Gender

Today we are going to talk about what is known as Gender.

The term gender is a term that we hear a lot recently, as it is used by international development agencies and used by governments when preparing government plans. We hear it on television and many places.

So we ask ourselves, what is gender?

Gender is the social identity that society gives us. When we are born, we’re registered by our parents as males or females, but society is what makes us men or women, so that men have a unified image or stereotypes that unite them, and women also have a unified image or stereotypes that unite them.

so If we talk about the stereotypes of men in our society:

• Men in general are not allowed to cry!

• Men are tough.

• Men are allowed to be angry and to speak loudly and to raise their voice.

Whereas when we talk about the stereotypes of women in our society:

• Women are emotional!

• Their voices are low, and they should pay attention to how they walk in the street, and to how and what they wear.

• In addition to a set of restrictions imposed by society on women.

Gender defines not only social identity, but also the set of rights that we can enjoy whether we are men or women.

There are general rights for Syrians, regardless of whether they are men or women, but unfortunately there are rights that men enjoy and women do not have, for example:

• A Syrian man can give nationality to his children even if his wife is not Syrian. As for a Syrian woman, she cannot pass her nationality to her children if she marries a non-Syrian.

• A Syrian man can perform a unilateral divorce, while a woman cannot divorce her husband, which is tantamount to a unilateral divorce without the consent of the husband.

The main issue we face when we talk about gender or gender is that it is a shifting identity, our grandmothers, for example, had little opportunities in terms of education, while now in Syria we have compulsory education. Of course, this does not mean that all women are educated and illiterate in Syria, there are other reasons why education is not accessible to all.

Another issue is the difference between rural women and urban women, as there is an image of rural women that imposes a set of rules on them, while the image of urban women differs from the rules drawn for rural women.

Here we find an important question, since gender is a changing social identity, why do we not work for society to give us a similar social identity between men and women? Why won’t we work so that the rights of women are equal to the rights of men? and these are the big questions that we hope that you will discuss in your small circles, and with the people concerned in this matter, or at least to ask ourselves this question to learn how to determine the answer to it later.