Session 4

What is Gender?

The World Health Organisation describes gender as “The characteristics of men, women, boys and girls that are socially constructed” (WHO, 2021). The term “socially constructed” means that the ideas of masculinity and femininity are created by society and vary between societies and change over time.

Because of this, people can adopt different expressions of gender, leading to various gender identities. The Office for National Statistics state that “Gender identity is a personal, internal perception of oneself, and so the gender category someone identifies with may not match the sex they were assigned at birth” (ONS, 2019). There are various gender identities - some of these are listed below, people can be none, all or a combination of these and many others.

• Gender Neutral
• Transgender
• Agender
• Pangender
• Gender Fluid

In contrast to this, biological sex refers to the physical characteristics we are born with: male or female. There is a lot of research and academic work on gender and its influence on behaviour, particularly behaviour in relationships and violence against women and girls. The exercises in this session primarily focuses on masculinity and are specifically aimed at young men.

One useful concept is that of hegemonic masculinity. A definition of this states that there are lots of ways of being masculine but there is a culturally valued/exalted version of masculinity under which other expressions of masculinity are subjugated (R. W. Connell: Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995).

The Man Box exercise in this section is about the YP version of hegemonic masculinity and its affect. There is a mirror hegemonic femininity if you wanted to reverse this exercise in working with young women.

The notion of masculinity and the stereotypes around this can often place pressure on men and boys with gender expectations that can contribute towards men and boys using violence towards others, their own mental ill health and suicide because it impacts their ability to talk about vulnerability, sadness or to ask for help and support when it is needed.

Research by the Mental Health Foundation (2020) found that:

• 3 times as many men than women die by suicide. In 2017 of the 6000 suicides recorded, 75% of them were men.
• Nearly three quarters of missing people are men
• Men are less likely to access psychological therapy than women (only 37% of referrals into services are for men)
• 87% of rough sleepers are men

Recent years have seen a lot of interest in debate around sex and gender with heated debates around the fluidity of both and greater visibility of trans people. This section is focussed on the influences of the dominant version of masculinity and its influence in YP’s lives and relationships.