CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

This document analyzes different aspects of inequality and gender violence, public policies, and specialization in terms of institutional intervention to respond to different vulnerabilities. In order to explain the origin of some practices, analyze the results and clarify definitions of terms that will be used in the document, the conceptual framework used is presented below.

Human Rights

In December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thirty articles were expressed with the aim of ensuring that all people, from birth, can count on basic civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, without exception. The declaration has been the most important reference document for the drafting of the constitutions of many States.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, human rights are defined as “rights inherent to all of us, regardless of nationality, gender, ethnic or national origin, color, religion, language or any other status”. Human rights have six fundamental characteristics: universal, inalienable, indivisible, indivisible, interdependent, equal, and non-discriminatory (OHCHR, n.d.)

Gender

The concept of gender began to be used in the 1970s when this category was proposed to explain the social construction of women’s subordination, and to debate those traditionalist positions where it was conceived that women’s disadvantages were based on biological differences. Gender analysis seeks to explain how biological differences translate into inequality and reproduce power relations between men and women. In other words, gender is the set of beliefs, values, personal and collective characteristics, attitudes, and activities that are assigned to men and women through a process of social construction and habits.

According to Enmakunde (2015), gender is socialized in a historical process that takes place at different levels and institutions (State, family, formal education, media, labor market, laws,

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and interpersonal relationships). It establishes a hierarchization of characteristics and activities, where actions defined as masculine are more valued than actions that are considered feminine and, therefore, an overload of roles and responsibilities has developed towards women.

Gender Identity

Refers to each person’s intimate and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth. This includes the personal sense of the body (may involve modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical, or other means) and other expressions of gender, including dress, speech, and mannerisms (Inter-Agency Standing Committee - IASC, 2015, p. 319).

Gender diversities

This concept refers to the possibilities that people have to live and recognize their sexual orientation, identity, and gender expression. They are called diversities, in plural, to understand the great variety that exists in the ways of wanting and expressing that people demonstrate around sexuality. This concept is integrated by orientation, sexual identity, gender identity, and gender expression (National Council for Gender Equality, 2018, p. 30).

Patriarchal system or patriarchy

It can be defined as “the direct power relationship between men and women, in which men have concrete and fundamental interests of control, use, submission and oppression of women, effectively carrying out their interests” (Cagigas Arriazu, 2000, p. 307).

Machismo

Machismo is defined as behaviors and thoughts that uphold the idea of male superiority as an irrefutable characteristic. Machista practices, values, and beliefs translate into different forms of gender violence.

Masculinity

Masculinity is a social construct that stems from the sexual division of labor, which in turn gives way to roles and stereotypes that are expected as a social mandate for men. Masculinities (there is no single way of masculinity; there are also diverse ways of expressing and living them) respond to a social, cultural, historical, and political context that has been transformed throughout history and that evidently does not respond to any biological characteristic.

Gender violence

For Lagarde (2008), gender violence is violence against women, because they are women living in relations of gender inequality: oppression, exclusion, subordination, discrimination, exploitation, and marginalization. Women are victims of threats, aggressions, mistreatment, injuries, and damages. The types of violence are physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and patrimonial, and the modalities

of gender violence are family, labor, and education, in the community, institutional, and femicide (ML) (p. 235).

Gender approach

In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women was held where the incorporation of a gender perspective was advocated as a fundamental and strategic approach. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action urges all United Nations organizations, member states, private companies, nongovernmental organizations, and civil society in general, to take action and participate in solutions to various problems such as violence against women, the effects of armed and other types of conflicts on women, inequality in political and economic structures, in all forms of productive activity and in access to resources, the disparity between women and men in the exercise of power and decision-making at all levels of authority, among other issues

In 1997, the agreed conclusions of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC) defined gender mainstreaming as

“The process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned activity, including laws, policies, or programs, in all sectors and at all levels. It is a strategy designed to make women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral element in the design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic, and social spheres so that women and men benefit equally, and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal is to achieve [substantive] gender equality.” (ECOSOC, 1997).

Intersectionality

Gender is a social construct; therefore, it can vary from one society to another and can also evolve or change over time. Gender, its representations, and interpretations construct a hierarchical order that reproduces other inequalities, whether economic, social, or political. Gender-based discrimination and violence intersect with other factors, such as ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, age, geographic location, gender identity, sexual orientation, among others. This process of recognizing the different manifestations of discrimination and/or violence is known as intersectionality.

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