Synonyms
Definition
Gender sensitivity encompasses the ability (skills, knowledge, and attitudes) to acknowledge and make existing gender differences, issues, and inequalities visible (UNIFEM 2007). This capacity is reflected through an awareness applied to everyday life situations, policies, projects, institutions, and a variety of contexts. It includes an understanding of how gender roles have been socially constructed, and how those social constructions often presuppose the existence of inequalities or unfair distribution of opportunities (UNIFEM 2007). Gender sensitivity incorporates a cross-cultural analysis to raise awareness of obstacles for gender equality and focuses on how inequalities take place on the grounds of gender. It can also be read as a part within an awareness spectrum, ranging from gender negative to gender transformative (Christodoulou 2005; Zobnina 2009). Within this spectrum, gender sensitivity lies in the middle, between...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Abrahams N (1996) Negotiating power, identity, family, and community: women’s community participation. Gend Soc 10(6):768–796
Acker J (1990) Hierarchies, jobs, and bodies: a theory of gendered organizations. Gend Soc 4:139–158
Adler RD (2001) Women in the executive suite correlate to high profits. Harv Bus Rev 79(3). Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267822127_Women_in_the_Executive_Suite_Correlate_to_High_Profits
Bertrand M (2018) The glass ceiling. Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics (38). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3191467. Accessed 19 May 2019
Blair IV, Banaji RM (1996) Automatic and controlled processes in stereotype priming. J Pers Soc Psychol 70(1):142–163
Bookman A, Morgen S (eds) (1988) Women and the politics of empowerment. Temple University Press, Philadelphia
Brehm SS, Brehm JW (1981) Psychological reactance. Academic, New York
Burke MJ, Salvador RO, Smith-Crowe K, Cahn-Serafin S, Smith A, Sonesh S (2011) The dread factor: how hazards and safety training influence learning and performance. J Appl Psychol 96:46–70
Chattopadhyay R, Duflo E. (2004) Impact of reservation in Panchayati Raj: evidence from a nationwide randomised experiment. Economic and Political Weekly 39(9):979–986. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4414710
Christodoulou J (2005) Glossary of gender-related terms. Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies. European Institute for Gender Equality. https://medinstgenderstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/Gender-Glossary-updated_final.pdf
Conway M (2000) Political participation in the United States, 3rd edn. CQ Press, Washington, DC
Conway M (2001) Women’s political participation. Polit Sci Polit 34(2):231–233
Conway M, Pizzamiglio MT, Mount L (1996) Status, communality, and agency: implications for stereotypes of gender and other groups. J Pers Soc Psychol 71:25–38
Crenshaw K (1991) Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Rev 43(6):1241–1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
Daniels AK (1988) Invisible careers. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Davis (1989) Women, culture, and politics. Vintage, New York
EIGE (2015) European institute for gender equality. Gender Equality Commission of the Council of Europe. Gender Equality Glossary. http://www.coe.int/t/DGHL/STANDARDSETTING/EQUALITY/06resources/Glossarie…. Accessed 22 May 2019
Eubank D, Orzano J, Geffken D, Ricci R (2011) Teaching team membership to family medicine residents: what does it take? Fam Syst Health 29:29–43
Farrelly C (2011) Patriarchy and historical materialism. Hypatia 26(1):1–21. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23016676
Fowler L (1993) Candidates, congress, and the American democracy. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor
Gilke CT (1980) “Holding back the ocean with a broom”: Black women and community work. In: La Frances Rodgers-Rose (ed) The Black woman. SAGE, Beverly Hills
Gilke CT (1994) If it wasn’t for the women…: African American women, community work, and social change. In: Zinn MB, Dill BT (eds) Women of color in U-S. Society. Temple University Press, Philadelphia
Glick P, Fiske ST (1999) Gender, power dynamics, and social interaction. In: Ferree M, Lorber J, Hess BB (eds) Revisioning gender. SAGE, Thousand Oaks
Glick P, Fiske ST (2001) An ambivalent alliance: hostile and benevolent sexism as complementary justifications for gender inequality. Am Psychol 56:109–118
Hardy-Fante C (1993) Latina politics, Latino politics. Temple University Press, Philadelphia
Hunnicutt G (2009) Varieties of patriarchy and violence against women: resurrecting “patriarchy” as a theoretical tool. Violence Against Women 15(5):553–573. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801208331246
IISD (2017) Achieve gender equality to deliver the SDG’s. http://sdg.iisd.org/commentary/policy-briefs/achieve-gender-equality-to-deliver-the-sdgs/. Accessed 25 May 2019
