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Sex equality [See Gender-based discrimination] |
Sex equality is understood as an equivalence relation in the sense that people have the same value, independently of the characters or attitudes associated with them for being men or women. It is a fundamental right that is based on the concept of social justice. It implies, therefore, the lack of any form of gender-based discrimination. |
| Sexism | Term that refers to the assumption, belief or conviction that one of the genders is superior to the other. Normally it is expressed in a context of certain behaviours and traditional stereotypes based on sex, which result in a set of discriminating practices towards the members of the assumed inferior gender. The more frequent use refers to the conviction of the superiority of the male over women (Term glossary. Roma: IPS, 1997). Mechanism through which one gender is privileged over the other. Patriarchal concepts and behaviours that keep females in a position of inferiority and subordination. It is present in all the forms of social life and all the spheres of human relationships, that is, the practical forms of action (Feminist glossary of the National University of Comahue). |
| Sexism in language | Language is like a mirror that reflects the society that uses it; a tool that conveys our thought, organising and structuring it, adding beliefs, values, prejudices and stereotypes. For this reason, the persistence of discriminatory practices in the use of language is nothing else that a signal of the generalised presence of sexism in our culture. Asymmetry between the male and female concepts, the male gender as a pretended universal or the exclusion of women in so far as they are retrained to discourse, are the main discriminatory biases in the use of language (Eulàlia Lledó). |
| Sex-gender system | Socio-cultural system through which the reproductive sex is associated with a set of values, beliefs and attitudes. Women in the Western World traditionally have been associated with concepts like sensitivity, kindness, beauty, interior spaces, altruism, patience, family, etc. And these characteristics are assumed as natural by society. As opposed to this, and complementing it, men are attributed with the characteristics of provider, conqueror, hunter, aggressive, master of the public spaces, etc. From here it is built up an unequal symbolic relation of the private and weak women and the public and strong men in a game of submission and domination. (Glossary of terms on Gender, Sexuality and Discrimination, International Amnesty-Chile. Gender Awareness Unit). While sex refers to the biological difference existing between two individuals, gender is a socio-cultural construct that defines emotional, intellectual and behaviour characteristics by the fact of belonging to one of the two genders: male or female. The socialisation process (cultural and social pattern learning that allow to fit in in a social group) different for women and for men, according to what tradition establishes for ones and for others; according to, ultimately, imposed models. As Seyla Benhabib points out, it is the essential mode in which social reality is organised, are symbolically divided and it is experimentally lived. |
| Stereotypes | Are sets of beliefs or mental images very simplified and with few details on a particular group of people and which are generalized to all group members. The term is often used in pejorative sense, as it is considered that stereotypes are illogical beliefs that only can be took to pieces through awareness, reflection and especially through education. (Technical Office of the Secretary of the Project Equal, 2007). |
| Sticky floor | “Sticky floor” is another concept linked to the phenomenon of “Glass ceiling” and refers to the obligations that from the domestic sphere is imposed to women so that they don’t abandon this space, creates a great number of difficulties that women face to come unstuck from the “sticky floor” that traps them in obligations and requests for which they feel abandoned for an escape of women towards another non-domestic sphere. To achieve the balance between external demands and those that appear within the family and the home, from this “sticky floor”, comes to be a considerable physical and emotional effort and source of conflicts for women (Evangelina García Prince). |
| Sexual and reproductive rights | They are part of human rights and their purpose is that all people can live free of discrimination, risks, threats and violence in the field of sexuality and reproduction. The State must ensure that any person may: 1) decide how many children to have, 2) decide when to have them, 3) control their sexual behaviour according to they own way of being, feeling and thinking, without fear of same, and 4) be free of diseases and deficiencies that interfere with sexual and reproductive functions (www.amnistiapr.org/educacion/presentacions/glosarioterminos.pdf). |
| Sexual harassment | Any behaviour, verbal or physical, of sexual nature that has the purpose or the effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, degrading or offensive environment (LOIEMH, art. 7.1). |
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| Time use studies | Are the studies and researches that show the unequal distribution among women and men regarding to the total workload. An inequality that is evident through the unequal use of time that damages primarily to adult women of the welfare societies, the consequence of which is that mean are the main beneficiaries of this unequal use of time. These studies show the inequity that these welfare societies tolerate and which serve to remember the limitations of social policies of the Welfare State, that not always are taken into account. (Teresa Torns). |
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| Vertical discrimination | Also known as "glass ceiling", is the type of discrimination that sets limits to the possibilities of career advancement of women. This phenomenon recognises that there is currently a democratisation of access to different jobs from women, but warns that decision-making jobs are still held by men. |
| Visibility
[See Invisibility] |
Process of making visible or invisible, of highlighting and add the stories and lives of women to our reality, and to history. Visibility supposes the recognition and re-evaluation of history of women, of their role in the world and life, and ultimately, the idea of equality between men and women (www.educastur.princast.es). |
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| Wage gap | This refers to the wage gap between women and men, both in works in which women and men are represented equally as in female-dominated sectors. Technological gap: Used to designate the inequalities between women and men in the training and in the use of new technologies. |
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| Zipper systems | Electoral lists in which men and women alternate through the list. The most exact formula is 50%, but by extension the formula 60/40 is also considered, no more than 60% of neither just one gender or less than 40% of the other. Zipper systems accomplish that the presence of women in the representative bodies is not dependent from neither the will of one person (…), nor the decisions of the political parties, but directly from the Electoral Act (A. Rubiales). |
