For better orientation in gender terminology are gender-related terms explained in the following list by fields:

A – General gender-related terms
B – Right, Legislative
C – Gender Discrimination
D – Gender Antidiscrimination Policy
E – Gender in Working Process
F – Gender-based Violence
G – Gender in Statistics

List of Basic Gender-related Terms (the following terms in each of the fields are sorted according to the Czech version, not by alphabet):


A: General gender-related terms:

1) Gender = no satisfactory equivalent yet exists for this term in Czech. It refers to social differences between women and men who are not innate but learned. They are not natural and immutable but change over time and differ markedly both within and between cultures. They are therefore not a natural, given difference between men and women but a temporary phenomenon in the development of social relations.
2) Sex = universal, biologically conditioned differences between women and men. They are biological features that distinguish men from women.

B: Right, Legislative:

3) Directives (EU) on equal treatment = directives that broaden the understanding of the principle of equal treatment for men and women compared with the original definition in the Rome Treaty, which only contained a requirement for the same remuneration for the same work. The principle of equal treatment for men and women was later expanded to include access to work, to training and education, promotion at work, statutory social security, employee and social security, to the self-employed, including in agriculture, to female employees who are pregnant and those who have recently given birth as well as to persons on parental leave.
4) Burden of proof = if someone brings a legal action it is essentially up to him or her to prove the allegation. With regard to equal treatment for men and women, a directive based on the precedence law of the European Court of Justice shifts the burden of proof from the side of the prosecution to that of the accused. In cases where one side believes that it has suffered injury as a result of a failure to observe the principle of equal treatment, and where a discrimination lawsuit exists, it is up to the accused to prove that this principle has not been breached.
5) Individual rights = rights that are directly enjoyed by individuals (rather than derived rights.
6) Individualisation of rights = development of tax systems and social security systems giving rights directly to individuals.
7) Women's human rights = women's rights as an integral and inseparable part of all general human rights, including reproductive rights.
8) Derived rights = particularly rights to social benefits or accommodation which derive from or are dependent on a person's relation to somebody else. These often involve parental or marital relations or shared households.


C: Gender Discrimination:

9) Sex-based discrimination (direct) = situation where a person is treated worse than someone else due to his or her sex.
10) Sex-based discrimination (indirect) = situation where a law, policy or practice which appears neutral has a negative impact on members of one sex and where the difference in this impact can't be explained by objective factors.
11) Gender contract = set of implicit and explicit rules relating to gender relations which ascribe specific work and value, responsibility and obligations to women and men. These rules, which disadvantage men and women in various fields of life, are applied and enforced in daily life. They are defined at all levels in the form of norms and values held by the whole of society, in institutions as part of the training, work education and other systems, and at the level of socialisation procedures, particularly within the family.
12) Glass ceiling/invisible barrier = traditional attitudes, assumptions and values that prevent anyone from playing a full part in social life. A barrier, that women and men come up against in their professional promotion. A glass ceiling means preventing access to higher political, economic and academic positions, using formal and informal, hidden methods. The ceiling is the boundary for possibilities of promotion. The attempt to gain promotion to senior positions comes up against an invisible and difficult-to-define obstacle in the form of forces working against this ambition.

D: Gender Antidiscrimination Policy:

