Questions
1. What is the difference between sex and gender?
2. What are gender equality and gender equity?
3. Why address gender and youth?
4. What gender-related factors affect youth reproductive health and HIV prevention?
5. What makes young people vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancy?
6. How can gender inequity and inequality affect young people's reproductive health?
Answers
1. What is the difference between sex and gender?
Sex refers to the biological differences between males and females. These differences are concerned with physiology and are generally permanent and universal.
Gender refers to the socially constructed roles and responsibilities of males and females in a given culture or location. These roles and responsibilities are influenced by perceptions and expectations arising from social, political, environmental, economic, and religious factors, as well as custom, law, class, ethnicity, and individual or institutional bias. The definitions of what it means to be female or male are learned, vary among cultures, and change over time.
2. What are gender equality and gender equity?
Gender equality permits males and females equal enjoyment of human rights, socially valued goods, opportunities, resources, and the benefits from development results.
Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, measures must be available to compensate for historical and social disadvantages that prevent women and men from operating on a level playing field. Gender equity strategies are used to eventually gain gender equality. Equity is the means; equality is the result.
3. Why address gender and youth?
Adolescence is a time for adopting values and forming behaviors and a period when young people experiment with and rehearse adult relationships and model examples set by men and women. Adults usually have a greater sense of who they are – what they value, what they need, and how best to get what they need – than do adolescents. But still, youth are likely to be more willing than adults to consider new ways of looking at power, relationships, and issues of gender equity and equality. They are more open to reviewing and questioning their experiences and considering alternatives. In some ways, youth may even be better equipped than adults to learn and practice behaviors that strengthen gender equity and equality between the sexes.
While transitioning to adulthood, adolescence can be a good time for addressing gender-related reproductive health issues and concerns. Because cognitive development is accelerating, particularly moral reasoning and critical thinking, it can be a period for engaging in analysis and reflective discussions about the power between men and women, gender equity, and gender equality. Reaching youth with gender equitable reproductive health and HIV prevention messages could have great impact later in their lives. Integrating gender into youth reproductive health and HIV/AIDS programs can lead to improved outcomes:
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Reduced maternal morbidity and mortality
- Decreased transmission of STIs and HIV
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Enhanced couple communication and respect between the sexes
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Improved quality of reproductive health and HIV/AIDS services
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Greater utilization of services by young people
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Decreased violence against women and girls
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Increased male involvement in reproductive health
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Fewer harmful cultural practices
4. What gender-related factors affect youth reproductive health and HIV prevention?
Gender-related factors that affect youth reproductive health and HIV prevention are:
Cultural Factors:
- Socially prescribed definitions of appropriate sex roles and responsibilities
- Belief in inherent superiority of males
- Expectations that males are primary decision-makers
- Customs of marriage which give males authority and power
- Notion of family as the private sphere and under male control
Economic Factors:
- Lack of economic independence, especially for girls and young women
- Limited access to employment
- Limited access to education and training, particularly for girls and young women
- Limited access to cash or credit, particularly for girls and young men
Legal and Political Factors:
- Lack of knowledge of legal rights, especially for girls and young women
- Limited legal rights as "minors"
- Insensitive treatment of girls by police and judicial systems
- Lack of political organization and participation
5. What makes young people vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancy?
Girls and Young Women:
- Biologically more susceptible to STIs and HIV
- Have limited access to prevention technology, e.g., female condoms and microbicides
- Are at greater risk of morbidity and mortality as a result of too-early pregnancy
- Engage in "sugar daddy" relationships
- Are often pressured to validate fertility
- Experience higher rates of sexual violence, coercion, and exploitation
- Have less formal education than males
- Challenged to practice abstinence and faithfulness, especially in early marriages
- Unable to effectively negotiate condom use
Boys and Young Men:
- Experience peer pressure and social pressure to be sexually active
- Tend to believe pregnancy validates masculinity
- Taught to dominate and control, which can lead to violence and coercion
- Do not feel comfortable using reproductive health services
- Not traditionally targeted for reproductive health services
- Tend to avoid responsibility, e.g., burden of care
- Stigma, abuse, and lack of information for younger men who have sex with other men
6. How can gender inequity and inequality affect young people's reproductive health?
Gender inequity and inequality affect the control that young people have over their sexual and reproductive lives. They can also:
