Gender refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviours and roles associated with being a woman, man, girl or boy, as well as relationships with each other. As a social construct, gender varies from society to society and can change over time. Show Gender is hierarchical and produces inequalities that intersect with other social and economic inequalities. Gender-based discrimination intersects with other factors of discrimination, such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, age, geographic location, gender identity and sexual orientation, among others. This is referred to as intersectionality. Gender interacts with but is different from sex, which refers to the different biological and physiological characteristics of females, males and intersex persons, such as chromosomes, hormones and reproductive organs. Gender and sex are related to but different from gender identity. Gender identity refers to a person’s deeply felt, internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the person’s physiology or designated sex at birth. Gender influences people’s experience of and access to healthcare. The way that health services are organized and provided can either limit or enable a person’s access to healthcare information, support and services, and the outcome of those encounters. Health services should be affordable, accessible and acceptable to all, and they should be provided with quality, equity and dignity. Gender inequality and discrimination faced by women and girls puts their health and well-being at risk. Women and girls often face greater barriers than men and boys to accessing health information and services. These barriers include restrictions on mobility; lack of access to decision-making power; lower literacy rates; discriminatory attitudes of communities and healthcare providers; and lack of training and awareness amongst healthcare providers and health systems of the specific health needs and challenges of women and girls. Consequently, women and girls face greater risks of unintended pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, cervical cancer, malnutrition, lower vision, respiratory infections, malnutrition and elder abuse, amongst others. Women and girls also face unacceptably high levels of violence rooted in gender inequality and are at grave risk of harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, and child, early and forced marriage. WHO figures show that about 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. Harmful gender norms – especially those related to rigid notions of masculinity – can also affect boys and men’s health and wellbeing negatively. For example, specific notions of masculinity may 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 perpetrating violence – as well as being subjected to violence themselves. They can also have grave implications for their mental health. Rigid gender norms also negatively affect people with diverse gender identities, who often face violence, stigma and discrimination as a result, including in healthcare settings. Consequently, they are at higher risk of HIV and mental health problems, including suicide. The work of WHO is aligned with and supports the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, and SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The Organization is committed to non-discrimination and to leaving no-one behind. It seeks to ensure that every person, regardless of gender or sex, can live a healthy life. Gender inequality hinders progress to fulfill everyone’s right to health. Efforts in support of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) must focus on reaching those most often left behind, such as marginalized, stigmatized and geographically isolated people of all sexes and gender identities, with a special focus on those in situations of increased vulnerability, including poor people, persons with disabilities and racialized and indigenous peoples. Addressing discrimination against women and girls is critical to achieving UHC. WHO develops norms, standards and guidelines on gender-responsive health service provision and delivery, and commissions research on issues focusing on gender equality, human rights and health equity. WHO also supports country-level action to strengthen health sector response to gender-based violence, as well as to address gender equality in health workforce development and gender-related barriers to health services. There are people who believe that we do not need feminism today, but nothing could be further from the truth. Women have struggled for equality and against oppression for centuries, and although some battles have been partly won - such as the right to vote and equal access to education – women are still disproportionally affected by all forms of violence and by discrimination in every aspect of life.