13) Affirmative/positive action = measures aimed at a specific group that are designed to eliminate discrimination and prevent it, or to help resolve disadvantages which derive from traditional positions, behaviour and structures (also wrongly referred to as "positive discrimination").
14) Gender audit = analysis and assessment of policies, programs and institutions based on whether they take into account the different impacts of their activities on women and men.
15) Desegregation of the labour market = policies that aim to limit or eliminate vertical and horizontal segregation (division) of the labour market.
16) Gender neutral = no influence on equality between men and women and their relations.
17) Gender budgeting = budgeting which takes into account equality between men and women and is the application of gender mainstreaming in the budgeting process. This involves evaluating budgets from a gender perspective, which means taking the question of gender into account at all phases of the budgeting process in order to achieve equality between men and women. This results in the fairer redistribution of finances on the principle of equal access to the utilisation of the financial resources that society has created to safeguard the needs both of women and men.
18) Gender mainstreaming = (as yet no satisfactory Czech equivalent) is a method by which to eliminate inequality between the sexes. It is based on the principle that all planning, decision-making and evaluation processes should include an assessment of the positive or negative impact of a decision on men and women (so-called gender analysis). If this finds that one sex will be negatively affected, the body or person that adopts the decision must take steps to ensure that its harmful consequences are eliminated or at least minimised.
19) Quotas = measure designed to remedy inequality common in decision-making positions or in access to education or employment.. The measure sets a certain proportion of places for the relevant group. This is one form of affirmative/positive action. (E.g. some political parties in EU countries apply quotas in their lists of candidates using the so-called "zip system", whereby women and men alternate on the lists. Other candidate lists may contain 40 per cent women, 40 per cent men, with the rest left to "free competition").
20) Reproductive rights = the right of any person or couple to freely and responsibly decide whether, how many and when they will have children, the right to information and the means to take such a decision and the right to receive the highest possible level of sexual and reproductive health.
21) Equal opportunities for women and men = no obstacles to participating in economic, political and social life on grounds of sex.
22) Reconciliation of work and family life = the development of a structure and organisation of the work environment so that it makes it possible to combine work and family/household obligations for men and women. Abroad, many techniques are used to harmonise these two basic areas of human life in the workplace, and thereby to reduce stress and increase productivity.
23) Same remuneration for the same work or work of the same value = the same remuneration for work which is ascribed the same value without any discrimination, including any discrimination on grounds of sex, applicable for all aspects of remuneration and payment conditions.
24) Prohibition on discrimination on access to employment (Act No. 435/2004
Coll., on Employment, Section.4) = a citizen's possibility, both judicially and through the Labour Office, to exercise his or her right to employment without discrimination. In accordance with the broader definition of discrimination grounds provided by the European Union, these now also include sexual orientation, gender, marital and family status and family obligations. Discrimination does not cover cases where, under the law, work conditions exclude certain categories of people or where there is a material reason, such as certain levels of education or training, health, language abilities etc. Neither is it discriminatory if a place is offered which by its character can only be filled by one sex or another sex - a singer in a male choir, or a dancer in a ballet troupe, for example.
25) Principle of equal treatment for men and women = this means eliminating any form of discriminatory behaviour by one person towards another in relation to access to work and service positions, the selection, expert training, work and service conditions and promotion on the grounds that they belong to a particular sex, or because of their marital or family status or family obligations. No one can misuse the rights and obligations under labour-law and service relations to the detriment of another party to labour-law or service relations, or to demean that person's human dignity. To demean a person's human dignity also includes unwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature.

E: Gender in Working Process:

26) Feminisation of poverty = the increasing share and preponderance of women in poverty in comparison with men.
27) Maternity leave = the period of 28 weeks' leave belonging to an employee in relation to the birth and care of a child. If the woman has given birth to two or more children, or if she is single, the maternity leave is extended to 37 weeks. The employee usually takes maternity leave from the beginning of the sixth week before the expected date of birth, but not sooner than the beginning of the eighth week before this date. If the employee uses fewer than six weeks before the birth because the child was born earlier than the date stated by the doctor she shall be eligible for maternity leave from the date it begins until the expiry of the period stipulated in Section 157 (1) of the Labour Code. If, however, for some other reason the employee uses fewer than six weeks of maternity leave before the birth she shall be eligible for maternity leave from the date of birth until the expiry of 22 weeks, or 31 weeks if she has given birth to two or more children, or she is a single mother, although no later than the date on which the child reaches the age of eight months. If the child is stillborn, the employee shall be eligible for maternity leave of 14 weeks (Section 157 (4). Maternity leave relating to the birth of a child may not be shorter than 14 weeks and may never be cancelled or interrupted before the expiry of six weeks after the date of birth.
28) Underemployment = underemployed are all the paid employees or self-employed whose have the part-time job as their main employment or whose work less than 40 hours per week, but want to work more than now.
29) Parental leave = in order to maximise child care, the employee is obliged to provide female and male employees with parental leave at their request. Parental leave is provided to the mother of a child after the end of maternity leave and to the father from the date of the child's birth. Parental leave shall be for the period requested by the parents, although not after the child reaches the age of three (Section 159 (1) of the Labour Code). Male and female employees who have taken over the care of a child from the parents on the basis of a decision by the relevant authority, or who have taken over the care of a child from a mother who has died, are also entitled to maternal and parental leave. The decision of the relevant authority means a decision that is regarded as a decision to entrust a child to care replacing parental care for purposes of state social support (Section 7 (12) of Act No. 117/1995 Coll., as amended). Parental leave is provided from the date the child is taken over until the date when the child reaches the age of three. If the child is taken into care after it reached the age of three, although no later than seven years of age, parental leave shall be up to 22 weeks. Where a child is taken into care before the age of three but the period of 22 weeks expires after it is three years of age, the parental leave is provided up to the expiry of 22 weeks following the date on which the child is taken into care.
30) Horizontal occupational segregation = concentration of women and men in specific sectors and jobs. The segregation is often accompanied by different financial valuations of the specific forms of employment and sectors.
31) Vertical occupational segregation = concentration of women and men at different levels of employment in the sense of responsibility and position.

