State of World Population 2012 - Country Page List - UNFPA

all barriers to individuals’ access to family
planning. However, in the sexual and
reproductive health arena, gender inequality,
gender-based discrimination and women’s
disempowerment stand out as posing obstacles
to women in particular as they pursue and
claim their health and rights.
Achieving States’ family planning
obligations requires a focus on
gender equality
In many settings, gender norms condone specific
beliefs, behaviours, and expectations of adult
women and men, contributing to the health
risks and vulnerabilities that affect women and
men throughout their lives. Relative to men,
women and girls are often socialized to be
As part of the effort to meet unmet needs, all countries
should seek to identify and remove all the major remaining
barriers to the utilization of family planning services.
— Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development, ICPD
passive and under-educated about their sexual
and reproductive health. Sexuality—a topic that
encompasses a diverse set of desires, experiences,
and needs—is typically confined to notions of
purity and virginity for women and girls. Women
live with pressures to conform to social norms
that uniformly restrict their sexual activity within
the context of marriage. They are often discouraged
from taking the initiative to bring up topics
related to sexual relations, to refuse to have sex or
to communicate about family planning.
A dominant masculinity teaches boys and men
that sexuality and sexual performance are key to
masculinity. The enjoyment of sexual relations is
viewed as their prerogative and they are taught to
take the lead in their sexual relationships, creating
significant pressure (and insecurity). Traditional
views of what it means to be a man can encourage
men to seek out multiple sexual partnerships
and to take sexual risks. Around the world, men
are taught that they are not primarily responsible
for family planning and are often not held
responsible for pregnancies outside of marriage.
The differing treatment of boys and girls
as they grow up begins early, and it continues
throughout their lives. The result is that everyone—children,
young people, adults—generally
absorb messages about how they ought or ought
not to behave or think, and early on, begin to
establish divergent expectations of themselves
and others as females and males. Often, these
expectations unfortunately translate into practices
that can harm sexual and reproductive health.
Although women more consistently suffer the
negative effects of harmful gender norms across
their lifetimes, societies also socialize their men,
male adolescents, and boys in ways that drive
poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes.
In many societies, men are encouraged to assert
their manhood by taking risks, asserting their
toughness, enduring pain, being independent
providers, and having multiple sex partners. The
roles and responsibilities of breadwinner and
head of the household are inculcated into boys
and men; fulfilling these behaviours and roles are
dominant ways to affirm one’s manhood.
If gender norms simply dictated difference and
not hierarchy, we might not be talking about
them here. But gender norms as a rule establish
and reinforce women’s subordination to men
and drive poor sexual and reproductive health
outcomes for both men and women. Women are
often prevented from learning about their rights
and from obtaining the resources that could help
them plan their lives and families, sustain their
advancement in school, and support their participation
in the formal economy (Greene and
Levack, 2010). Men are often not offered most
40 CHAPTER 3: CHALLENGES IN EXTENDING ACCESS TO EVERYONE