This page features introductions to various concepts related to gender. Check back for more concepts.
What's the difference between gender and sex?
Sex is the biological make up -- male or female -- with which a person is born. Gender is the system which a culture or society develops which relates additional attributes to male and female beyond the biological characteristics. Social, economic, political, legal, symbolic and emotional associations with each sex develop into deeply held beliefs or attitudes in a society which can seem to the members of society to be inherent attributes of sex. However, beliefs and attitudes about gender can be dramatically different from one society to the next. These beliefs can sometimes be extremely unfair to one sex, for example giving one sex greater power than the other or limiting members of one sex from using their abilities or fulfilling their potential or condemning them for doing so.
What's the difference between the Women in Development (WID) and Gender and Development (GAD) approaches to development?
Women in Development (WID) is an approach to development which focuses on programmes only for women. Because it does not address the whole context in which the dynamics of each gender is playing out, WID can tend to address the symptoms rather than the causes of gender inequality. The Gender and Development (GAD) approach sees groups such as women and poor men as disadvantaged due to structures in society which need to be transformed. This approach works to empower those who are disadvantaged to be able to develop their societies in a way which transforms them and brings gender equality. Instead of creating separate projects for women, this approach tries to keep women and men integrated and take the needs and social realities of both into consideration.
What is CEDAW?
CEDAW stands for the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1979. The convention was the result of more than thirty years of work by the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to identify all areas in which women are denied equality with men.
Read CEDAW
What is CRC?
CRC stands for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It was adopted by the UN in 1989 and is the human rights treaty which has been ratified by the most nations in history.
| 