F: Gender-based Violence:

32) Domestic violence / violence in the family = repeated, long-term and intensifying violence perpetrated by adults or juveniles on their relatives (victims can be husband/wife, partner, divorced husband/wife, child, parent, grandparent). Domestic violence can take physical, psychological, sexual, economic and other forms and most commonly comes in a combination of the above. Domestic violence is a conscious act. It begins with repeated attacks on a person's human dignity, which are usually accompanied by attacks on a person's health and in the final stage can also take the form of attacks on a person's life. Unlike other forms of delinquent behaviour, domestic violence is violence in people's relations, creates a dependency on the part of the victim towards the perpetrator and is designed to give the perpetrator power over the victim. A typical feature of domestic violence is the fact that violent acts gradually become part of their ordinary life in their constancy and varying intensity. More than 90 per cent of the victims of domestic violence are women.
33) Secondary victimisation = the experience of being a victim of violence (which, under existing law, isn't always classified as criminal) makes that person liable to fall victim again, and repeatedly. Secondary victimisation can occur in various social structures - in bodies active in criminal proceedings (the police, judiciary, public prosecution etc.), in the mass media etc. as well as in a person's immediate surroundings. The victim thus encounters a lack of comprehension and rejection, bullying as an example or result of incompetence, ignorance or an unwillingness or inability on the part of the structures to handle the problem.
34) Dignity of human labour = right to respect and particularly freedom from sexual harassment and other forms of harassment in the workplace.
35) Sheltered position = secure place for women and children who are victims of violence in their own home (e.g. asylum home, crisis centre).
36) Gender-based violence/ sexual violence = any sort of violence using or threatening physical or emotional force, including rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment, incest or paedophilia.
37) Harassment in the workplace on grounds of sex = behaviour that the relevant employee justifiably perceives to be unwelcome, inappropriate or insulting and whose intention or consequence is injurious to a person's dignity, or which creates an unfriendly, humiliating or stressful workplace.
38) Sexual harassment in the workplace = behaviour that the relevant employee justifiably perceives to be unwelcome, inappropriate or insulting and whose intention or consequence is injurious to a person's dignity, or which creates an unfriendly, humiliating or stressful workplace, or which may justifiably be perceived as a condition for a decision that affect the performance of rights and obligations under labour-law relations.

G: Gender in Statistics:

39) Gender analysis = diagnoses differences between men and women in conditions, needs, level of participation, access to resources and development, control of assets, decision-making powers etc. within the context of the prescribed gender roles. Demonstrates their specific activities, conditions, needs, their access to resources (particularly financial) and possibility of administering them, as well as their access to development assistance and decision-making. Analyses examine these ties and other factors in their broader social, political and economic context and in the context of the environment. A gender analysis presupposes chiefly the gathering of data classified by sex and gender-sensitive information on the relevant population.
40) Gender role = set of rules (generally unwritten and informal) which regulate certain types of behaviour for men and women.