Short definitions for terms used in our research pages and knowledge base. Each entry names the source so you can verify wording in the original material.
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GBV prevention refers to taking action to stop GBV from occurring. Some
examples include: scaling up activities that promote gender equality
or working with communities, particularly men and boys, to address
practices that contribute to GBV.
GBV response refers to assistance and services that aim to save lives
and contribute to recovery or resilience after GBV has occurred, such as
immediate medical and psychosocial care for GBV survivors or livelihoods
and education programmes for mothers of children born of rape.
GBV risk mitigation refers to actions aimed at reducing the risk of exposure
to GBV. For example, ensuring that appropriate lighting and security
patrols are in place from the onset of establishing displacement camps to
reduce exposure to GBV for women and girls.
Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is an umbrella term for any harmful act that
is perpetrated against a person’s will and that is based on socially ascribed
(i.e. gender) differences between males and females. It includes acts that
inflict physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering, threats of such acts,
coercion and other deprivations of liberty. These acts can occur in public or
in private.
The term GBV is most commonly used to underscore how systemic
inequality between males and females—which exists in every society in
the world—acts as a unifying and foundational characteristic of most
forms of violence perpetrated against women and girls. GBV can be
compounded by multiple and intersecting factors of discrimination, such
as discrimination on the grounds of gender, age, or disability. Some
examples would be women and girls with disabilities being identified as
“easy targets” by offenders, as well as the additional barriers they face
to disclose situations of violence. It is also important to note that persons
with non-conforming sexual orientations or gender identities may also be
extremely vulnerable to GBV in a wide range of contexts.
Gang rape is sexual violence committed by more than one perpetrator against a person who does not consent. It is an extreme form of violence and often involves intimidation, humiliation, and physical harm.
Gang rape cases can involve social pressure or group dynamics that encourage violence. The responsibility lies entirely with the perpetrators.
Gaslighting is psychological manipulation where someone makes another person doubt their memory, feelings, or reality to gain control.
Examples include saying, “That never happened,” “You’re too sensitive,” or “You’re imagining things,” especially after harmful behaviour. Over time, gaslighting can cause deep confusion and loss of self-trust.
Gaslighting involves (i) the attempt by the gaslighter to undermine his victim’s self-trust: her conception of herself as an autonomous locus of experience, thought, and judgment. The gaslighter's (ii) motivation is a strong desire to neutralize his victim’s ability to criticize him and to ensure her consent to his way of viewing things (specifically with regard to issues relevant to the relationship, perhaps in general), and thus to maintain control over her. The gaslighter (iii) pursues this goal by means of a strategy of manipulation, fabrication, and deception that (iv) specifically relies upon his victim’s trust in him as a peer or authority in some relevant sense.
Gender refers to the roles, behaviours, expressions, and identities that society have associated to girls, women, boys, men, and gender-diverse people. A society’s understanding of gender changes over time and varies from culture to culture. Gender influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, the distribution of power and resources in society, and people’s social, health and economic outcomes.
Gender discrimination is unfair treatment based on someone’s gender or gender expression. It can limit access to education, jobs, healthcare, safety, and justice.
It may show up as unequal pay, workplace harassment, exclusion, or dismissing someone’s voice because of their gender.
Gender equity recognises that people face different barriers and may need different support to achieve equal outcomes.
Equality means treating everyone the same. Equity means giving people what they need to have a fair chance.
The process of being fair to women and men. To ensure fairness, strategies and measures must often be available to compensate for the historical and social disadvantages that have kept women from enjoying equal opportunity. Equity contributes to equality.
Since “access to services, supports and opportunities and attaining economic, political and social fairness cannot be achieved by treating individuals in the same way equity work analyses and challenges unfair systems and practices” and works towards creating outcomes and access that are fair for everyone.
According to Women and Gender Equality Canada, Gender Expression “refers to the various ways in which people choose to express their gender identity. For example: clothes, voice, hair, make-up, etc. A person’s gender expression may not align with societal expectations of gender. It is therefore not a reliable indicator of a person’s gender identity.
Gender identity and gender expression are related, but they are not the same. Gender identity is a person’s internal sense of their own gender. Gender expression is how a person presents and expresses their gender. This can include their clothing, hairstyle, behaviour, and other outward characteristics.
While gender identity and gender expression are often linked, they do not always correspond. A person’s gender identity may not always be reflected in their gender expression. For example, a woman may choose to express their gender in a masculine way. Similarly, a man may choose to express their gender in a feminine way. And some peoples’ gender expressions can be between and/or beyond masculine, feminine, and androgynous.
The degree to which persons see themselves as masculine or feminine given what it means to be a man or
woman in society (Burke, et al., 1988).
A complex system of personal and social relations through which women and men are socially created and
maintained and through which they gain access to power and material resources or are allocated status within
society (IFAD, 2000).
Gender roles are socially learned expectations about how men and women “should” behave. These ideas are shaped by culture and often reinforced from childhood.
Rigid gender roles can support inequality and violence by promoting dominance, control, and silence.
Learned behaviors in a given society/community, or other special group, that condition which activities, tasks
and responsibilities are perceived as male and female. Gender roles are affected by age, class, race, ethnicity,
religion and by the geographical, economic and political environment. Changes in gender roles often occur in
response to changing economic, natural or political circumstances, including development efforts (UNDP and
UNIFEM, 2001).
Refers to the way children, boys and girls, are being taught how to become women and men. It is based on
assumptions of what it means to be a man or a woman, For example, the standards of masculinity define men
as strong, influential, heterosexuals, and successful
Shared views of personality traits often tied to one's gender such as instrumentality in men and expressiveness
in women (Spence and Helmreich, 1978). These one-sided exaggerated images are deployed repeatedly in
everyday life (Gordon, 1998-a)
Gender equality means that women and men enjoy the same status and the same conditions in which to fully realize their human rights and their potential to contribute to national, political, economic, social, and cultural development, as well as to benefit from the results of that development. Gender equality means that society values the similarities and differences between women and men and the various roles they play
A person’s internal, deeply held sense of their gender as being male, female, both, or neither. People whose gender identity matches the sex assigned to them at birth are cisgender. Transgender people are those whose internal gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Most people have a gender identity of man or woman (or boy or girl). For some people, their gender identity does not fit neatly into one of those two choices (see non-binary and/or gender queer below). Unlike gender expression, gender identity is not visible to others.