Ito TA, Urland GR (2003) Race and gender on the brain: electrocortical measures of attention to the race and gender of multiply categorizable individuals. J Pers Soc Psychol 85:616–626
Kaminer W (1984) Women volunteering. Anchor, Garden City
Kattsoff LO (1948) What is behavior? Philos Phenomen Res 9(1):98–102. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2103854. Accessed 03 June 2019 19:30 UTC
Keays T, McEvoy M, Murison S, Jennings M, Karim F (2001) Gender analysis, UNDP. Available via UNDP: https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/gender/Institutional%20Development/TLGEN1.6%20UNDP%20GenderAnalysis%20toolkit.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2019
Keeton M, Tate PJ (1978) In: Keeton M. Tate PJ (eds) Learning by experience-what, why, how. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco. In: Kolb DA. (2014) Introduction. In: Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development. (Kolb DA ed), Pearson Education Inc, Upper Saddle River, p 18
Klingorová K, Havlíček T (2015) Religion and gender inequality: the status of women in the societies of world religions. Moravian Geogr Rep 23(2):2–11. https://doi.org/10.1515/mgr-2015-0006
Kunda Z, Spencer SJ (2003) When do stereotypes come to mind and when do they color judgement? A goal- based theoretical framework for stereotype activation and application. Psychol Bull 129:522–544
Leduc B, Ahmad F (2009) Guidelines for gender sensitive programming. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242570417_Guidelines_for_Gender_Sensitive_Programming. Accessed 28 May 2019
Lorber J (1994) Paradoxes of gender. Yale University Press, New Haven
MacRae ER, Clasen T, Dasmohapatra M, Caruso BA (2019) ‘It’s like a burden on the head’: redefining adequate menstrual hygiene management throughout women's varied life stages in Odisha, India. PLoS One 14(8):e0220114. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220114
McGlen N, O’Connor K (1998) Women, politics, and public policy. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River
McIntosh P (1988) White privilege and male privilege: a personal account of coming to see correspondences through work in women’s studies, pp 94–105. https://www.collegeart.org/pdf/diversity/white-privilege-and-male-privilege.pdf. Accessed 13 May 2019
Merida LJ (2013) Breaking the glass ceiling: structural, cultural, and organizational barriers preventing women from achieving senior and executive positions. Perspect Health Inf Manag 10(Winter): 1e. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3544145/. Accessed 8 May 2019
Nagel J (1994) Constructing ethnicity: creating and recreating ethnic identity and culture. Soc Probl 41:152–176
Naples NA (1991) “Just what needed to be done”: the political practice of women community workers in low income neighborhoods. Gend Soc 5:478–494. www.jstor.org/stable/190096. Accessed 15 May 2019
Naples NA (1992) Activist mothering: cross-generational continuity in the community work of women from low-income urban neighborhoods. Gend Soc 6:441–463. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124392006003006
Rees T (2000) Mainstreaming equality in the European Union, education, training and labour market policies. Routledge, London
Ridgeway CL (2006) Gender as an organizing force in social relations: implications for the future of inequality. In: Blau FD, Brinton MC, Grusky DB (eds) The declining significance of gender? Russell Sage Foundation, New York
Ridgeway CL (2009) Framed before we know it: how gender shapes social relations. Gend Soc 23:145. http://gas.sagepub.com/content/23/2/145. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243208330313
Ridgeway CL, England P (2007) Sociological approaches to sex discrimination in employment. In: Crosby FM, Stockdale MS, Ropp AS (eds) Sex discrimination in the workplace: multidisciplinary perspectives. Blackwell, Oxford, UK
Ridgeway CL, Smith-Lovin L (1999) The gender system in interaction. Annu Rev Sociol 25:191–216. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.191
Rinehart ST (1992) Gender consciousness and politics. Routledge, New York
Risman BJ (1998) Gender vertigo: American families in transition. Yale University Press, New Haven
Risman BJ (2004) Gender as a social structure: theory wrestling with activism. Gend Soc 18(4):429–451
Robbins CK, McGowan BL (2016) Intersectional perspectives on gender and gender identity development. New Dir Stud Serv (154):71–83. https://doi.org/10.1002/ss.20176
Rogers C (1967) On becoming a person. Constable, London
Sanz B, Evaluation Office, UN Women (2012) Steps to commission and carry out Gender Equality Evaluations. In: Workshop gender-sensitive evaluation: key ideas to commission and carry out it, 10th EES Biennial Conference
Sarikakis K, Shade LR (2012) Feminist interventions in international communication: minding the gap. Littlefield publishers, Toronto
