Glossary
This glossary is based on the glossary prepared by the European Institute for Gender Equality. For suggestions for additions, please send an e-mail to gender.office@ozyegin.edu.tr.
B
Bisexual: A person who is emotionally and/or sexually attracted to more than one gender.
D
Direct Discrimination: Discrimination where one person is treated less favourably on grounds such as sex and gender, age, nationality, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, health, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, than another person is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation.
Disadvantaged Groups: Groups of persons that experience a higher risk of poverty, social exclusion, discrimination and violence than the general population, including, but not limited to, ethnic minorities, migrants, people with disabilities, isolated elderly people and children.
Diversity: Differences in the values, attitudes, cultural perspective, beliefs, ethnic background, sexual orientation, gender identity, skills, knowledge and life experiences of each individual in any group of people.
F
Female: Biologically based references to the sex of a woman.
Feminism: Political stance and commitment to change the political position of women and promote gender equality, based on the thesis that women are subjugated because of their gendered body, i.e. sex.
G
Gender: Social attributes and opportunities associated with being female and male and to the relationships between women and men and girls and boys, as well as to the relations between women and those between men.
Gender Analysis: Critical examination of how differences in gender roles, activities, needs, opportunities and rights/entitlements affect women, men, girls and boys in a given policy area, situation or context.
Gender Audit: Assessment of the extent to which gender equality is effectively institutionalised in policies, programmes, organisational structures and proceedings (including decision-making processes), and in the corresponding budgets.
Gender Balance: Human resources and equal participation of women and men in all areas of work, projects or programmes.
Gender Bias: Prejudiced actions or thoughts based on the gender-based perception that women are not equal to men in rights and dignity.
Gender Blindness: Failure to recognise that the roles and responsibilities of women/girls and men/boys are ascribed to, or imposed upon, them in specific social, cultural, economic and political contexts.
Gender Budgeting: Application of gender mainstreaming in the budgetary process. It entails a gender-based assessment of budgets, incorporating a gender perspective at all levels of the budgetary process, and restructuring revenues and expenditures in order to promote gender equality.
Gender Dimension: Ways in which the situation and needs of, and challenges facing, women and men (and girls and boys) differ, with a view to eliminating inequalities and avoiding their perpetuation, as well as to promoting gender equality within a particular policy, programme or procedure.
Gender Discrimination: Any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex which has the effect or purpose of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise by women, irrespective of their marital status, on the basis of equality of men and women, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field.
Gender Equality: Equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of women and men and girls and boys.
Gender Expression: People’s manifestation of their gender identity, and the one that is perceived by others.
Gender Gap: Gap in any area between women and men in terms of their levels of participation, access, rights, remuneration or benefits.
Gender Identity: Each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth, including the personal sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech and mannerisms.
Gender Indicators: Tools for monitoring gender differences, gender-related changes over time and progress towards gender equality goals.
Gender Inequality: Legal, social and cultural situation in which sex and/or gender determine different rights and dignity for women and men, which are reflected in their unequal access to or enjoyment of rights, as well as the assumption of stereotyped social and cultural roles.
Gender Mainstreaming: Systematic consideration of the differences between the conditions, situations and needs of women and men in all policies and actions.
Gender Norms: Standards and expectations to which women and men generally conform, within a range that defines a particular society, culture and community at that point in time.
Gender Pay Gap: Percentage of men’s earnings and represents the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of female and male employees.
Gender Quotas: Positive measurement instrument aimed at accelerating the achievement of gender-balanced participation and representation by establishing a defined proportion (percentage) or number of places or seats to be filled by, or allocated to, women and/or men, generally under certain rules or criteria.
Gender Reassignment: Set of medical measures that can, but do not have to, include psychological, endocrinological and surgical treatments aimed at aligning a person’s physical appearance with their gender identity.
Gender Roles: Social and behavioural norms which, within a specific culture, are widely considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex.
Gender Socialisation: Process by which individuals learn the cultural behaviours associated with the concepts of femininity or masculinity.
Gender Stereotypes: Preconceived ideas whereby females and males are arbitrarily assigned characteristics and roles determined and limited by their gender.
Gender Neutral: Policy, programme or situation that has no differential positive or negative impact in terms of gender relations or equality between women and men.
Gender Neutral Language: Language that is not gender-specific and which considers people in general, with no reference to women and men.
