Gender, justice and empowerment: creating the world we want to see

Abstract

Gender is one of the most important social determinants of health. Considerable research has shown that power imbalances due to gender and sexual orientation lead to numerous negative health outcomes and risk exposures for people across the gender spectrum. These include exposure to violence, the inability to negotiate safer sex, diminished ability to choose whether and when to have a child, and decreased access to economic, political, and social capital. Over the past 25 years, women's empowerment has gained traction as a way to address these negative outcomes in the fields of public health, development, economics, political science, education, sociology and beyond.Rarely has the question of inequality related to gender been more pressing than in the current global context. The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating for a myriad of populations with regards to morbidity and mortality, economic growth, and emotional wellbeing. Yet, COVID-19 is likely to have a disproportionately greater impact on women, as female-dominated service industries are harder-hit by the accompanying recession and as childcare demands increase (Alon et al. 2020). Intimate partner violence (IPV) is also likely to spike as quarantines lead to social isolation for survivors and fewer accessible services (van Gelder et al. 2020). We know that any recession worsens IPV perpetration (Schneider, Harknett, and McLanahan 2016), but COVID-19 may be even more risky for survivors since the very public health strategies used for decreased viral transmissionsocial distancingcan reduce access to justice and care. Beyond women, Logie and Turan reminds us that quarantine and movement restriction will "disproportionately affect already stigmatised persons, including

Gender and racial disparities in the incidence and mortality of pancreatic cancer in Mississippi State from 2003 to 2019

“…Important to note is that race refers to distinct groups into which human species are divided based on inherited behavioral and physical differences ( 11 ). With gender referring to the range of features pertaining to masculinity and femininity and differentiating between them, including gender identity and sex-based social structures ( 12 ).…”