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A

Androcentrism Practice of placing male human beings at the centre of the universe, as the parameter of studies, analysis of reality and universal experience of humankind. It confuses humanity with men. It is a specific form of sexism that is especially evident in the concealment of women and their lack of definition ("Public Budgets from a Gender Viewpoint" Emakunde).
Agent for equality Professionals with the objective of analysing, intervening and evaluating situations in which gender discrimination exists. They develop equality policies, apply the gender mainstreaming principle and implement action plans for the promotion, recruitment and development of women in all spheres of life (Study of the situation by Agent of Equal Opportunity in Spain. Equal Action 3).

B

Balanced composition

[See Parity Democracy]

The presence of women and men so that the number of people of each gender is neither greater than sixty percent nor lower than forty percent (LOIEMH, First additional provision). This is the definition provided by the Equality Law, which is also present in international text, and used to solve the percentage linked to parity democracy in relation to the necessary presence of women and men in decision-making positions.

C

Co-education Educational method based on the principle of gender equality and non-discrimination on grounds of sex. It means educating boys and girls together in the idea that there are different perspectives and world views, different experiences and contributions made by women and men that should form the collective worldview, without which we cannot interpret or understand the world and reality. Co-educating means not establishing relationships of domination that subordinate one sex to the other, but incorporating in equal conditions the history and realities of women and men to educate in equality while respecting differences. “It is very important not to identify co-educational school with mixed school. The latter only gathers boys and girls together, incorporating students to the world of men and leaving outside the academic field anything related to the world and history of women. The co-educational school needs to consider the real presence of women –and not only in the classroom–, both in regard to the organisation and management of the education system and schools as to the relationship and interaction between students and teachers, the curriculum, course programmes and textbooks” (www.educastur.princast.es).
Co-educational school The co-educational school model assumes that teachers recognise the ways in which sexism is manifested in school and they are even recognised as a party involved in the production of inequality. The school is an institution that takes into account the elimination of gender inequalities and gender hierarchies. It addresses the news of groups rather than individuals, as well as cultural diversity. It recognises the non-neutrality of the school, creates new temporal and spatial discursive orders and prepares individuals for the workplace and the private and family sphere (Amparo Tomé).
Conciliation This involves creating the conditions to achieve the right balance between personal, family and work responsibilities. It is the definition of the Organic Law for the effective equality of women and men and is also present in international texts. The dignity of the person and equal rights were not included in the legislation until after the Second World War. The assertion of equality between women and men is the expression of a new state of affairs that highlights not only the need to change attitudes but also to adapt social organisation so that women and men are able to combine their personal, family and work life so that they have free time to develop their full potential (GCEA). However, it is a concept that has exclusively been linked to women, so it is necessary to transcend its meaning to achieve a real “joint responsibility”, paying special attention to the rights of men in these matters, avoiding that women are the only beneficiaries of the rights relating to the care of the children and other dependents, because if these rights are only adopted by women, they collide with their right to enter and remain in the workforce.

D

Democratic deficit The effect caused by an unbalanced political participation of men and women, which results in a diminished democratic legitimacy (Inter-American Institute for Human Rights).

Dialogic feminism

[See Feminism]

Dialogic feminism is a theoretical approach that overcomes equality feminism and difference feminism and that is constructed from a plurality of all women voices who decide through egalitarian dialogue what they wanted and how they want it (M. Soler). The dialogic learning becomes, then, in an essential element to move forward the proposals of cooperative learning towards options committed with a model of coeducational and plural school that looks for greater equality of opportunities for all of us (Joan Traver).

Difference feminism

[See Feminism]

Movement that believes in the no comparison and the overcoming of the duality of one gender over the other, if not in the development of the feminine generic difference in all symbolic orders. (…) It argues that the place we occupy in the world and that defines us is not only determined by the space that society offers us if not also our body of woman with its structure and life cycles that determine somehow our vision of the world. The maximum exponents are the psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray. In Spain is important to mention Victoria Sendón de León (Sobre diosas amazonas y vestales) and Milagros Rivera Garretas (Nombrar el mundo en femenino. Pensamiento de las mujeres y teoría feminista). (Vocabulario Violeta. Ciudad de Mujeres. http://www.ciudaddemujeres.com/vocabulario/A-H.htm).

Direct discrimination

[See Principle of Equal Treatment]

It is considered direct discrimination on grounds of gender when a person is, has been o could be treated, on account of their gender, less favourably than another in a comparable situation (LOEIMH, art. 6.1). The following is also considered direct discrimination:
  • Sexual and gender harassment (art. 7.3).
  • The conditioning of a right or expectation of a right to the acceptance of a situation of sexual or gender harassment (art. 7.4).
  • Any unfavourable treatment of women in pregnancy or maternity matters (art. 8).
  • Any adverse treatment or negative effect suffered by a person as a result of their filing of a complaint, claim, demand or appeal, with the purpose of preventing discrimination and demanding the effective enforcement of the principle of equal treatment and opportunities for women and men (art. 9).

Disaggregation of data by sex

It is a means of knowing the position of women and men in all areas through the collection and disaggregation of data and statistical information by sex. This allows a comparative analysis of any matter, taking into account the specificities of gender and makes discrimination visible. It is recommended by the international organisations engaged in the defence of rights as a means to promote equality between women and men, for example, the Resolution of the Council of the European Union concerning the activities following the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All (2007). In Spain the sex variable is present in the data collection of most official statistics, but it is necessary to go further and introduce the concept of gender mainstreaming, to include a gender perspective in all statistics (M. Cases Pairals).

Domestic space

[See Public space-Private space]

This space is identified with the one where takes place, breeding, affection and care of dependent persons, i.e., is the place where personal needs are met. This is the space that women know as their maximum charge. (Soledad Murillo)
Double burden Also known as "double shift", it refers to those women who are in paid employment but also in charge of domestic labour as the only viable and forced horizon. This alleged conciliation, in its diversity, leads them to share a common element: the lack of time to live. This double burden still falls on adult women and it is mostly evident in childrearing. This issue is worsening due to the increasing ageing population, in the responsibility of caring for the elderly. It is a double workload assumed daily and synchronously throughout their whole lives (Teresa Torns).
Dual Strategy (Gender mainstreaming) To integrate systematically the situations, priorities and respective needs of women and men in all policies, with the vision to promote equality between men and women and resort to all policies and general measures with the specific goal of achieving equality, taking into account actively and openly, from the planning stage, its effects on the respective situations of ones and others when it will be implemented, monitored and assessed (communication of the Commission COM9667 21.2.1996)