Gender Sensitive Accountability: Obligation and responsibility on the part of state structures and public officials to implement gender mainstreaming and achieve gender equality policy objectives, to report on progress achieved, and to be answerable in the event of a failure to meet stated gender equality objectives.
Gender Sensitive Language: Realisation of gender equality in written and spoken language attained when women and men and those who do not conform to the binary gender system are made visible and addressed in language as persons of equal value, dignity, integrity and respect.
Gender Sensitive Monitoring and Evaluation: Method of gender mainstreaming that integrates gender equality concerns into the evaluation objectives but also into the evaluation methodology, approaches and use.
Gender: Socio-cultural construction within the binarism of women and men.
Gendered: Something or someone is gendered when exhibiting gender-differentiated patterns.
Gendering: Integrating the gender perspective into the understanding and construction of persons, phenomena, reflections, things, relationships, sectors of action, societal subsystems and institutions.
Glass Ceiling: Artificial impediments and invisible barriers that militate against women’s access to top decision-making and managerial positions in an organisation, whether public or private and in whatever domain.
Glass Cliff: Phenomenon whereby individuals belonging to particular groups are more likely to be found in leadership positions that are associated with a greater risk of failure and criticism.
H
Heteronormativity: Assumption of a person’s heterosexuality.
Heterosexism: Assumption that every person should be heterosexual, thus marginalising those who do not identify themselves as heterosexual.
Heterosexuality: Sexual, emotional and/or romantic attraction to a sex other than one’s own.
Homosexual: Person who is attracted to someone of the same sex.
I
Indirect discrimination: Discrimination occurring where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of one sex at a particular disadvantage compared with persons of the other sex, unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim, and the means for achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary.
Intersectional discrimination: Discrimination that takes place on the basis of several personal grounds or characteristics/identities, which operate and interact with each other at the same time in such a way as to be inseparable.
Intersectionality: Analytical tool for studying, understanding and responding to the ways in which sex and gender intersect with other personal characteristics/identities, and how these intersections contribute to unique experiences of discrimination.
Intersex: Umbrella term to denote a number of different variations in a person’s bodily characteristics that do not match strict medical definitions of female or male.
L
Lesbian: Woman who is attracted to other women.
LGBTQ: Umbrella term used to denote individuals from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer/Questioning Community.
M
Male: Biologically based references to the sex of a man.
Man: Male human being; a person assigned a male sex at birth, or a person who defines himself as a man.
Multiple Discrimination: Any combination of forms of discrimination against persons on the grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or other characteristics, and to discrimination suffered by those who have, or who are perceived to have, those characteristics.
P
Patriarchy: Social system of masculine domination over women.
Prejudices: Attitudes and feelings − whether positive or negative and whether conscious or non-conscious − that people have about members of other groups, which may be based on preconceived ideas and influenced by elements such as gender, race, class, personal characteristics or other factors.
S
Queer: All individuals who fall outside of the gender and sexuality ‘norms’.
S
Sex: Biological and physiological characteristics that define humans as female or male.
Sexism: Actions or attitudes that discriminate against people based solely on their gender.
Sexual Identity: How one thinks of oneself in terms of attraction to the same sex or members of the other sex, based on one’s own experiences, thoughts and reactions, rather than defining oneself based on the gender or sex of one’s sexual partner(s).
Sexual Orientation: Each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional and sexual attraction to, and intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different gender, the same gender or more than one gender.
Sexuality: Central aspect of being human throughout life and encompasses sex, gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction.
Statistical Gender Bias: Effect that deprives a statistical result of representativeness by systematically distorting it, due to prejudiced actions or thoughts based on gender-based perceptions that women are not equal to men.
Sticky Floor: Expression used as a metaphor to point to a discriminatory employment pattern that keeps workers, mainly women, in the lower ranks of the job scale, with low mobility and invisible barriers to career advancement.
Structural Inequality: Embedding of gender inequalities in social structures, based on institutionalised conceptions of gender differences.
T
Transgender: Person who has a gender identity different to the gender assigned at birth and who wishes to portray gender identity in a different way to the gender assigned at birth.
V
Vulnerable Groups: Women, children and persons belonging, or perceived to belong, to groups that are in a disadvantaged position or marginalised.
W
Woman: Female human being; a person assigned a female sex at birth, or a person who defines herself as a woman.