Sex- and gender dimensions

Over the last few years, the sex- and gender dimensions in research content has received increased attention. One major reason is that these perspectives often improve the quality and impact of research and innovation, by making it more representative of the entire human population.

According to several large Swedish funding agencies (such as VR and Forte) and the European Commission, a sex- and/or gender dimension should be included in research when relevant. It could however be difficult to know what sex and gender mean, what including such dimensions in your particular research means, and when it is considered relevant to include these dimensions. We have therefore here compiled information that will help you navigate this field.

Remember that each funder has their own specific instructions about how sex- and gender dimensions should be considered and justified. Make sure you read the instructions carefully.

On our EU-funding website, you find more information about the specific requirements on inclusion of sex- and gender perspectives when you apply for funding from the EU.

Observe that funding agencies may also require consideration of the distribution of women and men in the research team. However, this is something different than what we refer to as including sex- and gender dimensions in research in this text.

Definitions of Sex and Gender

Sex refers to biological, physiological and anatomical sex differences between human and animal females and males relating to for example, chromosomes, genes, hormone levels, reproductive organs, brain structure, and muscle mass. Observe that because every cell has a sex, a sex perspective may be relevant even in studies using cell-lines.

Gender refers to socially and culturally constructed norms, values and expectations related to men or women, boys or girls. Gender also refers to attitudes and behaviors related to what is regarded as masculine or feminine (Korsvik & Rustad, 2018). Sex and gender are useful analytical terms even if they in reality often interact.

Including Sex- and Gender dimensions in your Research

Sex and gender can influence all stages of research and innovation, from strategic considerations for establishing priorities and building theory to more routine tasks of formulating questions, designing methods and interpreting data (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2020).

Examples

We here provide concrete examples of how sex and/or gender analysis can lead to new insights, discovery and innovation within each of the three disciplinary domains (European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, 2020).

Medicine and pharmacy - examples

Although infectious diseases can affect everyone, sex and gender have an impact on immune responses and the course of the disease in the human body. More men than women suffer severe effects of the COVID-19 disease and are dying of acute infection. A cause for this may be that women produce more antibodies in response to infection. Also behavioral differences may influence the effects of the disease. For example, men are more likely to be smokers and women wash their hands more often.

Historically, drug development has followed a ‘one size fits all’ model. Drug testing has been conducted predominantly on males, from preclinical research in rodents to clinical trials that include few women (Mazure and Jones, 2015). As a result, women report more unwanted, and sometimes deadly, side effects than men.

Women and men are generally raised to express pain differently, and this may modify both their biological response to pain and their willingness to report it. Thus, sex and gender affect all parts of the pain pathway, from signaling, through perception, to expression and treatment.

Humanities and social sciences - examples

Tax laws can be structurally discriminatory because of socioeconomic inequalities, such as those that exist between men and women. Further research on gender aspects in tax policies and the implementation of legal and political requirements is needed.

In order to minimize waste, data on gendered waste behaviors need to be collected and used when intervening to change user behaviors.

Mobility patterns tend to be gendered in terms of where, when and why people take trips from home. Transportation planning often does not take into account the diversity of needs and issues that affect transportation.

Sciences and technology - examples

Sex analysis is largely overlooked in marine biology. Understanding sex-based responses to climate change allows for better modelling of demographic change among marine organisms and downstream effects on humans.

Regarding facial recognition, bias in machine learning is multifaceted and can result from poor data collection. For example, a dataset mainly populated with men and lighter-skinned individuals will misidentify darker-skinned females.

When designing virtual assistants and chatbots, it is important to consider how they might perpetuate stereotypes and social inequalities. The designers of virtual assistants should be aware of how robots are gendered, e.g. by name or voice.

Both VR and the EU Commission refers to the same reports about how to define sex and gender, how sex and gender could be included in the research, and what science and the world could gain by including these dimensions.

Reports and websites:
What is the Gender Dimension in Research? Case Studies in Interdisciplinary Research, published by Kilden genderresearch.no, an independent subunit of the Research Council of Norway (2018).
Gendered Innovations 2: How inclusive analysis contributes to research and innovation, published by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (2020).

Website:
Gendered Innovations in Science, Health and Medicine, Engineering and Environment.

Webinar:
A recorded a webinar on gender dimensions in research held by the Gender Equality Academy (GE Academy).