman practice continues even today.
In rural areas where a lot of people do not have access to sex determination
facilities, female infanticide is shockingly common. The parents wait until the
mother gives birth, and when they find out that a daughter is born, they go ahead
and kill the baby by adopting various means such as strangling the baby, giving
her poison, dumping her in a garbage bin, drowning her, burying her alive, starving
her, stuffing her mouth with salt, or leaving her outdoors overnight so she dies of
32
exposure.
 Gender
Check Your Progress 3
a) What do you understand by Gender Based Violence?
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b) Explain Female Foeticide
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c) What is meant by Psychological Violence? Explain with example.
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2.5 ROLE OF TEACHERS

Reforms and innovations aiming to work with teachers as change agents and
facilitators of gender equality have varied across time and contexts. The presence
of strong feminist movements in the United Kingdom and Australia in the 1970s
and 1980s established a social climate within which a range of initiatives were
undertaken focusing on girls’ participation in maths, science and technology,
improving access to gender-specific occupations and creating ‘girl-friendly’
environments in schools. These have arguably led to a ‘narrowing of the gender
gap. In the African context has facilitated initiatives aimed at enhancing girls’
access to and participation in schools.
Approaches to gender equality in the classroom focus on relationships between
boys and girls as well as the relationship between learners and teachers.
The following issues are handled in the class rooms:
 Gender stereotypes, i.e. challenging stereotypical views such as girls being
unable to benefit from secondary education or less able to succeed in
mathematics and science.
 Sexual violence, abuse and harassment – raising awareness of these issues
and using teachers to raise awareness of learners.
 Differential access to and enrolment of boys and girls in school.
 Ideologies underlying the curriculum.
 Curriculum choices – e.g., encouraging girls to take maths, science and
33
technology subjects.
Adolescent Sexuality  Teaching styles, including differential attention paid to boys and girls.
 School organisation and discipline – making schools more girl-friendly.
 Extra-mural activities e.g. providing sporting opportunities for girls as well as
boys.
Teachers are critical to all these areas. Teachers can provide role models, a sense
of direction and encouragement to boys and girls or they can denigrate and
marginalize them and so perpetuate stereotypes and particular ways of looking at
and discriminating between boys and girls in the classroom.

2.5.1 Gender Sensitisation

Despite there being laws to protect the rights and provide gender equality the
problem of gender discrimination, what is really needed is an attitudinal change
and initiation of gender sensitisation programme.
Gender sensitisation means creating awareness on the various aspects of gender
and sensitising the individual which will result in breaking stereotypes. The key
element of the sensitisation programmes should be to make the participants aware
of the women’s rights and also various constitutional provisions available to protect
these rights.
The Constitution of India provides for equality of status and opportunity to all
citizens in the country. The following provisions in the Constitution relate to
gender equality:
Article 14: Equality before law and equal protection of laws.
Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, etc.
Article 16: Equality of opportunity in the matters of public employment.
The following Directive Principles in the Constitution also specifically relate to
gender equality:
Article 39(a): That the citizens, men and women equally have the right
to an adequate means of livelihood.
Article 39(d): That there is equal pay for equal work for both men and
women.

2.5.2 Access to Services

The women need to have access to redressel forums to address the issue of
gender discrimination. The gender sensitisation programmes should result in creating
access to service to the women who face discrimination. The first stage of access
is to recognise that she is being oppressed or discriminate, then to be aware of
the available service, and finally access these facilities to redress their problems.
Check Your Progress 4
a) According to you what is the role of a teacher in Gender Sensitisation?
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 Gender
2.6 LET US SUM UP
Gender influences human options, conditions, and experiences. The legal, political,
economic, and cultural systems are all profoundly gendered. We have diverse acts
about politics, about violence, about economics, about mass culture, about
childhood and youth. Recognizing that they are all connected is the basis of
modern thought about gender. To understand gender we need to know to
differentiate between gender and sex.
“Sex” refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that define men
and women.
“Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and
attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.
It is the hierarchy created by the patriarchy which has resulted in oppression of
women and violence against women. Gender sensitization programmes are needed
break this stereotyping and also create awareness among the women about the
access to services which can address the problems of women.

2.7 KEY WORDS

Gender : Is a social Construct
Sex : Is a biological determinant
Gender Based Violence : Physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering
to women, including threats of such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty,
whether occurring in public or in private
life
Stereotype : A fixed, commonly held notion or image
of a person or group, based on an over
simplification of some observed or
imagined trait of behaviour or appearance.

