Gender

In theory

Gender is one of the social categories that organizes society, in interaction with other categories such as ethnicity, handicap, sexuality, age, etcetera. The concept was originally coined to distinguish social and cultural differences between men/masculinity and women/femininity (gender) from biological differences (sex). Over the last decades, scholars have complicated this idea, demonstrating that sex and gender are neither dichotomous nor independent of each other. They demonstrated how gender/sex is in fact an interaction of biological, psychological and social factors (e.g. beliefs, practices, structures, norms) that influence how people identify and express themselves, how they (inter)act, and how they organize society. Over the last decades, gender is increasingly analyzed through an intersectional lens. This means that attention is paid to how different axes of social inequality intersect.

In practice

Even though it has been pointed out that not just women, but also other gender minorities (e.g. intersex, queer, transgender and non-binary people) are being marginalized in contemporary society, initiatives for gender equality often overlook problems faced by these groups. Moreover, an intersectional approach is often lacking, invisibilizing for instance the experiences of women of color and religious women.