Gender

 According to the World Health Organization "Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed".

In terms of gender roles, women are usually characterized as emotionally expresive, kind, cooperative and sensitive to the needs of other people. And they are supposed to be mothers, housekeepers, wives.... In the other hand men are characterized as independent, brave, dominant, competitive and strong. And they are supposed to be workers, providers of their families, leaders…

There are advances in gender equality but Chile still is clearly a patriarcal society, this means that  males mainly hold social power, predominate in roles of political leadership, control moral authority and have social privileges .

 This is clearly reflected in the laboral world, in Chile a woman doing the same work, get’s paid less then a man. The “highly ranked” job positions are mainly occupated by men, for example in chilean Parlament there are 158 quotas and only 25 are holded by women. Gender also impacts in which Jobs are “for women”(examples nursing, social work)  and which are “for men”(examples politician, businessman).

 

And the magnitude of the violence against the women is alarming, constitutes a problem of public health and a serious and intolerable violation to the human rights. This is reflected on the ammount of murdered women by men year by year.

“The oppressor wouldn't be so strong if it didn´t have accomplices between the oppressed”

(Simone de Beauvoir)