‘Gender’ refers to sociocultural norms, identi - ties and relations that (1) structure societies and organisations and (2) shape behaviours, products, technologies, environments, and knowledges (Schiebinger, 1999; Ridgeway and Correll, 2004). Gender attitudes and behaviours are complex and change in time and place. Im - portantly, gender is multidimensional (Hyde et al., 201
and intersects with other social cate - gories, such as sex, age, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and ethnicity (see ‘Intersec - tional approaches’ in Annex B). Gender is dis - tinct from sex (Fausto-Sterling, 2012).
Three related dimensions of gender
As social beings, humans function through learned behaviours. How we speak, our man - nerisms, the things we use and our behaviours all signal who we are and establish rules for in - teraction. Gender is one such set of organising principles that structure behaviours, attitudes, physical appearance and habits.
- Gender norms are produced through social institutions (such as families, schools, workplaces, laboratories, universities or boardrooms), social interactions (such as between romantic partners, colleagues or family members) and wider cultural products (such as textbooks, literature, films and video games).
- Gender norms are produced through social institutions (such as families, schools, workplaces, laboratories, universities or boardrooms), social interactions (such as between romantic partners, colleagues or family members) and wider cultural products (such as textbooks, literature, films and video games).
- Gender norms refer to social and cultural attitudes and expectations about which behaviours, preferences, products, professions or knowledges are appropriate for women, men and gender-diverse individuals, and may influence the development of science and technology.
- Gender norms draw upon and reinforce gender stereotypes about women, men and gender-diverse individuals.
- Gender norms may be reinforced by unequal distribution of resources and discrimination in the workplace, families and other institutions.
- Gender norms are constantly in flux. They change by historical era, culture or location, such as the 1950s versus the 2020s, Korea versus Germany or urban versus rural areas. Gender also differs by specific social contexts, such as work versus home.
- Gender identities relate to how individuals or groups perceive and present themselves in relation to gender norms. Gender identities may be context-specific and interact with other identities, such as ethnicity, class or cultural heritage (see ‘Intersectional approaches’ in Annex B)
- Gender relations relate to how we interact with people and institutions in the world around us, based on our sex and our gender identity. Gender relations encompass how gender shapes social interactions in families, schools, workplaces and public settings, for instance the power relation between a man patient and woman physician
- Social divisions of labour are another important aspect of gender relations, whereby women and men are concentrated in different types of (paid or unpaid) activities. One consequence of such gender segregation is that particular occupations or disciplines become marked symbolically with the (presumed) gender category of the larger group: for example, nursing is seen as a female profession, engineering as male.
- Women and men who work in highly segregated roles acquire different kinds of knowledge or expertise, which can sometimes be usefully accessed for gendered innovations (see ‘Co-creation and participatory research’ in Annex B; see also Schiebinger et al., 2011– 2020a).
- Gender relations can also become embodied in products or urban environments, such as transportation systems (see case study ‘Smart mobility’).
- Sex and gender interact. The term ‘gender’ was introduced in the late 1960s to reject biological determinism that interprets behavioural differences as the outcomes of biological disposition. ‘Gender’ was used to distinguish the sociocultural factors that shape behaviours and attitudes from biological factors related to sex. Gendered behaviours and attitudes are learned; they are neither fixed nor universal. Nonetheless, gendered experiences can affect biology. Moreover, some individuals seek to change aspects of their bodies to align them better with their gender identities. Sex and gender are often useful analytical terms even if in reality sex and gender interact (see Schiebinger et al., 2011–2020b).
- Legal gender categories. Governments typically require citizens to categorise their gender identity on official documents such as birth certificates, driving licences and passports. Numerous countries recognise a third gender category. These include Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, India, Malta, Nepal, New Zealand and Pakistan, among others.
- Cisgender and transgender. ‘Transgender’ is an umbrella term that describes a range of gender identities, including individuals whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth (Marshall et al., 2019; Scandurra et al., 2019). This is in contrast to ‘cisgender’, which describes individuals whose self-identified gender matches their birth sex assignment (Aultman, 2014). Other individuals refuse the concept of gender as binary altogether and may self-identify as genderqueer, non-binary, gender-fluid or bigender (Hyde et al., 201.
- Gender is multidimensional. Gender is often described as existing on a masculinity–femininity spectrum, but such categories can reinforce stereotypes about women and men, and ignore individuals who fall outside traditional gender binaries (Nielsen et al., forthcoming). Gender is multidimensional: any given individual may experience configurations of gender norms, traits and relations that cannot be subsumed under the simple categories ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’.
Problems to avoid when analysing gender
Problems can arise if researchers assume that:
all women as a group, all men as a group and all gender-diverse people as a group (their attitudes, preferences, needs, behaviours and knowledge) are the same;
women, men and gender-diverse people are completely different;
observed differences between women and men are solely biological in origin;
observed gender differences hold across cultures;
life conditions and opportunities are similar for women, men, and gender-diverse people;
birth sex can be used as a proxy for gender identity in surveys;
certain questions are relevant to only one gender (e.g. survey questions about caregiving relate primarily to women or questions about the strain of physical work primarily to men).
Works cited
Aultman, B. (2014), ‘Cisgender’, Transgender Studies Quarterly, 1 (1–2), 61–62. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2012), Sex/Gender: Biology in a social world, Routledge, New York. Hyde, J. S., Bigler, R. S., Joel, D., Tate, C. C. and van Anders, S. M. (201
, ‘The future of sex and gender in psychology: five challenges to the gender binary’, American Psychologist, 74(2), 171–193. Marshall, Z., Welch, V., Minichiello, A., Swab, M., Brunger, F. and Kaposy, C. (2019), ‘Documenting research with transgender, nonbinary, and other gender diverse (trans) individuals and communities: introducing the Global Trans Research Evidence Map’, Transgender Health, 4(1), 68–80. Nielsen, M. W., Peragine, D., Neilands, T. B., Stefanick, M. L., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Pilote, L., Prochaska, J. J., Cullen, M. R., Einstein, G., Klinge, I., LeBlanc, H., Paik, H. Y., Risvedt, S. and Schiebinger, L. (forthcoming), ‘Gender-related variables for health research’ (
https://doi.org/10.1101/20 20.09.17.20196824). Ridgeway, C. L. and Correll, S. J. (2004), ‘Unpacking the gender system: a theoretical perspective on gender beliefs and social relations’, Gender & Society, 18, 510–5. Scandurra, C., Mezza, F., Maldonato, N. M., Bottone, M., Bochicchio, V., Valerio, P. and Vitelli, R. (2019), ‘Health of non-binary and genderqueer people: a systematic review’, Frontiers in Psychology, 10 (10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01453). Schiebinger, L. (1999), Has Feminism Changed Science?, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Schiebinger, L., Klinge, I., Sánchez de Madariaga, I., Paik, H. Y., Schraudner, M. and Stefanick, M. (eds.) (2011– 2020a), ‘Water infrastructure’, Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment (
http://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/case-studies/ water.html). Schiebinger, L., Klinge, I., Sánchez de Madariaga, I., Paik, H. Y., Schraudner, M. and Stefanick, M. (eds.) (2011–2020b), ‘Analysing how sex and gender interact’, Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment (http:// genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/methods/how.html).
Sal Robins
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