MAINSTREAMING THE GENDER PERSPECTIVE IN THE UN SYSTEM
The Contact Group on gender said that "the word 'gender' has been
commonly used and understood in its ordinary, generally accepted
usage in numerous other UN fora and conferences." The following
excerpts from a WHO publication show the use of the word "gender" and
the "gender perspective" is almost always related to a promotion of
an extremist radical gender feminist ideology which views differences
between men and women not as natural, but as the result of artificial
socially constructed gender roles which should be changed to make men
and women the same. The "gender perspective is also always associated
with promotion of sexual relationships outside of marriage, including
sexual relationships for adolescents, homosexuals and lesbians,
reproductive health with an emphasis on abortion and contraception,
and an attack religion.
Gender as used by the UN is a word that implies an entire ideological
agenda, one which is contrary to the culture, religious beliefs, laws
and constitutions of many of the member states. Given this usage
there is no way that the word gender can be used in a neutral or
non-ideological sense in the Platform. Gender should be replaced with
the word sex, or male and female, or women's perspective as
appropriate.
The delegates should be urged to reject the Contact group report. The
Independent Women's Forum in the US is pushing this with the slogan
"Sex is better than gender."
GENDER, WOMEN, AND HEALTH IN THE AMERICAS
Editor: Elsa Gomez
Scientific Publication NO. 541
Pan American Health Organization
World Health Organization, 1993
(excerpts)
INTRODUCTION
This collection of works on women and health examines two well-known
paradoxes regarding sex differences in the context of health. The
first involves the fact that although women can expect to live longer
than men, they will also be sick more often during their life time.
The second deals with the fact that, although women are represented
in the health sector in greater numbers than are males, most
positions of highest power, prestige, and remuneration in the section
are held by men.
Given these contradictions, this publication focuses not of the
situation of women per se, but rather, on the position that women
occupy vis-a-vis men in specific health contexts and within
particular social groups. Consequently, this publication's main
analytical emphasis is on detecting and examining the inequalities
between the sexes, which, in terms of certain aspects of the health
situation and the delivery of health services, translate into
discrimination against women or place women at a disadvantage
(p.ix)....
The Gender Approach Applied to Health
Up to about a decade age. the social sciences used the terms sex and
gender practically interchangeably. In recent literature, however,
the term sex has been applied preferentially to the biologically
determined, relatively invariable characteristics of men and women,
whereas gender has been used to indicate the socially constructed
characteristics that define maleness and femaleness in different
cultures.
Gender, then, might be understood as the set of personality traits,
attitudes, feelings, values, behaviors, and activities that through a
process of social formation, distinguish men from women.
Health and Sexuality from a Gender Perspective
Stella Cerruti Basso
..Human sexuality encompasses the following aspects:
Pleasure: sexuality contributes to an individual's well-being,
personal enrichment, and the development of ties with others.
Emotion: the capacity to love is an imminently human trait and an
important aspect of these ties.
Communication: sexuality is the deepest form of communication between
human beings.
Creativity" as a source of comprehensive individual expression,
sexuality strengthens the creative capability, in which aesthetic and
playful elements work together
Ethics: Sexuality is defined by a dialectic on values that is founded
on human rights.
Procreation: sexuality enables two people, who consciously and freely
take on shared responsibility of creating a new being, to fulfill
this extraordinary achievement.
..Given all this, the right to enjoy sexuality is an inalienable
human right, just like the right to life freedom, to equity and
social justice, to health, to education, and to work among others.
Thus , it transcends the patriarchal concept that traditionally has
discredited human sexuality and permeated the medical sciences.
The Process of Developing a Sexual Identify
"Sexual identification" - the process whereby a human being becomes
male or female and his or her behavior as a sexed being is shaped -
must be analyzed in order to define the interrelationships between
gender and health. Clearly, this is a complex process through which
human beings build a sexual identity, and that involves biological,
emotional, and sociocultural factors, among others, operating closely
together.
Sexual identity is understood to be that portion of a person's
identity that allows them to view and accept themselves and act as
sexed and sexual beings.
Gender identity is a person's intimate and profound conviction that
they belong to one or the other sex, in a sense that goes beyond
their chromosomal and somatic characteristics. Gender role is an
individual's expression of masculinity or femininity, in keeping with
the rules established by their society. Sexual orientation is the
sexual preference expressed by the person through his or her choice
of sexual or erotic ties.
As a rule gender roles are shaped through a socialization process
tend to be shared by the members of each group and society at any
given point in history. The social controls place in steer anyone who
strays from the assigned role back into line through rejection,
ridicule, or marginalization.
Without question, the home, the schools, the mass media, and society
as a whole continue to portray fixed stereotypes of what it is "to be
male" or "to be female" and these conceptions begin to shape gender
roles from the very moment of conception, with implicit criteria that
are clearly discriminatory.
In order for women to be able to perform health self-care and enjoy
their own sexuality they must have control over their own bodies and
view them as legitimate. This will not happen until the ideological
barriers that discourage women from understanding their own bodies
and that present the body as something that is dirty and sinful are
broken down.
To promote a process whereby individuals can recognize, identify and
accept themselves as sexual and sexed beings throughout the course of
their lives, without anxiety, fear or guilt.
To encourage the development of sex roles within the framework of a
value dialectic that is based on human rights which facilitates
respectful and equitable relations between persons, overcoming all
gender discrimination. To allow people to adopt sexual behavior
toward themselves and others that is pleasurable, conscious,
responsible and free. (pp. 112-116)
International Law and Women's Health
Rebecca J. Cook
Laws deny, limit, or condition women's access to reproductive health
care in a variety of ways that harm their health and their personal
dignity. Examples include denial of reproductive health services to
adolescent girls and unmarried women. Paternalistic control of
women's sexual and reproductive behavior manifest itself in many ways
in laws and policies.
Removal Of Legal Barriers to Adolescent Access to Services
States that are parties to the Women's Convention, the Convention on
the Rights of the Child and for example the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have the obligation to remove
legal barriers faced by adolescent girls in their access to health
care, such as clinic policies that deny services to unmarried women,
parental authorization or notification requirements, and prohibitions
on sex or reproductive health education...
Enable adolescents who are sufficiently mature to give consent of
have access to reproductive health services. This can be done by
applying the mature minor doctrine, a legal doctrine that enables
adolescents who are sufficiently mature to give consent to medical
services necessary to protect their health. Evidence of maturity can
include the fact that adolescents request reproductive health
services, live independently of their parents, or earn their own
livelihood.
Challenge laws, such as those that prohibit reproductive health
education, as being constitutionally invalid and contrary to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, because the effect of these
laws is to deny girls the information that they need to prevent
unwanted pregnancies and protect their reproductive health.
The Removal of Female Stereotypes
Perhaps the greatest challenge faced in improving women's health is
the need to give effect of article 5a, whereby states parties commit
themselves to take all appropriate measures, "to modify the social
and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to
achieving the elimination of prejudices and customary and all other
practices which are based on the idea of the inferiority or
superiority of either of the sexes or on stereotyped roles for men
and women." Where food is scarce, whether because of agricultural or
climatic settings or the family's socioeconomic circumstances, the
feeding of males frequently gets priority over the feeding of females
so that food goes first to a husband, then to sons, then to the
mother, and, last, to any daughters. The incidence of female
malnutrition and anemia is directly related to rates of female
sickness and morality.
The challenge is created where respected national institutions such
as religious institution embody concepts of exclusive roles for men
and women and the conviction, for instance, that women are incapable
of ordination because of their sex. (p.245-250)