 Jokes about feminism and stereotypes about feminists persist, and many of these are also homophobic and assume that being lesbian is something ‘bad’. In fact, being a feminist is not something particular to any sex or gender: there are women and men who consider themselves feminists, some are gay or lesbian, some heterosexual, bisexual or transgender - and some may identify differently. The concept of feminism reflects a history of different struggles, and the term has been interpreted in fuller and more complex ways as understanding has developed. In general, feminism can be seen as a movement to put an end to sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression and to achieve
full gender equality in law and in practice. Women’s movements and the history of feminismThere have been many extraordinary women who have played an important role in local or world history, but not all of these have necessarily been advocates of women’s issues. The women’s movement is made up of women and men who work and fight to achieve gender equality and to improve the lives of women as a social group. In most societies, women were traditionally confined to the home as daughters, wives and mothers, and we are often only aware of women in history because of their relation to famous men. Of course many women throughout history did in fact play an important role in cultural and political life, but they tend to be invisible. An organised women’s movement only really started in the 19th century, even though women activists and the struggle for equality have always been part of all human societies. One of the early pioneers, who thought and wrote about women as a group, is the Italian writer Christine de Pizan, who published a book about women’s position in society as early as 1495. Christine de Pizan wrote about books she had read by famous men, who wrote books about the sins and weaknesses of girls and women, and questioned whether women were really human beings at all, or whether they were more similar to animals. Christine de Pizan’s work offers a good example of the early stages of the struggle for women’s equality. However, she was very unusual in being able to read and write, which was not at all common for women of that time. The women’s movement began to develop in North America, mainly because women there were allowed to go to school earlier than in Europe - and women who can read and write, and who are encouraged to think for themselves, usually start to question how society works. The first activists travelled around North America and fought for the end of both slavery and women’s oppression. They organised the ‘First Women’s
Rights Convention’ in 1848, and continued to campaign to improve the social position of all women. The movement also began in Europe with the same broad aims: activists collected signatures demanding that working women should receive their own wages and not their husbands’, that women should be able to own a house and have custody of their children. First wave of feminismThe fight for women’s right to vote in elections is known as the ‘suffragette movement’. By the end of the 19th century, this had become a worldwide movement, and the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist movement’ started to be used from that point on. This first wave of feminism activism included mass demonstrations, the publishing of newspapers, organised debates, and the establishment of international women’s organisations. By the 1920s, women had won the right to vote in most European countries and in North America. At around the same time, women became more active in communist, socialist and social democratic parties because increasing numbers of women began to work outside the home in factories and offices. Women were first allowed to go to university in the early 20th century, having both a career and a family. In certain countries, when fascist parties gained power the feminist movement was banned. Women started organising again after the end of the Second World War, and they soon gained equal political rights in most European
countries, with women’s emancipation becoming an important aim and most women being allowed to take on full-time jobs, divorce their husbands and go to university. Second wave of feminismThe second wave of feminism also resulted in new areas of science: women’s studies became a discipline to be studied at university, and books began to be published about women’s achievements in literature, music and science, and recording women’s previously unwritten history. Finally, the women’s movement played an important role in the drafting of international documents about women’s rights, such as
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979). Third wave of feminismThe third wave of feminism mainly refers to the American movement in the 1990s, and was a reaction to the backlash of conservative media and politicians announcing the end of feminism or referring to ‘post-feminism’. The term ‘backlash’ was popularised by Susan Faludi in her book Backlash. The Undeclared War against Women, published in 1991, and describing the negative reaction of the patriarchal system towards women’s liberation. This was hardly a new phenomenon: women’s movements had always been met with antagonism. However, in the 1980s, institutionalised forms of attacks on women’s rights grew stronger. The third wave of feminism can be characterised by an increased awareness of overlapping categories, such as race, class, gender, sexual orientation. More emphasis was also placed on racial issues, including the status of women in other parts of the world (global feminism). This was also a moment when a number of feminist non-governmental organisations were established, but focusing on specific feminist issues, rather than claiming to represent general feminist ideas. Third wave feminism actively uses media and pop culture to promote its ideas and to run activities, for example by publishing blogs or e-zines. It focuses on bringing feminism closer to the people’s daily lives. The main issues that third wave feminists are concerned about include: sexual harassment, domestic violence, the pay gap between men and women, eating disorders and body image, sexual and reproductive rights, honour crimes and female genital
mutilation. Cyberfeminism and networked feminism (fourth-wave feminism)The term cyberfeminism is used to describe the work of feminists interested in theorising, critiquing, and making use of the Internet, cyberspace, and newmedia technologies in general. The term and movement grew out of 'third-wave' feminism. However, the exact meaning is still unclear to some: even at the first meeting of cyberfeminists The First Cyberfeminist International (FCI) in Kassel (Germany), participants found it hard to provide a definition, and as a result of discussions, they proposed 100 anti-theses52 (with reference to Martin Luther’s theses) on what cyberfeminism is not. These included, for example, it is not an institution, it is not an ideology, it is not an –ism. Cyberfeminism is considered to be a predecessor of
‘networked feminism’, which refers generally to feminism on the Internet: for example, mobilising people to take action against sexism, misogyny or gender-based violence against women. One example is the online movement #metoo in 2017, which was a response on social networks from women all over the world to the case of Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood producer who was accused of sexually harassing female staff in the movie industry.
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