Gender perspective: what is it and in what fields can it be applied?

The gender perspective is an approach that allows the study and attention of phenomena, links, activities, processes and social systems related to the sex-gender system. It is an approach that has been developed from the earliest feminist movements that question the subordination relationships in which many people find themselves who violate the regulations of said system.

Then we will see in more detail what the gender perspective is and in which fields it can be applied.

• Related article: "What is gender equity?"

What is the gender perspective?

The word "perspective" refers to a way of understanding and representing something with respect to the eye of the observer. In other words, a "perspective" is a way of looking at or considering any phenomenon; In other words, it is to assume a point of view. Thus, a “gender perspective” is the act of approaching a reality, paying attention to the construction of the category of “gender” and its power relations.

To better explain it, let's imagine that we use magnifying lenses (glasses) that, as expected, allow us to look at things that we would not be able to observe without them. Since we see different things, but they exist in the world of always, the glasses allow us to understand this world in a different way as well.

Likewise, they allow us to relate to its elements in a different way and intervene in them with multiple possibilities. In this metaphor, and for the present case, the lenses would be the gender perspective, and basically what they do is amplify our vision to address or highlight gender issues, which at first glance seem non-existent or insignificant.

• You may be interested: "Margaret Mead's gender theory"

What is a gender perspective focused on?

Assuming or applying a gender perspective implies recognizing different issues, especially those related to the way in which our social ties and systems have been established through a certain understanding of sex, gender, and orientation sexual.

Specifically, and according to Mata Lamas (1996), the gender perspective starts from the recognition of the cultural valuation of anatomical differences; valuation established by means of especially rigid and internalized norms during the socialization process.

For example, it implies considering that there is no necessary correspondence between sexual difference and the social attributions or representations built around said difference. That is to say, one thing is the physical-biological constitution, and quite another are the values ​​that are attributed to that difference (which in in the case of western culture, they are based on "man or woman", "feminine" or "masculine" and "heterosexual" or "homosexual" mainly).

Something that a gender perspective would pay attention to is that, in these dichotomies, the feminine has been constantly associated with the domains of nature, especially after understanding motherhood and related values (e.g. care), as a biological function and life destiny for women.

Among other things, those who have broken the regulations of this association have traditionally been considered as "unnatural", "masculine", "crazy" women, and so on. For its part, homosexuality has also traditionally been considered an unnatural, pathological, etc. issue, as well as non-normative gender identities.

Based on these questions, the gender perspective considers that predisposition and physical-biological characteristics are not a sufficient condition to provoke a behavior, and much less a personality with exclusive according to sex. Therefore, the gender perspective recognizes that, as Simone de Beauvoir taught us, “biological is not destiny”.

Some key elements

In line with the above, Susana Gamba (2008) summarizes some elements that the gender perspective recognizes, analyzes and promotes:

• Recognize gender as a social and historical construction, that is to say, it can vary between societies and times.
• Gender establishes forms of social relationship, that is, of linking them in a certain way according to whether one or the other gender has been assigned to us, and as assigned or chosen by other people. This also has to do with individual identification processes.
• There is an asymmetric relationship supported by the dominant sex-gender system. Frequently this relationship is one of female subordination and male domination. Although it is not the only possible relationship (there are also forms of inverse domination and egalitarian relationships), asymmetry has been the general or majority way of establishing these relationships.
• Gender has a comprehensive and structural dimension, since it not only has to do with the relationships between men and women, but with social processes and systems (institutions, economic systems, public policies, identities, etc.).
• In line with the above, it is not an isolated category, but a transversal one, since is articulated with everyday elements such as education, social class, marital status, age, among others.
• Gender is not only a category that accounts for a normative system, but also allows questioning the same norms and promote inclusion.
• Underlying the gender perspective is a commitment to the search for equity, which broadens the exercise of power by those who have been systematically subordinated by the hegemonic system sex-gender.

In what fields can it be applied?

Returning to the metaphor of glasses, the gender perspective (like any other) can be used to analyze any system, phenomenon or relationship, including everyday life. Depending on the context in which it is assumed and applied, the same perspective must consider other variables, such as socioeconomic conditions, social classes, ethnic origin, among others.

This is so since, from the beginning, the gender perspective addresses power relations and conditions of inequality in an important way that cross any sphere of social life. And it is that, in its origins, the gender perspective was assumed by the movements that sought equal opportunities to women, as well as the questioning of the systems that were generating different opportunities between some people and others.

Thus, it is a perspective that is not new but it does continue to generate rejection or resistance in many sectors, and that, being linked closely with the analysis and critique of inequality and discrimination, the gender perspective often has political components important.

To give some more concrete examples, the gender perspective can be applied to research and intervene in the health system, to analyze public policies and social movements, to study and complement the educational system, to analyze organizational practices in business management, among many others.

As we have said, the specific elements that are observed, included or used in a gender perspective, depend to a great extent on the purposes and the context in which it is applied. Some may pay attention to the specific needs of women, others may attend to conditions of inequality (Velasco, 2009), others to the construction of masculinity, others to the rights and needs of the lgbtiq community, to mention only Some.

Bibliographic references:

• Gamba, S. (2008) What is the gender perspective and gender studies? Women in Network. The feminist newspaper. Retrieved October 30, 2018. Available in http://www.mujeresenred.net/spip.php? article1395.
• Lamas, M. (1996). The gender perspective. The task, Journal of Education and Culture of section 47 of the SNTE, 8: 1-10.
• Velasco, S. (2009). Sexes, gender and health. Theory and methods for clinical practice and health programs. Minerva: Madrid.