Gender Competence

Gender сompetence – a social-psychological characteristic of a person that enables them to be effective within systems of interaction between genders.

A person’s gender competence includes:

  1. Knowledge about existing situations of gender inequality and about the factors and conditions that produce them;
  2. The ability to notice and adequately assess situations of gender inequality in different spheres of life;
  3. The ability not to reproduce gender-discriminatory practices in one’s own behavior;
  4. The ability to resolve one’s own gender-related problems and conflicts when they arise.

In other words, gender competence is the ability of women and men to notice situations of gender inequality in the life around them; to resist sexist and discriminatory influences and pressures; and not to create situations of gender inequality themselves.

The formation of gender competence is a purposeful activity as a result of which a person demonstrates competence in situations with a pronounced gender component. In other words, it is a movement from gender incompetence toward competence, that is, toward the acquisition and mastery of gender knowledge, skills, and forms of gender-sensitive and non-discriminatory behavior.

The identified components of gender competence, formulated as knowledge and skills, may help in defining the final learning objectives in the process of gender education for state and municipal officials.

In the process of forming and developing a person’s gender competence, three main stages of activity may be distinguished:

I. The stage of forming a system of gender knowledge;

II. The stage of forming skills for analyzing phenomena and situations of gender inequality;

III. The stage of practicing skills of gender-competent behavior.

The first stage — the stage of forming a system of gender knowledge — includes the mastery of the basic ideas of gender theory. The basic ideas of the gender approach include the following propositions:

  1. Men and women, as representatives of social groups, are more similar than different. This applies to the overwhelming majority of psychological characteristics of men and women, as well as to personal qualities necessary for performing various social roles. Consequently, there are no grounds for a rigid differentiation of male and female roles; the social roles of men and women are interchangeable and similar. The gender differentiation and polarization that exist in society are not biologically predetermined, but socially constructed.
  2. The social statuses and positions of men and women in public and private spheres of life should not be organized according to the principle of hierarchy. In other words, neither at the level of social organization nor at the level of groups and individuals are there convincing grounds for either men or women to occupy dominant positions in public or private life. Within the gender approach, it is affirmed that neither sex has the right to dominate the other; relations between representatives of different sexes should be built on the basis of parity, equality of rights, and equal opportunities to exercise those rights. A partnership model of relations between women and men, and between gender groups, should become the basic model, while egalitarian ideas reflecting equality between the sexes — that is, the absence of hierarchy in the status differentiation of men’s and women’s roles — should be shared by the overwhelming majority of members of society.
  3. The biological characteristics of each sex cannot serve as a basis or justification for situations of gender inequality. The fact that social roles are not determined by the biological sex of the person who performs them shows that a person performs a given role not because the performance of this role is determined by their anatomy, but because socially formed inclinations, desires, personal motives, and life circumstances contribute to it.

The second stage — the stage of forming skills for analyzing phenomena and situations of gender inequality — includes:

  1. Mastering the skills of analyzing phenomena and situations of gender inequality in everyday life. A person interested in developing their gender competence must learn to notice situations in which different forms of prejudice are manifested in the behavior of others. More obvious forms of prejudice are not difficult to notice; it is much more difficult to recognize more hidden forms. To train these skills, tasks are used that involve the analysis of situations of gender inequality in the sphere of interpersonal relations and in various social institutions, including organizations, the media, and education.
  2. Mastering the skills of analyzing one’s own prejudices and one’s own behavior in which gender prejudices are manifested. This is a process of becoming aware of situations in which each person has been either the object or the subject of the demonstration of gender prejudices. The main task of this stage is to learn to notice manifestations of sexism and neo-sexism in one’s own behavior.

The third stage is the stage of practicing skills of gender-competent behavior. The main task of this stage is to learn not to manifest gender prejudices not only in behavior — in the sphere of interpersonal contacts and in the process of professional activity — but also at the level of decision-making.

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