Female Foeticide : Is a practice that involves the detection of

the sex of the unborn baby in the womb
of the mother and the decision to abort it
if the sex of the child is detected as a girl.
Female Infanticide : if the baby born is a girl she is killed due
to preference of boy child.

2.8 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Check Your Progress 1
a) “Gender” refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and
attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women.
b) Yes Gender and Sex are different. ”Male” and “female” are sex categories, 35
Adolescent Sexuality while “masculine” and “feminine” are gender categories. While your sex as
male or female is a biological fact that is the same in any culture, what that
sex means in terms of your gender role as a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ in society
can be quite different cross culturally. Aspects of sex will not vary substantially
between different human societies, while aspects of gender may vary greatly.
c) Masculinity is defined as sexual dominance, femininity as sexual submissiveness:
genders are “created through the eroticization of dominance and submission.
Check Your Progress 2
a) Gender roles are learned behaviours in a given society/community or other
social group that condition which activities, tasks and responsibilities are
perceived as male or female. Gender roles vary considerably across settings
and also change over time.
b) Gender roles emerge early in childhood and are present during the complete
lifecycle. Even during infancy, their names, their clothing, the “sugar and
spice” messages in baby congratulation cards, and their room furnishings
shape girls and boys. According to Marilyn Stern and Katherine H. Karraker,
adults will characterize the same baby as strong and hardy if they think it is
a male, and delicate and soft if they think it is a female. In these and other
ways, gender-role socialization has begun in earnest. It is this socialisation
process influenced by life cycle that forms the gender role.
c) The productive role of men is that he works for pay and contributes to the
economic wellbeing of the [Link] includes both market production with an
exchange-value, and subsistence/home production with actual use-value, and
also potential exchange-value.
Check Your Progress 3
a) The United Nations General Assembly destines “Violence against women” as
any act of gender – based violence that results in, or is likely to result in,
physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of
such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in
public or in private life.
b) Is a practice that involves the detection of the sex of the unborn baby in the
womb of the mother and the decision to abort it if the sex of the child is
detected as a girl?
c) Psychological Violence are those acts which results in mental trauma and
diminishing self-esteem of the women. This includes trauma to the victim
caused by acts, threats of acts, or coercive tactics, such as those given in
the list below: Humiliating the victim; controlling what the victim can and
cannot do; withholding information from the victim; getting annoyed if the
victim disagrees; deliberately doing something to make the victim feel
diminished (e.g., less smart, less attractive).
Check Your Progress 4
a) Despite there being laws to protect the rights and provide gender equality the
problem of gender discrimination, what is really needed is an attitudinal
36 change and initiation of gender sensitisation programme.
 Gender
Gender sensitisation means creating awareness on the various aspects of
gender and sensitising the individual which will result in breaking stereotypes.
The key element of the sensitisation programmes should be to make the
participants aware of the women’s rights and also various constitutional
provisions available to protect these rights.
The Constitution of India provides for equality of status and opportunity to
all citizens in the country. The following provisions in the Constitution relate
to gender equality:
Article 14: Equality before law and equal protection of laws.
Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, etc.
Article 16: Equality of opportunity in the matters of public employment.
The following Directive Principles in the Constitution also specifically relate
to gender equality:-
Article 39(a): That the citizens, men and women equally have the right
to an adequate means of livelihood.
Article 39(d): That there is equal pay for equal work for both men and
women.

2.9 REFERENCES
Rege Sharmila, Sociology of Gender: The Challenge of Feminist Sociological
Knowledge, London: sage, 2003.
Choudhary Rekha, Gender in Decision Making, Jaipur: Ritu, 2007.
Walkeradine, Valerie et. al Growing up Girl: Psychological explorations of
Gender and Class, Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001.
Glover, David, Cora Kaplan, Gendres, London: Routledge, 2007.
Devgan Aadesh, Crime against Women and Child: An Emerging Social
Problem, New Delhi: Cyber Tech, 2008.
Goonesekere Savitri (ed) Violence, law and Women’s Rights in South Asia,
New Delhi Sage.
Mukherjee Roma: Women Law and Free Legal Aid in Aid, New Delhi, Deepa
and Deepa, 1998.
Saxena Shobha: Crime against Women and Protective Laws, New Delhi,
Deepa and Deepa, 1999.

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