| Gender and health
Gender should be part and parcel of research, political as well as theoretical approaches in development, as well as other fields of study. But the term ‘gender’ is interpreted differently by different actors. Those involved in policy making and planning have different uses of the term when compared to academics or social scientists (Cornwall, 2000:20). I will, therefore, define the term as it will be used in this article.
Gender can be described as the lives of men and women, the work that they do, their incomes, their roles and their relationships, as they are formed by the society they live in and their social norms and traditions. Gender is important because of the differences in the treatment of men and women. White (2000:38) explains that “gender is thus not only about persons, but also very importantly about values; not only about social inequality, but also about social meaning.” Very often writers tend to focus only on women in the discourse on gender, excluding men and their relationship with women.
Men should be involved in the gender and development arena. They are just as much part of gender as women are. If men are not part of the gender discourse, they are excluded from the influence of gender on policy.
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