Schilt K, Westbrook L (2009) Doing gender, doing heteronormativity: “Gender normals”, transgender people, and the social maintenance of heterosexuality. Gend Soc 23(4):440–464
Schulpen TWJ (2017) The glass ceiling: a biological phenomenon. Med Hypothesis 106:41–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2017.07.002
Sczesny S, Formanowics M, Moser F (2016) Can gender-fair language reduce gender sterotyping and discrimination? Front Psychol 7:25. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00025
Sinclair K (1986) Women and religion. In: Dudley MI, Edwards MI (eds) The cross-cultural study of women: a comprehensive guide. The Feminist Press, New York, pp 107–124
Snow DA, Burke Rochford E Jr, Wordden SK, Benford RD (1986) Frame alignment process, micromobilization, and movement participation. Am Sociol Rev 51:464–481
Sommer M, Hirsch JS, Nathanson C, Parker RG (2015) Comfortably, safely, and without shame: defining menstrual hygiene management as a public health issue. Am J Public Health 105(7):1302–1311. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302525
Stangor C, Lynch L, Duan C, Glass B (1992) Categorization of individuals on the basis of multiple social features. J Pers Soc Psychol 62:207–218
Stump R (2008) The geography of religion: faith, place, and space. Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Lanham. In: Klingorová K, Havlíček T, 2015. Religion and gender inequality: the status of women in the societies of world religions. Moravian Geographical Reports 23(2):2–11
Swim JK, Aiken KJ, Hall WS, hunter BA (1995) Sexism and racism: old-fashioned and modern prejudices. J Pers Soc Psychol 68:199–214
Thompson J, McGivern J (1995) Sexism in the seminar: strategies for gender sensitivity in management education. Gend Educ 7(3):341–350. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540259550039040
UN Women (2016) Scoring for gender equality through sport. https://lac.unwomen.org/en/noticias-y-eventos/articulos/2016/09/anotar-puntos-para-la-igualdad. Accessed 15 May 2019
UN Women (2019a) Equal pay for work of equal value. http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/equal-pay. Accessed 15 May 2019
UN Women (2019b) Facts and figures: Leadership and political participation. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/leadership-and-political-participation/facts-and-figures. Accesed 15 June 2019
UNDP (2001) Gender in development programme learning & information pack. https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/gender/Institutional%20Development/TLGEN1.6%20UNDP%20GenderAnalysis%20toolkit.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2019
UNESCO (2011) Priority gender equality guidelines. http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/BSP/GENDER/GE%20Guidelines%20December%202_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2019
UNIFEM (2007) United Nations Development Fund for Women. Policy briefing paper: gender sensitive police reform in post conflict societies. https://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/gender/Gender%20and%20CPR/Policy%20briefing%20paper%20Gender%20Sensitive%20Police%20Reform%20in%20Post%20Conflict%20Societies.pdf. Accessed 10 May 2019
Verloo MMT (2001) Another velvet revolution? Gender mainstreaming and the politics of implementation. IWM Working paper (5).Vienna. https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/129386/129386.pdf. Accessed 8 June 2020
Verveer M (2011) The political and economic power of women. Center for International Private Enterprise. http://www.state.gov/s/gwi/rls/rem/2011/167142.htm. Accessed 8 June 2020
Wagner DG, Berger J (1997) Gender and interpersonal task behaviors: status expectation accounts. Sociol Perspect 40:1–32
Young K (1987) Introduction. In: Sharma A (ed) Women in world religions. State University of New York Press, Albany, pp 1–36
Zawadzki M, Danube C, Shields S (2012) How to talk about gender inequity in the workplace: using WAGES as an experiential learning tool to reduce reactance and promote self-efficacy. Sex Roles 67(11–12):605–616. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0181-z
Zobnina A (2009) Glossary of gender-related terms. Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies. European Institute for Gender Equality. https://medinstgenderstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/Gender-Glossary-updated_final.pdf
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Figueroa Vélez, J., Vélez Ochoa, S. (2020). Gender Sensitivity and Its Relation to Gender Equality. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A.M., Brandli, L., Lange Salvia, A., Wall, T. (eds) Gender Equality. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_46-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70060-1_46-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-70060-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-70060-1
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences