Gender norms and stereotypes

Definition

Gen­der norms and stereo­typ­ing refers to the prac­tice of ascrib­ing spe­cific attrib­utes, char­ac­ter­is­tics, or roles to an indi­vid­ual by rea­son only of their mem­ber­ship in the social group of women or men. Spe­cific clothes, jobs, and par­ent­ing roles, for exam­ple, are often asso­ci­ated with the gen­der iden­ti­ties of ‘man’ and ‘woman.’ As social con­structs, these norms and stereo­types are defined and enforced by cul­tures, com­mu­ni­ties, and insti­tu­tions, and are often used to jus­tify dis­crim­i­na­tion against those that do not adhere to them. Gen­der norms and stereo­typ­ing can lead to the vio­la­tion of human rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms.

Given that HIV is mainly tied to sex­ual health and behav­iour, gen­der norms greatly con­tribute to bar­ri­ers to pre­ven­tion, test­ing and treat­ment. For instance, in many cul­tures it is assumed that women will abstain from sex before mar­riage. Under that assump­tion, those seek­ing pre­ven­tive care or test­ing after inter­course may be turned away or harassed because they do not adhere to this gen­der norm. Sim­i­larly, to encour­age male HIV test­ing, some gov­ern­ments pri­or­i­tize the care of preg­nant peo­ple who are accom­pa­nied by male part­ners. Preg­nant peo­ple with HIV sta­tus who do not have this gen­der-stereo­typ­i­cal lifestyle may forgo appoint­ments, may be refused health ser­vices, or may go through labour with­out med­ical super­vi­sion. Social con­structs like these can vary dras­ti­cally, mak­ing key pop­u­la­tion and com­mu­nity lead­er­ship cen­tral to effec­tive responses.

Inter­na­tion­ally agreed res­o­lu­tions and other prece­dents reflected in the Lan­guage Com­pendium have urged States to change “gen­der stereo­types and neg­a­tive social norms.” Other prece­dents have called for pri­or­i­tiz­ing “invest­ments into gen­der-trans­for­ma­tive, com­mu­nity-led inter­ven­tions, espe­cially those shown to reduce both HIV and vio­lence against women and girls.”

Precedents

2021 HRC resolution on human rights in the context of HIV and AIDS

• “Urges States to elim­i­nate all forms of sex­ual and gen­der-based vio­lence, includ­ing inti­mate part­ner vio­lence, by adopt­ing and enforc­ing laws, chang­ing gen­der stereo­types and neg­a­tive social norms, per­cep­tions and prac­tices, and pro­vid­ing tai­lored ser­vices that address mul­ti­ple and inter­sect­ing forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence faced by women liv­ing with, at risk of or affected by HIV.” (para­graph 13)

2021 CSW Report on women and HIV/AIDS

• “The unequal sta­tus of women and girls across polit­i­cal, social, eco­nomic and cul­tural domains con­tinue to put women at greater risk of HIV infec­tion and affects access to and uptake of HIV ser­vices. Fac­tors that increase the risk of HIV infec­tion, such as poverty, food inse­cu­rity, gen­der-based vio­lence, stigma and dis­crim­i­na­tion, child and forced age-dis­parate mar­riage, low edu­ca­tional com­ple­tion rates and lim­ited access to qual­ity unbi­ased infor­ma­tion, dis­pro­por­tion­ately affect women and girls. These fac­tors have been exac­er­bated by the COVID-19 pan­demic. Social norms and con­trol­ling behav­iours by men still pre­vent many women and ado­les­cent girls from using con­tra­cep­tion, refus­ing unwanted sex and mak­ing their own deci­sions about their health care.” (para­graph 6)

2016 Resolution on Women, the Girl Child and HIV and AIDS

• “Rec­og­niz­ing that women and girls are more vul­ner­a­ble to HIV infec­tion and that they bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate bur­den of the impact of the HIV and AIDS epi­demic, includ­ing the care of and sup­port for those liv­ing with and affected by HIV and AIDS, and that this neg­a­tively affects the enjoy­ment of their human rights, includ­ing the right to health.” (p. 34/62)

2012 Resolution on women in development

• “Urges Mem­ber States, the United Nations sys­tem and non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions to accel­er­ate their efforts and pro­vide ade­quate resources to increase the voice and full and equal par­tic­i­pa­tion of women in all deci­sion-mak­ing bod­ies at the high­est lev­els of gov­ern­ment and in the gov­er­nance struc­tures of inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing through elim­i­nat­ing gen­der stereo­typ­ing in appoint­ments and pro­mo­tions, to build women’s capac­ity as agents of change and to empower them to par­tic­i­pate actively and effec­tively in the design, imple­men­ta­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and report­ing of national devel­op­ment, poverty erad­i­ca­tion and envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies, strate­gies and pro­grammes.” (para­graph 5)

2011 Political Declaration of the HLM on NCDs

• “Express deep con­cern that women bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the bur­den of care-giv­ing and that, in some pop­u­la­tions, women tend to be less phys­i­cally active than men, are more likely to be obese and are tak­ing up smok­ing at alarm­ing rates.” (para­graph 15)

2011 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS

• “Remain deeply con­cerned that, glob­ally, women and girls are still the most affected by the epi­demic and that they bear a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of the care­giv­ing bur­den, and that the abil­ity of women and girls to pro­tect them­selves­from HIV con­tin­ues to be com­pro­mised by phys­i­o­log­i­cal fac­tors, gen­der inequal­i­ties, includ­ing unequal legal, eco­nomic and social sta­tus, insuf­fi­cient access to health care and ser­vices, includ­ing for sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion and vio­lence, includ­ing sex­ual vio­lence and exploita­tion.” (para­graph 21)

Expert precedents

2022 OHCHR Annual Report on Human Rights and HIV/AIDS

• “Rec­om­mend that states Upscal­ing of actions to tackle unequal gen­der power dynam­ics, norms and prac­tices, includ­ing increased invest­ments into gen­der-trans­for­ma­tive, com­mu­nity-led inter­ven­tions, espe­cially those shown to reduce both HIV and vio­lence against women and girls, be pri­ori­tised” (para­graph 29(v))

2016 General Comment No.22 on the Right to Sexual and Reproductive Health

• “Gen­der-based stereo­types, assump­tions and expec­ta­tions related to women being the sub­or­di­nates of men and their role being solely as care­givers and moth­ers, in par­tic­u­lar, are obsta­cles to sub­stan­tive gen­der equal­ity, includ­ing the equal right to sex­ual and repro­duc­tive health, and need to be mod­i­fied or elim­i­nated, as does the role of men solely as heads of house­hold and bread­win­ners.” (para­graph 27)

1999 General Recommendation No.24 on women and health

• “For exam­ple, States par­ties should not restrict women’s access to health ser­vices or to the clin­ics that pro­vide those ser­vices on the ground that women do not have the autho­riza­tion of hus­bands, part­ners, par­ents or health author­i­ties, because they are unmar­ried or because they are women. Other bar­ri­ers to women’s access to appro­pri­ate health care include laws that crim­i­nal­ize med­ical pro­ce­dures only needed by women pun­ish women who undergo those pro­ce­dures.” (para­graph 14)