FIDIS 2 December 2003
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Gender Issues:
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In a ten minute presentation, how to effect change in a gendered world moving towards a more equal but still gendered world.
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The gender action plan in the FIDIS proposal is in two parts.
Firstly we have an action plan re the equal participation of women at all levels of the project.
(Secondly we formulated some issues re the content of the project.) slide
Here we have the two aspects: slide
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The target for women as shown in percentages.
The target for women’s participation on the JA Board will be 30%.
The target for women as JA coordinators will be 30%.
The target for women participating on training activities will be 50%.
Priority will be given to women’s subscriptions reaching 50%. slide
 Some facilitations for women’s participation.
Parental needs will be taken into account by the following:
Limiting long-distance journeys where ever possible.
The use of digital networks and phone conferences when practical.
The provision of child care for female and male researchers (in the proposal, males are placed between brackets, maybe this is a first example of a gender gap in our own project, because we tend to assume that males take less care of children than females). slide
How to move beyond numbers? This brings me to the second part.

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Secondly we formulated some issues re the content of the project.
Several FIDIS issues have a gender specific relevance as I shall show further for the work package ‘Taxonomy of Identity’.
It seems to me that the first part, the action plan re the participation of women, is a rather formal part of the gender topic. The second part is one step further than the formal and quantitative norms re the participation of women and the facilitations thereof.
The most interesting part for us, as researchers involved in this project, is concerning the content of our research. As researchers who are going to undertake the project, it is important to implement and to include the gender perspective at the earliest point of our research. slide
But what is ‘gender’ and what is the difference with the notion of ‘sex’?
What has gender and sex to do with identity?
Sex is described as the biological difference between male and female, while gender is a social-cultural construct of what sex means in a culture at one time. It can differ from time to time, from culture to culture, from place to place, from context to context. It is in principal not an essential aspect of humans. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in 1949 (nineteen forty-nine)
in Le Deuxième Sexe: ‘On ne naît pas femme, on le devient.’ One is not born but becomes a woman. slide slide
Sex and gender are central aspects of identity. The first thing that you recognize when you meet another human being is their sex and colour. An important question for us is just how important is the role of sex and gender in a virtual identity, and in an identity management system? Therefore we have to pay keen attention to this topic. slide
How to include gender perspectives in our research?
One of the objectives of our research is the following.
In particular the research will focus on: quantitative analysis of the correlation between:
1) seemingly irrelevant information of an individual which can be collected electronically
2) the individual’s identity. (FIDIS Proposal, p. 6)
What does this mean for the topic ‘identity of identity’?

Gender issues and statistical (correlation) issues related to ‘identity of identity’ and to
‘profiling’
The taxonomy can integrate the difference between those identity systems which trace ‘sex’ as one variable of personal identification and those which do not.
In order to show this difference, the survey of current ID systems & standards of identity representation, authentication, protection and interchange will be integrated as a search for the sex variable of each identity system.
This basic information is necessary for the elaboration of gender issues.
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I suggest some key questions:
Commencing with the easiest which is the search for the use of the criterion of sex.
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Does sex play a role in our own research?
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In which sense does it play a role?
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Is the criterion of sex completely absent?
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Is sex identified in the identity management systems? slide
II How to move on to the screening of gender?
1.
How does the criterion of sex play a role in our research?
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How is the sex variable used?
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What correlations are made with this variable?
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Are the connections made by obvious biological differences?
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Do the connections refer to stereotypes?
It is clear that the first screening, of sex criterion, will be the easiest.
The second screening of the gender issue is bound to be more difficult.
Without the information about sex, we shall be unable to elaborate on the gender issue. It is based on the data which will only be found in the results of the first screening. slide
I close with a request that all researchers should realize that sex and gender are central aspects of identity and that we have to look at the use of the criterion of sex and take it into account. slide
Thank you for your attention.
Further question: please contact
Karen.Francois@vub.ac.be