Gender Equality Week: Dispelling common myths and misconceptions about gender

September 18, 2023 - Defence Stories

Today marks the start of Gender Equality Week: a Canada-wide recognition of how far we have come, and a reminder to keep striving for gender equality and equity across the country. This year’s theme is United for Gender Equality: Stronger Together, which aligns well with our continued culture evolution efforts in support of creating and maintaining an inclusive Defence Team.

In recognition of this year’s Gender Equality Week, we would like to dispel some common myths and misconceptions about gender to promote awareness and inclusivity of gender diversity and lived experiences.

Gender versus Sex

Gender and sex are often conflated, but they are two distinct terms.

Sex refers to a set of biological attributes in humans and animals. It is primarily associated with physical and physiological features including chromosomes, gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy. Sex is usually categorized as female or male but there is variation in the biological attributes that comprise sex and how those attributes are expressed.

Gender refers to socially constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and gender diverse people. It influences how people perceive themselves and each other, how they act and interact, and the distribution of power and resources in society. Gender identity is not confined to a binary (girl/boy, woman/man) nor is it static; it exists along a continuum and can change over time. There is considerable diversity in how individuals and groups understand, experience and express gender through the roles they take on, the expectations placed on them, relations with others and the complex ways that gender is institutionalized in society.^{Footnote 1}

Gender Expression versus Gender Identity

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 refers to a person’s internal and deeply felt sense of being a man or woman, both, or neither. A person’s gender identity may or may not align with the gender typically associated with their sex. It may change over the course of one’s lifetime.^{Footnote 2}

What are the different gender identity categories?

Broadly speaking, gender diversity can be understood as falling into the following categories^{Footnote 3}:

• Cisgender: A person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth.
• Transgender (also ‘trans’): A person whose gender identity differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
• Non-Binary (also ‘genderqueer’): Referring to a person whose gender identity does not align with a binary understanding of gender such as man or woman. It is a gender identity which may include man and woman, androgynous, fluid, multiple, no gender, or a different gender outside of the “woman—man” spectrum.
• Gender-fluid: A person whose gender identity varies over time and may include male, female and non-binary gender identities.
• Two-Spirit (also Two Spirit or Two-Spirited): An English term used to broadly capture concepts traditional to many Indigenous cultures. It is a culturally-specific identity used by some Indigenous people to indicate a person whose gender identity, spiritual identity and/or sexual orientation comprises both male and female spirits.

It is important to note that gender is a deeply personal aspect of a person’s identity, self-expression, and lived experience, and people may identify with different terms at different times in their life.

Why does gender matter?

Gender has been an important factor in shaping people’s access to power, opportunities, decision-making, justice, and more for a very long time. It is important to understand the diverse range of identities and lived experiences when it comes to gender in order to understand how gender has, and continues to, shape people’s lives in different contexts. It is especially important to be aware of how gender interacts with other identity factors, such as disability, sexuality, income, race, indigeneity, and other factors, to produce complex power dynamics which can produce barriers to equity and inequitable outcomes. It is also important for us all to be aware of the power that gender stereotypes can hold in our minds, and how this can shape our unconscious biases.

Gender, as a social construct, has significant impacts on all members of a society, including men. Norms surrounding gender roles, including masculinity, can negatively impact people in complex ways, and part of striving for gender equality is also striving to create a culture where issues and challenges that disproportionately impact men are recognized and addressed as well. Gender norms impact us all in different ways, but we can all benefit from building an inclusive culture where people are free to be themselves, and are celebrated in all their diversity.

Further resources

You are invited to explore the following resources to learn more about gender diversity:

• What is 2SLGBTQI+? - Women and Gender Equality Canada
• 2SLGBTQI+ terminology – Glossary and common acronyms - Women and Gender Equality Canada
• Gender and sexual diversity glossaries - Glossaries and vocabularies - TERMIUM Plus® - Resources of the Language Portal of Canada - Languages - Canadian identity and society - Culture, history and sport - Canada.ca (termiumplus.gc.ca)
• Sex, gender and sexual orientation statistics (statcan.gc.ca)
• Inclusive writing – Guidelines and resources – Writing Tips Plus – Writing Tools – Resources of the Language Portal of Canada – Canada.ca (noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca)

Together, we can all contribute to greater understanding and inclusivity when it comes to gender diversity, and help build a more inclusive Defence Team as a result.

Thank you all for your continued support of culture evolution across the Defence Team.

Sincerely,

The Directorate for Gender Equality and Intersectional Analysis (DGEIA) team