WHO: GENDER MIND MAP

WHO (World Health Organization)

What is gender?

Gender & Health

Violence

What About Manhood?

Intersectionality

Violence against women (Click to return to the homepage)-->

• Approximately 1 in 3 women globally have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner or someone else.

• More than a quarter of women aged 15-49 who have been in a relationship have faced physical or sexual violence from their partner at least once in their life.

• Nearly 38% of all murders of women worldwide are committed by their intimate partners.

• Lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic increased the exposure of women to abusive partners and known risk factors, while restricting their access to services.

• Globally, 6% of women report having been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner.
• Various factors contribute to intimate partner and sexual violence, including low levels of education, exposure to family violence, and harmful attitudes condoning violence.
• Physical, sexual, and psychological violence can result in fatal outcomes like homicide or suicide.
• 42% of women who experience intimate partner violence report suffering injuries as a consequence.
• Women who have experienced physical or sexual abuse are 1.5 times more likely to have sexually transmitted infections, and in some cases, HIV, compared to those who have not faced such violence.
• Intimate partner violence during pregnancy increases the likelihood of miscarriage, stillbirth, pre-term delivery, and low birth weight babies.

Intersectionality

"Intersectionality" is a concept that helps us understand how gender differences interact with other factors like race, age, wealth, where you live, and more. These interactions can lead to unequal opportunities and different health outcomes for different people. These factors include things like your sex, which is whether you're a boy or a girl, your race, which is your ethnic background, your age, how much wealth your family has, where you live, what you believe in, the language you speak, if you have any disabilities, whether you've moved from one place to another, and your gender identity, which is how you see yourself, and who you're attracted to. Here's an example: In some parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, Indigenous women often have worse health when they're pregnant than non-Indigenous women. They also don't always get the healthcare they need. This happens because of differences in language, religion, where they live, and more. To make things better, we need to keep an eye on these differences in health and understand what can be changed in the healthcare system and the communities where people live. This way, we can make better programs and rules to improve the health of Indigenous women.

How is gender related to health?

"Gender refers to the ideas and expectations society has about what it means to be a woman, a man, a girl, or a boy. These ideas include how we're supposed to act, what roles we should have, and how we relate to each other. Gender isn't the same everywhere and can change over time. Gender isn't just about how we're expected to behave; it's also about how people are treated unfairly because of their gender, especially women and girls. This unfair treatment can combine with other unfair things like where you're from, how much money you have, and who you're attracted to. We call this intersectionality. Gender is different from the physical and biological aspects of being female, male, or intersex. Gender identity is how someone feels inside about their gender, which might be different from their body or what they were called at birth. Your gender can affect how you access healthcare. Sometimes, the way healthcare is set up can make it hard for people to get the help they need. But healthcare should be available to everyone, and it should be good quality and respectful.

What About Manhood?

Harmful gender norms – including those related to rigid notions of masculinity – affect the health and well-being of boys and men. For example, notions of masculinity encourage boys and men to smoke, take sexual and other health risks, misuse alcohol and not seek help or health care. Such gender norms also contribute to boys and men engaging in violence against women and girls. They also contribute to violence perpetrated against men including homicide, youth and gang violence, which are among leading causes of disease and even death among young men. Harmful masculinities also have grave implications for men’s mental health. Societal expectations and norms around “manhood” lead men to engage in risk-taking behaviors. In addition to affecting men’s health, this also leads to negative outcomes for women and children due to increased interpersonal violence, the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and unintended pregnancy. Men’s lack of participation in housework and childcare adds to the high burden of unpaid care work often performed by women.

What is gender?

Gender is all about the characteristics that we think make a person a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman. These include how they act, what they do, and how they get along with others. But it's not the same everywhere and can change over time. Sometimes, being a boy or a girl can make life harder for some people. This can happen because of other things like how much money they have, where they live, or if they have any disabilities. This is called "intersectionality." Gender isn't the same as "sex," which is about the physical stuff that makes someone a boy, a girl, or somewhere in between. But even that's not the same as "gender identity," which is more about how someone feels on the inside about being a boy, a girl, or somewhere in between.